By April 19, 2019, The New York Times had documented that "Donald J. Trump and 18 of his associates had at least 140 contacts with Russian nationals and WikiLeaks, or their intermediaries, during the 2016 campaign and presidential transition."[16]
Mueller refutes Trump’s ‘no collusion, no obstruction’ line
Mueller ultimately opted against subpoenaing the president, and his son Donald Trump Jr. was also not interviewed, despite his role as a central figure in a 2016 meeting between senior campaign staffers and a lawyer with ties to the Russian government.
Former special counsel Robert Mueller pushed back against U.S. President Donald Trump’s characterizations of his 22-month investigation, telling lawmakers on Wednesday that he did not evaluate “collusion” with the Russian government, and confirming that his report did not conclude that there was “no obstruction” of the probe.
“The president was not exculpated for the acts that he allegedly committed,” Mueller told the House judiciary committee, adding that Trump could theoretically be indicted after he leaves office.
“We did not address ‘collusion,’ which is not a legal term,” Mueller added. “Rather, we focused on whether the evidence was sufficient to charge any member of the campaign with taking part in a criminal conspiracy. It was not.”
Mueller’s report paints a damning portrait of Trump’s behavior in the weeks and months after the special counsel was appointed. In each of the 10 episodes he cataloged, Mueller pointed to the three elements of obstruction of justice charges and determined that Trump met all three in several instances. His analysis led hundreds of former prosecutors to issue a letter declaring that Trump would have been charged with obstruction were he not the president.
Trump refused to submit to an in-person interview and only submitted written responses on questions related to his campaign’s contacts with Russia.
Mueller’s evidence focused primarily on his efforts to sideline the Russia investigation. For example, Trump asked his former White House Counsel Don McGahn to remove Mueller and then create a false record denying that it happened, the investigation found. Mueller’s team also found that Trump attempted to enlist his former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski to pressure former Attorney General Jeff Sessions to curb the investigation.
In both cases, Trump sought others’ assistance to carry out his wishes, and in both cases, his aides told Mueller they refused to comply with those directives.
Mueller also found that Trump’s actions toward several witnesses — including former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and former personal lawyer Michael Cohen — may have amounted to obstruction. He pointed to Trump’s public statements decrying treatment of Flynn and Manafort as unfair, while disparaging members of Cohen’s family and accusing his father-in-law of potential crimes.
When the intelligence committee grills Mueller Wednesday afternoon, Democrats intend to focus on Trump’s welcoming of Russian help in the election — from his overt suggestion that they obtain Hillary Clinton’s emails to revelations unearthed by Mueller about the campaign’s media strategy built around WikiLeaks’ dump of hacked Democratic emails.
Democrats also intend to press Mueller on areas he didn’t pursue. Mueller revealed that he was repeatedly blocked from pulling certain investigative threads because witnesses used encrypted communications, deleted messages or claimed their communications were lost. Others, Mueller said, exercised their Fifth Amendment rights not to testify.
Trump himself refused to submit to an in-person interview and only submitted written responses on questions related to his campaign’s contacts with Russia. Mueller ultimately opted against subpoenaing the president, and his son Donald Trump Jr. was also not interviewed, despite his role as a central figure in a 2016 meeting between senior campaign staffers and a lawyer with ties to the Russian government.
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