Justice Department Releases Mueller Report on President Trump — Stirs More Controversies
Attorney General William Barr on this day released the much-anticipated 448-page Mueller Report, an investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into two issues: alleged Russian interference with the 2016 presidential election and whether President Donald Trump obstructed justice related to investigations of his activities.
The nearly two-year investigation provided much detailed evidence but reached no conclusions about President Trump’s possible criminal activity. Muller deferred to an earlier Justice Department memorandum holding that a sitting president could not be indicted on criminal charges. The result was continuing controversy about Trump’s conduct. The Justice Department memorandum did not, however, preclude from Donald Trump being prosecuted by state attorneys general or as a private citizen once he leaves office (assuming that that statute of limitations have not expired on specific activities).
The Mueller investigation originated when President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey on May 9, 2017, in the view of many people because Comey was investigating Trump’s conduct. Eight days later, on May 17, 2017, the attorney general appointed Mueller (himself a former FBI Director) as Special Counsel.
The Mueller Report is divided into two parts. Part I is devoted to alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Part II is devoted to possible obstruction of justice by President Trump. Robert Mueller had a reputation of high standards of integrity and for strictly following the law and rules of procedure. He never gave a press conference during his investigation, for example, and members of his staff never leaked information.
Because of his commitment to the law and rules of procedure, Mueller felt his investigation was bound by an earlier Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) memo holding that a sitting president cannot be indicted for criminal offenses. Consequently, his report did not reach a conclusion about whether President Trump had committed any criminal acts. Importantly, the report also did not specifically exonerate President Trump, as Trump and his allies falsely argued after the report was released. Mueller’s report clearly concluded that the resolution of the issues involved had to be resolved through the political process (by which he probably meant impeachment, although the report did not use that word).
Volume One of the Mueller provided abundant evidence of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Volume Two provided ten specific example of instances where President Trump obstructed or attempted to obstruct justice.
The release of the Mueller report provoked great controversy. President Trump and his allies argued that he had been exonerated on both issues. Trump’s critics, meanwhile, argued that the evidence in the reported needed to be further investigated by Congress. Six separate committees in the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives with continued existing investigations or launched new ones. A major debate erupted among Democrats over whether Congress should begin impeachment proceedings against Trump. Many Democratic Party leaders argued that with Republicans in control of the Senate (which votes whether to convict a president after the House has passed articles of impeachment) an impeachment effort would be futile.
Following revelations about Trump’s interference in U.S. appropriations to the Ukraine in the summer of 2019, the House of Representatives opened impeachment hearings and impeached President Trump on December 18, 2019. The Senate rejected the Articles of Impeachment in January 2020, however.
Read the Mueller Report here: https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf
Learn more: Laurence Tribe and Jashua Matz, To End a Presidency: The Power of Impeachment (2018)
And more: Jon Meacham, Timothy Naftali, et al: Impeachment: An American History (2018)