Republicans brand Robert Mueller’s testimony ‘a disaster for the Democrats’ as impeachment bid against Trump collapses
REPUBLICANS have branded testimony given in Congress by Robert Mueller a "disaster for the Democrats" and said it ended the prospect of impeachment for Donald Trump.
Mueller, who headed a two-year investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, appeared before two House committees yesterday to be quizzed about his findings.
His report, submitted in March, also looked into allegations of collusion between the Russian government and the Trump campaign.
The report detailed numerous examples of possible collusion, as well as 10 occasions on which the president allegedly tried to obstruct investigations of the allegations, but declined to recommend that charges be brought.
Mueller reiterated yesterday that his report had not exonerated Trump, as the president had previously claimed, and his appearance was expected to fuel calls among some Democrats for the president to be impeached.
Eight-nine of the 235 Democrats in the House support an impeachment inquiry, according to a survey conducted by before the hearings.
'A WEAPON TO TARGET THE PRESIDENT'
But figures across the Republican Party have claimed a victory for the president after a faltering performance by Mueller.
Mueller, a widely-respected lawyer and former director of the FBI, often seemed not to have heard or properly understood the questions being put to him, and at points appeared unfamiliar with details from his own report.
Brad Parscale, who is managing the president's 2020 reelection campaign, said in a statement: "These hearings were a disaster for Democrats.
"This entire spectacle has always been about the Democrats trying to undo the legitimate result of the 2016 election and today they again failed miserably."
Republican congressman Mark Meadows took to twitter to accuse Mueller of "struggling to answer even basic questions" and called the investigation "a weapon to target a president they hated".
Fox News host Chris Wallace said Mueller's appearance had raised "questions as to the degree to which he was actually in charge and control of this report".
Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Convention, also called the hearings a "disaster for Democrats".
THE MUELLER INVESTIGATION
The Mueller Investigation was launched in May 2017 to investigate allegations that the Russian government had interfered in the 2016 election, and that the Trump campaign had colluded with it.
The FBI had been investigating the activities both of Russian operatives and members of the Trump campaign since July 2016, four months before the November election.
Six months after becoming president, Trump fired FBI director James Comey, who would later claim he had lost his job after refusing a request by Trump that parts of the FBI probe be dropped.
Eight days later, Robert Mueller, a widely-respected lawyer, government official, and former director of the FBI, was appointed as a special counsel to take over the FBI’s work.
In the US, a special counsel can be appointed to investigate offences such as violations of the law, mismanagement, or abuse of authority by government employees or elected officials.
The investigation attracted swathes of media attention and speculation, and in March of this year Mueller submitted a 448-page report detailing his findings.
The report did not find evidence of an actual conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign, and ultimately declined to recommend that charges be brought.
It did, however, detail numerous examples of possible collusion, and of attempts by Trump to impede investigations into the allegations against him, including an attempt to have Mueller himself fired.
It added that: “Congress has authority to prohibit a President’s corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice.”
In other words, what happens next will depend on what Congress decides to do.
The president himself retweeted a statement from his personal lawyer that read: “This morning’s testimony exposed the troubling deficiencies of the Special Counsel’s investigation.
"The testimony revealed that this probe was conducted by a small group of politically-biased prosecutors who, as hard as they tried, were unable to establish either obstruction, conspiracy, or collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
"It is also clear that the Special Counsel conducted his two-year investigation unimpeded.”
'TRUMP COULD STILL BE CHARGED'
Mueller's testimony largely stuck to restating the contents of his report, but at one key moment he did say that his findings would be enough to charge the president with obstruction of justice after he leaves office.
A precedent set during investigations of criminality by presidents Clinton and Nixon dictates that a president cannot be indicted for a criminal act while in office.
During the hearings, Mueller said that an attempt to do so would have been "unconstitutional".
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But asked by Jerry Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, whether Trump "could be prosecuted for obstruction of justice crimes after he leaves office", Mueller answered simply: "True."
The conclusion of his report also says that Congress retains the "authority to prohibit a President’s corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice".
Many senior Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have expressed concern that an impeachment process would be doomed to fail once it reached the Republican-controlled Senate, and that it would distract from the 2020 presidential election campaign.
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