Donald Trump in The Mueller Report
On Principles & Values:
Trump challenged Russia to hack Hillary's email; Russia did
On July 27, 2016, [the Russian GRU's] Unit 26165 targeted email accounts connected to candidate Clinton's personal office. Earlier that day, candidate Trump made the following public statement: "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find
the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press." The "30,000 emails" were apparently a reference to emails described in media accounts as stored on a personal server that candidate Clinton had used while
serving as Secretary of State.Within 5 hours of Trump's statement, GRU officers targeted for the first time Clinton's personal office. After candidate Trump's remarks, Unit 26165 created and sent malicious links targeting 15 email accounts.
The investigation did not find evidence of earlier GRU attempts to compromise accounts hosted on Clinton's email domain. It is unclear how the GRU was able to identify these email accounts, which were not public.
Source: The Mueller Report, Vol. i, p. 49
On Principles & Values:
Mueller convicted three Trump aides of lying about Russia
The [Mueller] investigation established that several individuals affiliated with the Trump Campaign lied to [Mueller's] Office, & to Congress, about their interactions with Russian-affiliated individuals. Those lies materially impaired the investigation
of Russian election interference. [Mueller's] Office charged some of those lies as violations of the federal false-statements statute. Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying about his interactions with Russian Ambassador
Kislyak during the transition period. George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy advisor during the campaign period, pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about, [among other things], the nature and timing of his interactions with Joseph Mifsud, the
professor who told Papadopoulos that the Russians had dirt on candidate Clinton in the form of thousands of emails. Former Trump Organization attorney Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to making false statements Congress about Trump Moscow project.
Source: The Mueller Report, Vol. i, p. 9
On Homeland Security:
May veto FISA bill; unless "attempted coup" against him
President Trump warned he could veto the newly House-passed Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act bill until the origins of the Russia probe, which he called an "attempted coup," are investigated. "Many
Republican Senators want me to Veto the FISA Bill until we find out what led to, and happened with, the illegal attempted 'coup' of the duly elected President of the United States, and others!" Trump tweeted.
Source: Fox News analysis of Mueller Report
Mar 12, 2020
On Principles & Values:
Mueller: Presidents may not be indicted for obstruction
During an exchange with Rep. Ted Lieu, Mueller seemed to say that the reason he did not indict Trump for obstruction of justice was because of a Justice Department opinion stating that a sitting president cannot be indicted:Lieu said, "I'd like to
ask you the reason, again, that you did not indict Donald Trump is because of the O.L.C. opinion stating that you cannot indict a sitting president, correct?" he asked, referring to the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel.
"That is correct,"
Mueller said. That assertion directly contradicted the report itself and Mueller's statement in May describing it, in which he said that he and his team had decided not to decide whether to charge the president because of the O.L.C. opinions.
By afternoon,˙˙Mueller walked back the inconsistency, saying that Lieu had incorrectly described his decision. "What I wanted to clarify is the fact that we did not make any determination with regard to culpability in any way," Mueller said.
Source: NYTimes on 2019 Congressional Testimony on Mueller Report
Jul 24, 2019
On Technology:
2016: cheered on WikiLeaks releasing Hillary's stolen emails
Mueller showed a rare flash of indignation regarding WikiLeaks. Mueller called Mr. Trump's encouragement of WikiLeaks "problematic." WikiLeaks published emails stolen by Russian agents during the 2016 campaign, first from the Democratic National
Committee, then from Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta. Mr. Trump cheered the group on repeatedly, praised its actions and urged voters to read the purloined communications.Representative Mike Quigley,
Democrat of Illinois, questioned Mueller on Mr. Trump's response to WikiLeaks. Mr. Mueller did not mince words: "It's problematic -- is an understatement, in terms
of what it displays in terms of giving some hope or some boost to what is and should be illegal activity," Mr. Mueller responded.
Source: NYTimes on 2019 Congressional Testimony on Mueller Report
Jul 24, 2019
On Principles & Values:
No collusion, if you read the Mueller Report as I did
TRUMP: He found no collusion. And they didn't find anything having to do with obstruction because they made a ruling based on his findings and they said no obstruction.STEPHANOPOULOS: They didn't examine collusion.
He laid out evidence of obstruction.
TRUMP: Oh, are you trying to say now that there was collusion even though he said there was no collusion?
STEPHANOPOULOS: He didn't say there's no collusion.
TRUMP: He said no collusion.
STEPHANOPOULOS: He said he didn't look at collusion.
TRUMP: George, the report said no collusion.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Did you read the report?
TRUMP: Uh, yes I did, and you should read it, too.
STEPHANOPOULOS: I read every word.
TRUMP: Alright, let's go. You should read it, too, George.
Source: ABC This Week 2019 interview on Mueller Report
Jun 16, 2019
On Principles & Values:
Based on Mueller report, we'd indict Trump if not president
We are former federal prosecutors. Each of us believes that the conduct of President Trump described in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report would, in the case of any other person not covered by the Office of Legal Counsel policy against indicting a
sitting President, result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice. The Mueller report describes several acts that satisfy all of the elements for an obstruction charge: conduct that obstructed or attempted to obstruct the truth-finding
process, as to which the evidence of corrupt intent and connection to pending proceedings is overwhelming. These include:- The President's efforts to fire Mueller and to falsify evidence about that effort;
The President's efforts to limit the scope of Mueller's investigation to exclude his conduct; and
The President's efforts to prevent witnesses from cooperating with investigators probing him and his campaign.
Source: Letter from 500 ex-prosecutors on Mueller Report
May 6, 2019
On Principles & Values:
Letting Trump go risks system of justice
[On] witness tampering and intimidation: The Special Counsel's report establishes that the President tried to influence the decisions of both Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort with regard to cooperating with investigators. Some of this tampering and
As former federal prosecutors, we recognize that prosecuting obstruction of justice cases is critical because unchecked obstruction?--?which allows intentional interference with criminal investigations to go unpunished?--?puts our whole system
of justice at risk. We believe strongly that, but for the OLC memo, the overwhelming weight of professional judgment would come down in favor of prosecution for the conduct outlined in the Mueller Report.
Source: Letter from 500 ex-prosecutors on Mueller Report
May 6, 2019
On Principles & Values:
Mueller Report documents 77 lies by Trump campaign
The Mueller report documents at least 77 specific instances where President Donald Trump's campaign staff, administration officials and family members, Republican backers and his associates lied or made false assertions (sometimes unintentionally)
to the public, Congress, or authorities, according to a new CNN analysis. The plurality of lies came from Trump himself, and most of them took place while he was president.Topics of lies:- 31 Trump Tower Moscow
-
25 Trump Tower meeting and other Russian contacts
- 13 Comey firing & fallout
- 8 Other topics
Lies told to whom:- 53 to the public (including press conferences)
- 12 to Mueller or other authorities
- 10 to Congress
-
2 Undetermined
CNN's approach to analyzing the report was this: Every time Mueller documented a false assertion made to the public or federal officials -- even if it was the same falsehood told again and again -- it was counted.
Source: CNN Fact-check/coverage of 2019 Mueller Report
Apr 30, 2019
On Principles & Values:
OpEd: strong evidence of collusion by Trump campaign
The redacted Mueller Report documents a series of activities that show strong evidence of collusion. Or, more precisely, it provides significant evidence that Trump Campaign associates cooperated with, encouraged, or gave support to the Russia/WikiLeaks
election interference activities. The Report documents the following actions:- Trump was receptive to a Campaign adviser's (George Papadopoulos) pursuit of a back channel to Putin.
- Kremlin operatives provided the Campaign a preview of the
Russian plan to distribute stolen emails.
- The Trump Campaign chairman and deputy chairman (Paul Manafort and Rick Gates) knowingly shared internal polling data and information on battleground states with a Russian spy; and the Campaign chairman
worked with the Russian spy on a pro-Russia "peace" plan for Ukraine.
- The Trump Campaign chairman periodically shared internal polling data with the Russian spy with the expectation it would be shared with Putin-linked oligarch, Oleg Deripaska.
Source: Ryan Goodman, JustSecurity.org on Mueller Report
Apr 29, 2019
On Principles & Values:
OpEd: Russia helped Trump so they'd control eastern Ukraine
What the Mueller Report says:The Aug. 2, 2016 meeting included the start of what would be a series of discussions between Manafort & Kilimnik about a so-called peace plan for Ukraine, which Manafort admitted to prosecutors was "a backdoor
means for Russia to control eastern Ukraine."Supplemental information and analysis:A senior prosecutor in the Special Counsel's Office said that the Aug. 2 meeting goes "very much to the heart of what the Special Counsel's Office is
investigating."
Caveats:Although Kilimnik and Manafort shared the view that Trump's support for the Ukraine peace plan would help it succeed, "the investigation did not uncover evidence of Manafort's passing along information about
Ukrainian peace plans to the candidate or anyone else." The Report then notes that Manafort lied to the Special Counsel Office about the peace plan & his meetings with Kilimnik. Also, Kilimnik continued "to promote the peace plan into the summer 2018."
Source: Ryan Goodman, JustSecurity.org on Mueller Report
Apr 29, 2019
On Principles & Values:
OpEd: criminal act to try to get A.G. to unrecuse
The president committed crimes. Mueller does not accuse the president of crimes. He doesn't have to. But the facts he recounts describe criminal behavior. They describe criminal behavior even if we allow the president's--and the attorney general's--
argument that facially valid exercises of presidential authority cannot be obstructions of justice. They do this because they describe obstructive activity that does not involve facially valid exercises of presidential power at all.
Consider only two examples. The first is the particularly ugly section concerning Trump's efforts to get then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to "unrecuse." Another example: Mueller reports that after the news broke that Trump had sought to get
then-White House Counsel Don McGahn to fire the special counsel, Trump sought to get McGahn to deny the story. He also sought to get him to create an internal record denying the story. McGahn refused.
Source: The Atlantic magazine on Mueller Report
Apr 29, 2019
On Principles & Values:
OpEd: impeachable act to fire FBI's Comey
[Besides criminal obstruction described in the Mueller Report], the president also committed impeachable offenses. Crimes and impeachable offenses are not the same thing. Some of the most obviously impeachable offenses are the most unacceptable abuses
of power [regarding] the firing of former FBI Director James Comey. While this fact pattern is complicated for criminal purposes, as a matter of impeachment, it's very simple indeed. The president of the United States isolated Comey in order to ask that
he drop a sensitive FBI investigation in which Trump had a personal interest. The president then leaned on Comey to make public statements about his own status in the investigation. And when he couldn't get Comey to do so, he recruited the deputy
attorney general to create a pretext for Comey's removal.While there may be viable technical defenses against a criminal charge here, there simply is no plausible way to understand this fact pattern as a good-faith exercise of presidential power.
Source: The Atlantic magazine on Mueller Report
Apr 29, 2019
On Principles & Values:
OpEd: impeachable act to investigate Hillary Clinton
[One of the most obviously impeachable offenses was] the effort to get A.G. Jeff Sessions to investigate Hillary Clinton. Mueller does not disentangle this effort from the attempt to get Sessions to reassert control of the Russia investigation.
Let's do so here: Even as he was trying to get Sessions to protect him from the FBI, Trump was also trying to induce Sessions to investigate his political opponents.This is not obstruction of justice in any criminal sense.
It's rather the opposite of obstruction of justice; it's the initiation of injustice. So I don't think it's plausibly sound in terms of criminal law. But it is molten-core impeachment territory. Consider: The president of the
United States was trying to induce the attorney general of the United States to initiate a criminal investigation based on no known criminal predicate against a private citizen whom he happened to dislike.
Source: The Atlantic magazine on Mueller Report
Apr 29, 2019
On Principles & Values:
OpEd: Trump's crew tried to collude, like Keystone Kollusion
Trump was not complicit in the Russian social-media conspiracy. Separating the wheat from the chaff is important, so let's do so. While Trump has a great deal to answer for, Mueller unambiguously clears him--clears in the true sense of the word--of
involvement in Russian efforts to interfere in the U.S. election by means of the Internet Research Agency's social-media campaign.Here's the key point: If there wasn't collusion on the hacking, it sure wasn't for lack of trying.
Indeed, the Mueller report makes clear that Trump personally ordered an attempt to obtain Hillary Clinton's emails; and people associated with the campaign pursued this believing they were dealing with Russian hackers. And Donald Trump Jr. was
directly in touch with WikiLeaks--from whom he obtained a password to a hacked database. None of these incidents amount to crimes. But the picture it all paints of the president's conduct is anything but exonerating. Call it Keystone Kollusion.
Source: The Atlantic magazine on Mueller Report
Apr 29, 2019
On Principles & Values:
OpEd: would face criminal charges if not president
Prosecutors working for Special Counsel Robert Mueller concluded last year that they had sufficient evidence to seek criminal charges against President Donald Trump for obstruction of justice over the president's alleged pressuring of then FBI Director
James Comey in February 2017 to shut down an FBI investigation of the president's then national security adviser, Michael Flynn.Privately, the two prosecutors, who were then employed in the special counsel's office, told other Justice Department
officials that had it not been for the unique nature of the case--the investigation of a sitting president--they would have advocated that he face federal criminal charges.
Given the Justice Department's longstanding doctrine that
a president cannot face criminal indictment while in office, Mueller suggested in his report that Congress could still act: the special counsel made more than twenty references in his report to Congress's impeachment power.
Source: NYBooks.com on Prosectors' letter on Mueller Report
Apr 26, 2019
On Principles & Values:
OpEd: Trump met three criteria for obstruction of justice
For each of the eleven instances of potential obstruction that Muller considered, the special counsel evaluated each on the three criteria required by statute for there to have been a violation of the law. Mueller did signal in his report those that he
concluded all three legal criteria were met. In particular, the president's alleged effort to shut down the Flynn inquiry was one that the special counsel considered among the strongest potentially chargeable instances.[The three criteria are]:
First, such cases need to prove that there was an "obstructive act," that the suspect had taken an action that could impede a criminal investigation. Second, the motivation of the person had "corrupt intent." The third essential
element of any obstruction charge is that there needs to be a "nexus of a proceeding," meaning that a person must demonstrably have understood that whomever he was aiming to protect was under criminal investigation.
Source: NYBooks.com on Prosectors' letter on Mueller Report
Apr 26, 2019
On Principles & Values:
Mueller appointed to investigate Trump after Comey firing
In his first months in office, Trump had seethed over FBI director James Comey's refusal to tell the world that the president was not being scrutinized personally as part of the bureau's investigation of whether the Trump campaign had coordinated with
Russia to interfere with the 2016 presidential race.On May 9, 2017, Trump snapped; the president unceremoniously fired Comey. He conveyed the news in a terse letter, hand-delivered to FBI headquarters.
Trump's closest aides had warned him that the
move could trigger a political uproar and lead to an expansion of the Russia inquiry--and it did. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill cried foul. The FBI, already deep into its investigation of election interference, now feared that the most powerful man in the
country was trying to obstruct its work.
Robert Mueller was appointed to lead an independent investigation of interference in the 2016 election and other matters that might stem from the inquiry. It was a broad mandate.
Source: Mueller Report: Wash. Post Related Materials, p. 9-10
Apr 23, 2019
On Principles & Values:
Mueller results: 7 guilty pleas and 34 indictments
Mueller's work was at times stymied by the lies witnesses told and the communications that they had deleted or failed to maintain. And they said Trump himself, in resisting a sit-down interview, had provided "inadequate" written answers that stated more
than thirty times that he "does not recall" information investigators asked about.Mueller's team racked up an extraordinary record. His prosecutors charged thirty-four people, including twenty-six Russian nationals. They secured guilty pleas from
seven people, including a former national security adviser and the chairman of Trump's campaign. They reconstructed day-to-day interactions of Trump's closest aides and his adult children, exploring dozens of instances of Russian contacts with the
Trump campaign. They documented the Russian attack on American democracy in breathtaking detail, even tracing individual keystrokes of Russian military officers in Moscow.
Source: Mueller Report: Wash. Post Related Materials, p. 13
Apr 23, 2019
On Principles & Values:
Focus in school was "creating mischief"
Trump was raised in rare comfort. The Trumps had a family chef and chauffer, but they never considered themselves part of the country's ruling class. Theirs was immigrant stock, from Germany and Scotland, hardy entrepreneurs who tackled the new land
with a blitz of new business--restaurants, hotels and, finally, real estate. Donald Trump grew up in a 23-room manse in Queens, a faux Southern plantation house with a Cadillac limousine in the driveway.
He attended private school from kindergarten on; his focus in school, Trump told The Washington Post in 2016, was "creating mischief, because, for some reason, I liked to stir things up and I liked to test people.. It wasn't malicious so much as it
was aggressive."
In second grade, he said, he punched his music teacher in the face. He got into trouble often. Before eighth grade started, his father sent him to military school.
Source: Mueller Report: Wash. Post Related Materials, p.502-3
Apr 23, 2019
On Principles & Values:
Campaign manager convicted: conspiracy with Ukraine & Russia
Paul Manafort was charged in federal court on October 30, 2017, then convicted on eight felony counts.Mueller's 24-page statement of offenses describes all of Paul Manafort's crimes. He agreed that he conspired against the US by illegally laundering
through offshore accounts the $60 million he earned in Ukraine from 2006 to 2016. He evaded $15 million in US taxes. He failed to register as a foreign lobbyist while helping his Ukraine clients press their views in Washington.
The conduct outlined by
Mueller painted a devastating portrait of Donald Trump's campaign chairman. Manafort had volunteered to work for Trump for free but was drowning in debt at the time. He appeared eager to use his campaign role to angle for money from his wealthy patrons
in Ukraine and Russia, working in concert with an alleged Russian intelligence asset. His service for Trump coincided with the ramp-up of Russians intervention in the US election and a ratcheting-up of Trump's pro-Russia campaign rhetoric.
Source: Mueller Report: Wash. Post Related Materials, p.617-8
Apr 23, 2019
On Principles & Values:
Trump's lawyer convicted of lying to Congress about Russia
Michael Cohen, the president's personal lawyer, had been willing to deceive the public--and then commit a crime--to keep secret the timing of his dealings with the Kremlin.
Cohen admitted that he told Congress work on the Moscow project ended in January 2016--in fact, it lasted until June 2016, after Trump had sealed up the Republican nomination for president.
Cohen also conceded he had direct contact with a Kremlin official to request help with the project. The special counsel's office would reveal that Cohen met with its investigators seven times.
The motive for his lying to Congress was to "minimize links" between the Moscow project and Trump. [Cohen was imprisoned in May 2019, after the publication of the Mueller Report].
Source: Mueller Report: Wash. Post Related Materials, p.643-4
Apr 23, 2019
On Principles & Values:
Barr/Trump's Mueller conclusion: no collusion;no obstruction
On Friday, March 22, 2019, Attorney General William P. Barr broke the news to lawmakers, giving them this four-page summary of the special counsel's top-line findings.The letter was a political windfall for President Trump.
No one else would be indicted, Barr wrote, Mueller had declined to make a prosecution judgement on the question of whether Trump obstructed justice, but instead had described the facts he had found and noted "while this report does not conclude that the
President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him." Barr wrote that he [and Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein,] reviewed the question themselves and determined the evidence
was "not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense." Trump seized on the letter to declare he had been vindicated.
Source: Mueller Report: Wash. Post Related Materials, p.723
Apr 23, 2019
On Principles & Values:
Campaign supplied Russians, without knowing it was Russia
Starting in June 2016, [the Russia-based Internet Research Agency] IRA contacted different persons affiliated with the Trump Campaign, while claiming to be US political activists working on behalf of a conservative grassroots organization. The IRA
requested signs and other materials to use at IRA-organized rallies, as well as requests to promote the rallies. While certain campaign volunteers agreed to provide the requested support (for example, agreeing to set aside a number of signs), the
investigation has not identified evidence that any Trump Campaign official understood the requests were coming from foreign nationals.In sum, the [Mueller] investigation established that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election through
the social media campaign carried out by the IRA. IRA employees violated US law through these operations, principally by undermining through deceptive acts the work of federal agencies charged with regulating foreign influence in U.S. elections.
Source: The Mueller Report, Vol. i, p. 35
Apr 23, 2019
On Principles & Values:
Russia made up voter fraud story & Trump campaign re-posted
The [Mueller] investigation identified two different forms of connections between the Russia-based Internet Research Agency (IRA) and members of the Trump Campaign. (The investigation identified no similar connections between the IRA and the Clinton
Campaign.) First, on multiple occasions, members and surrogates of the Trump Campaign promoted--typically by linking or retweeting--pro-Trump or anti-Clinton social media content published by the IRA. Additionally, in a few instances, IRA employees
represented themselves as U.S. persons to communicate with members of the Trump Campaign in an effort to seek assistance and coordination on IRA-organized political rallies inside the US.Posts from the IRA-controlled Twitter account @TEN_GOP were
cited or retweeted by multiple Trump Campaign officials, including Donald J. Trump Jr., Eric Trump, & Kellyanne Conway. These posts included allegations of voter fraud, as well as allegations that Secretary Clinton had mishandled classified information.
Source: The Mueller Report, Vol. i, pp. 33-4
Apr 23, 2019
On Principles & Values:
Mueller Report: Russia bought pro-Trump social media ads
The Internet Research Agency (IRA), based in St. Petersburg, Russia, received funding from Russian oligarchs with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, to carry out a social media campaign designed to provoke and amplify political and social discord
in the United States.To reach larger U.S. audiences, the IRA purchased advertisements from Facebook that promoted the IRA groups on the newsfeeds of U.S. audience members. According to Facebook, the IRA purchased over 3,500 advertisements, and the
expenditures totaled approximately $100,000.
IRA-purchased advertisements referencing candidate Trump largely supported his campaign. The first known IRA advertisement explicitly endorsing the Trump Campaign was purchased on April 19, 2016, for its
Instagram account "Tea Party News" asking US persons to upload photos with the hashtag "#KIDS4TRUMP." In subsequent months, the IRA purchased dozens of advertisements supporting the Trump Campaign, predominantly through the Facebook groups.
Source: The Mueller Report, Vol. i, pp. 4 & 24-5
Apr 23, 2019
On Principles & Values:
Mueller: firing Comey is obstruction if Russia probe delayed
The act of firing Comey [on May 9, 2017] removed the individual overseeing the FBI's Russia investigation. The President knew that Comey was personally involved in the investigation based on Comey's briefing of the Gang of Eight, and the President's
one-on-one conversations with Comey.Firing Comey would qualify as an obstructive act if it had the probable effect of impeding the investigation--for example, if the termination would have the effect of delaying the investigation or providing the
President with the opportunity to appoint a director who the President perceived as more protective of his personal interests.
On March 20, 2017, Comey had announced that the FBI was investigating Russia's interference in the election,
including "an assessment of whether any crimes were committed." It was widely known that the FBI, as part of the Russia investigation, was investigating the hacking of the DNC's computers--a clear criminal offense.
Source: The Mueller Report, Vol. ii, pp. 74-5
Apr 23, 2019
On Principles & Values:
Trump: no Russia probe; Mueller: yes, Comey was running it
Substantial evidence indicates that the catalyst for the President's decision to fire Comey was Comey's unwillingness to publicly state that the President was not personally under investigation, despite the President's repeated requests that Comey make
such an announcement. In the week leading up to Comey's May 3, 2017 Senate Judiciary Committee testimony, the President told McGahn that it would be the last straw if Comey did not set the record straight and publicly announce that the President was not
under investigation. But during his May 3 testimony, Comey refused to answer questions about whether the President was being investigated. Comey's refusal angered the President, who criticized Attorney General Jeff Sessions for leaving him isolated and
exposed.At the time the President fired Comey [on May 9], a grand jury had not begun to hear evidence related to the Russia investigation and no grand jury subpoenas had been issued.
Source: The Mueller Report, Vol. ii, pp. 74-5
Apr 23, 2019
On Principles & Values:
Trump: no connection to Russia; Mueller: yes, hotel business
The President had a motive to put the FBI's Russia investigation behind him. The evidence does not establish that the termination of Comey was designed to cover up a conspiracy between the Trump Campaign and Russia. But the evidence does indicate that a
thorough FBI investigation would uncover facts about the campaign and the President personally that the President could have understood to be crimes.Although the President publicly stated during and after the election that he had no connection to
Russia, the Trump Organization, through Michael Cohen's repeated briefings, was pursuing the proposed Trump Tower Moscow project through June 2016.
In addition, some witnesses said that Trump privately sought information about future WikiLeaks
releases [of Russian email hacks]. More broadly, multiple witnesses described the President's preoccupation with press coverage of the Russia investigation and his persistent concern that it raised questions about the legitimacy of his election.
Source: The Mueller Report, Vol. ii, pp. 76-7
Apr 23, 2019
On Principles & Values:
Attempted to fire Special Counsel, but staff refused
On May 17, 2017, Acting Attorney General Rosenstein appointed Robert Mueller as Special Counsel to conduct the Russia investigation and matters that arose from the investigation. The President stated that the Special Counsel's appointment was the end of
his presidency and that Attorney General Sessions had failed to protect him and should resign. Sessions submitted his resignation, which the President ultimately did not accept. The President told senior advisors that the Special Counsel had conflicts
of interest, but they responded that those claims were "ridiculous" and posed no obstacle That weekend, the President called McGahn and directed him to have the Special Counsel removed because of asserted conflicts of interest. McGahn did not carry
out the instruction for fear of being seen as triggering another Saturday Night Massacre and instead prepared to resign. McGahn ultimately did not quit and the President did not follow up with McGahn on his request to remove the Special Counsel.
Source: The Mueller Report, Vol. ii, pp. 77-8
Apr 23, 2019
On Principles & Values:
Trump: Mueller has conflict; Mueller: no, it's obstruction
After news reports that in June 2017 the President had ordered McGahn to have the Special Counsel removed, the President publicly disputed these accounts, and privately told McGahn that he had simply wanted McGahn to bring conflicts of interest to the
Department of Justice's attention.Substantial evidence, however, supports the conclusion that the President in fact directed McGahn [on June 17] to call Rosenstein to have the Special Counsel removed.
On June 16, 2017, the President publicly
acknowledged that his conduct was under investigation by a federal prosecutor, tweeting, "I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director!"
Substantial evidence indicates that the President's
attempts to remove the Special Counsel were linked to the Special Counsel's oversight of investigations that involved the President's conduct--most immediately, to reports that the President was being investigated for potential obstruction of justice.
Source: The Mueller Report, Vol. ii, pp. 88-9
Apr 23, 2019
Page last updated: Mar 16, 2021