,
13 tweets,
4 min read
Read on Twitter
Gird your loins: Special counsel Robert Mueller will be making a public statement at 11am about the Russia investigation. He will not be taking questions, per DOJ. 
Waiting for Mueller
Ladies and gentlemen, Robert Mueller
BREAKING: Robert Mueller announces that the special counsel's office is being formally closed, and he is resigning to return to "private life" buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetil…
Discussing the obstruction section of his report, Mueller says that charging the president was "not an option" that they could consider because of longstanding DOJ policy that a sitting president cannot be charged with a crime while they are in office
Mueller: "Beyond department policy, we were guided by principles of fairness." He says it would be unfair to accuse someone of a crime when it couldn't be resolved in court
In his first and only public remarks as special counsel, Robert Mueller reiterated that his investigation did not clear the president of wrongdoing when it came to obstruction — he said considering charges was not an option, given longstanding DOJ policy buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetil…
Trying to understand Mueller's explanation for why he didn't decide if Trump committed a crime, what a 2000 DOJ legal opinion has to do with this, and how Mueller's comments today square with what AG Barr said before? We attempt to break it all down: buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetil…
There's a DOJ opinion that says you can't charge a sitting president. Mueller said his office didn't consider whether Trump committed a crime because of that policy — he did *not* say they would have concluded Trump did commit a crime, but for that policy buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetil…
Mueller also said his team would have exonerated Trump if they could have, but based on the evidence they couldn't. So:
- Mueller couldn't say Trump was definitely innocent
- But also couldn't say if Trump did, in fact, commit a crime
buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetil…
- Mueller couldn't say Trump was definitely innocent
- But also couldn't say if Trump did, in fact, commit a crime
buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetil…
AG Barr had said DOJ officials asked Mueller if Mueller would have found Trump committed a crime but for the 2000 opinion re: not charging sitting presidents. Per Barr, Mueller said that wasn't their position, and they weren't making a decision either way buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetil…
Barr was interpreted at the time as downplaying the role the DOJ policy played in Mueller's process. But based on what Barr said at an April presser and before the Senate, Mueller's comments didn't appear to directly contradict Barr's version of events buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetil…
Robert Mueller has left the building: buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetil…
But he didn't go silently. In his first and only public remarks so far, he talked about why his office didn't reach a decision on whether Trump committed a crime. What he said, in context: buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetil…
But he didn't go silently. In his first and only public remarks so far, he talked about why his office didn't reach a decision on whether Trump committed a crime. What he said, in context: buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetil…
