Page 10 - Obstruction Issue News Today

Stating that he did not clear president trump of obstruction of justice. >> if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. we did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime. >> reporter: mueller explained that charging the president with a crime wasnt an option for him. justice department policy states a president cannot be charged with a federal crime while in office. instead, mueller appeared to point th...

Fuel to democrats that might want to go down the road for impeachment. thats why the president came out swinging so hard as he was on his way out the door of the white house, saying there was no evidence of collusion between the trump campaign and russia and insisting that mueller could not produce a fair report on the obstruction issue because of what the president said several conflicts of interest. listen here. >> he wanted the fbi job and he didnt get it. the next day he was picked as specia...

Skm commit a crime, we would have said so. >> quite a contrast. there is now a focus on the doj guidelines that a sitting president cannot be indicted and whether that guided muellers decision to punt on obstruction. more now from cnns sara murray in washington. >> reporter: good morning, dave and michelle. after two years of silence on his investigation, special counsel robert mueller appeared before the cameras and chose his words carefully, clearly stating that he did not clear president trum...

Was satisfy >> rudy giuliani fought this for a year. the president was presented questions on the piece of paper. that was the answer by bill barr. i see bill bennett back up here again. do you have something to add? >> no, again, i just think there is criticism of bob mueller that he punted on the obstruction issue. i would be surprised if he addressed that but he might. again, if this is a guy who is interested in closure and ending this issue and getting out of the camera lights and not going...

About the olc opinion and whether or not he was taking the position that he would have found a crime but for the existence of the olc opinion and he made it very clear, several time, that was not his position. >> reporter: today mueller appeared to point the obstruction issue to congress. ramping up the pressure on capitol hill for impeachment. >> the opinion says the constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrong doing. >> ...

Found a crime, but for the existence of the olc opinion. and he made it very clear, several times, that that was not his position. >> reporter: today, mueller appeared to point the obstruction issue to congress, ramping up the pressure on capitol hill for impeachment. >> the opinion says that the constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing. >> reporter: mueller also making clear that his personal preference is not to...

>> if he had my potty mouth or yours. >> thats a potty mouth? >> for mueller. >> he basically said the president and barr have lied to you. lets be clear about what i said in my report. the main thing, of all the things he said today, i got focussed on, i got hung up on one word. the word is when, as opposed to the word if. mueller is careful the way he writes things. when he talks about the obstruction issue. he said the reason why we investigated the efforts to obstruct the investigation, the ...

Issues and gone to his motivation for making a public statement. he talked about russian election interference. he talked about that being systematic and broad. the emphasis has been on the obstruction issue. he talked about the olc opinion, the office of legal counsel. its like the internal lawyer to the executive branch. its housed in the justice department. he said that opinion says you cant indict a sitting president. mueller said this was a major stumbling block in the investigation. >> und...

Questions of the individual. the second thing is the timing. this comes at a very interesting period. congress is out this week as you noted the attorney general william barr is out of town traveling in alaska and the president is on his way back i guess soon back in washington from traveling in japan. so to not draw too much of a line under this but it appears that bob mueller really has the stage to himself today to make whatever statement he wishes to make. this also dovetails with the end of...

There were on members, no staffers there. so were learning from members as we have the chance to talk to them. but it includes everything from the tax issue to the emoluments, being able to profit the trump organization while in office talking about oversight. so six specifictelligence to ove tax writing committee to judiciary, all of those different ways that they are pursuing -- democrats are pursuing information, evidence, testimony and the like for a variety of issues that involve the presid...