The investigation. Is that right . Thats correct. And you have a citation . Page seven, volume two. Thank you. One of these witnesses was michael cohen, the president s personal lawyer, who ultimately pled guilty to Campaign Violations based on secret hush money payments to two women the president knew and also to lying to congress about the hope for a 1 billion trump tower deal. After the fbi searched cohens home, the president called him up personally, he said to check in, and told him to, quote, hang in there and stay strong. Is that right . Do you remember finding that . If its in the report as stated, yes, it is right. Yes. Also in the report, actually, are a series of calls made by other friends of the president. One reached out to say he was with the boss in maralago, and the president said he loves you. His name is redacted. Another redacted friend called to say the boss loves you. And a third redacted friend called to say everyone knows the boss has your back. Do you remember finding that sequence of calls . Generally, yes. When the news and in fact, cohen said that following the receipt of these messages, im quoting here, page 147, he believed he had the support of the white house if he continued to toe the party line. And he determined to stay on message and be part of the team. Thats page 147. Do you remember generally finding that . Generally, yes. Well and robert costello, a lawyer close to the president s legal team, emailed cohen to say, quote, you are loved, they are in our corner, sleep well tonight, and you have friends in high places. And thats up on the screen, page 147. You remember reporting that. I see that. Okay. When the news first broke that cohen had arranged payoffs to stormy daniels, cohen faithfully stuck to this party line. He said that publicly, neither
the Trump Organization nor the Trump Campaign was a party to the transaction and neither reimbursed him. Trumps personal attorney at that point quickly texted cohen to say, quote, client says thank you for what you do. Mr. Mueller, who is the capital c client thanking cohen for what he does . I cant speak to that. Okay. The assumption and the context suggests very strongly its President Trump. I cant speak to that. Okay. Cohen later broke and pled guilty to Campaign Finance offenses and admitted fully they were made, quote, at the direction of Candidate Trump. Do you remember that . Yes. After cohens guilty plea, the president suddenly changed his tune towards mr. Cohen, didnt he . I would say id rely on whats in the report. Well, he made the suggestion that cohen Family Members had committed crimes. He targeted, for example, cohens fatherinlaw and repeatedly suggested he was
guilty of committing crimes. Generally accurate. Okay. On page 154, you give a powerful summary of these changing dynamics. And you said, im happy to have you read it, but im happy to do it if not. I have it in front of me. Would you like to read it . I would. Can you read it out loud to everybody . Id be happy to have you read it out. Well read it at the same time. The evidence concerning this sequence of events could support an inference that the president used inducements in the form of positive messages in an effort to get cohen not to cooperate and then turn to attacks and intimidation to deter the provision of information or to undermine cohens credibility once cohen began koopcooperatin. I believe thats accurate. In my view, if anyone else in america engaged in these actions, they would have been charged with Witness Tampering. We must enforce the principle in congress that you emphasize so well in the very last sentence of your report, which is that in america no, person is so high as to be above the law. I yield back, mr. Chairman. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Just recently, mr. Mueller, you said mr. Liu was asking you questions. I quote, the reason you didnt indict the president is because of the olc opinion. You answered, that is correct. But that is not what you said in the report, and its not what you told Attorney General Barr. In fact, in a joint statement that you released with Doj On May 29th after your Press Conference, your Office Issued a joint statement with the Department Of Justice that said, the Attorney General has previously stated that the Special Counsel repeatedly affirmed that he was not saying that but for the olc opinion, he would have found the president obstructed justice. The Special Counsels report in his Statement Today made clear that the office concluded it would not reach a determination
one way or the other, whether the president committed a crime. There is no conflict between these statements. So mr. Mueller, do you stand by your joint statement with doj that you issued on may 29th as you sit here today . I would have to look at it more closely before i said i agree. Well, so you know, my conclusion is that what you told mr. Liu really contradicts what you said in the report and specifically what you said apparently repeatedly to Attorney General Barr. Then you issued a joint statement on may 29th saying that the Attorney General has previously stated that the Special Counsel repeat dpli affirmed that he was not saying but for the olc report that we would have found the president obstructed justice. I just say theres a conflict. I have some more questions. Mr. Mueller, theres been a lot
of talk today about firing the Special Counsel and curtailing the investigation. Were you ever fired, mr. Mueller . Im sorry, what . Were you ever fired as Special Counsel, mr. Mueller . Not that i no. No. Were you allowed to complete your investigation unencumbered . Yes. And in fact, you resigned as Special Counsel when you closed up the office in late may 2019, is that correct . Thats correct. Thank you. Mr. Mooueller, on april 18th, t Attorney General held a Press Conference in conjunction with the public release of your report. Did Attorney General Barr say anything inaccurate, either in his Press Conference or his March 24th Letter to congress, summarizing the principal conclusions of your report . Well, what you are not mentioning is the letter we sent on march 27th to mr. Barr that
raised some issues. And that letter speaks for itself. But then i dont see how you could that could be since a. G. Barrs letter detailed the principle conclusions of your report. You have said before that there wasnt anything inaccurate. In fact, you had this joint statement. But let me go on to another question. Mr. Mueller, rather than purely relying on the evidence provided by witnesses and documents, i think you relied a lot on media. Id like to know how many times you cited the Washington Post in your report. How many times i what . Cited the Washington Post in your report. I dont have i do not have knowledge of that figure. I counted about 60 times. How many times did you cite the
new york times . Again, i have no idea. I counted about 75 times. How many times did you cite fox news . As with the other two, i have no idea. About 25 times. Ive got to say, it looks like volume two is mostly regurgitated press stories. Honestly, theres almost nothing in volume two that i couldnt already hear or know simply by having a 50 cable news subscription. However, your investigation caused the american taxpayers 25 million. You cited media reports nearly 200 times in your report. Then in a footnote, a small footnote, number seven, page 15, volume two of your report, i quote, this section summarizes and cites various news stories not for the truth of the information contained in the stories but rather to place Candidate Trumps response to those stories in context. Since nobody but lawyers reads footnotes, are you concerned the American Public took the embedded news stories time of the gentlelady is expired. Can mr. Mueller answer the question . No, were running short on time. I said the gentlelady from washington. Thank you. Direct to be mueller, lets turn to the fifth of the Obstruction Episodes in your report. Thats the evidence of whether President Trump engaged in Witness Tampering with Trump Campaign chairman paul manafort, whose foreign ties were critical to your investigation into russias interference in our elections. This starts at volume two, page 123. Your office got indictments against manafort and Trump Deputy Campaign manager rick gates in two different jurisdictions, correct . Correct. And your office found that after a grand jury indicted them, manafort told gates not to plead guilty to any charges because, quote, he had talked to
the president s personal counsel and they were going to take care of us. Is that correct . Thats accurate. And according to your report, one day after manaforts conviction on eight felony charges, quote, the president said that flipping was not fair and almost ought to be outlawed. Is that correct . Im aware of that. In this context, director mueller, what does it mean to flip . Have somebody cooperate in a Criminal Investigation. And how essential is that cooperation to any efforts to combat crime . Im not going to go beyond that, characterizing that effort. Thank you. In your report, you concluded that President Trump and his personal counsel, rudy giuliani, quote, made repeated statements suggesting that a pardon was a possibility for manafort while also making it clear that the president did not want manafort to flip and cooperate with the government, end quote. Is that correct . Correct. And as you stated earlier, Witness Tampering can be shown where someone with an improper motive encourages another person not to cooperate with Law Enforcement. Is that correct . Correct. Now, on page 123 of volume two, you also discuss the president s motive, and you say that as Court Proceedings moved forward against manafort, President Trump, quote, discussed with aides whether and in what way manafort might be cooperating and whether manafort knew any information that would be harmful to the president , end quote. Is that correct . That was a quote from from page 123, volume two. I have it. Thank you, yes. And when someone tries to stop another person from working with Law Enforcement and they do it because theyre worried about what that person will say, it seems clear from what you wrote that this is a classic definition of Witness Tampering. Now, mr. Manafort did eventually decide to cooperate with your office, and he entered into a Plea Agreement. But then he broke that agreement. Can you describe what he did that caused you to tell the court that the agreement was off . Id refer you to the Court Proceedings on that issue. So on page 127 of volume two,
you told the court that mr. Manafort lied about a number of matters that were material to the investigation, and you said that manaforts lawyers also, quote, regularly briefed the president s lawyers on topics discussed and the information that manafort had provided in interviews with the Special Counsels office. Does that sound right . And the source of that is . Thats page 127, volume two. Thats a direct quote. If its from the report, yes, i support it. Between days after you told the court that manafort broke his Plea Agreement by lying repeatedly, did President Trump tell the press that mr. Manafort was, quote, very brave, because he did not flip . This is page 128 of volume two. If its in the report, i support it as it is set forth. Thank you. Director mueller, in your report, you make a very serious conclusion about the evidence regarding the president s involvement with the manafort criminal proceedings. Let me read to you from your report. Evidence concerning the president s conduct toward manafort indicates that the
president intended to encourage manafort to not cooperate with the government. It is clear that the president both publicly and privately discouraged mr. Manaforts cooperation or flipping while also dangling the promise of a pardon if he stayed loyal and did not share what he knew about the president. Anyone else who did these things would be prosecuted for them. We must ensure that no one is above the law. I thank you for being here, director mueller. I yield back. Gentleman from pennsylvania. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Mueller, im over here. Im sorry. Mr. Mueller, are you familiar with the now expired independent counsel statute . Its a statute under which ken starr was appointed. That ken starr did what, im sorry . Are you familiar with the independent counsel statute . Are you talking about the one were operating now or previous . Under which ken starr was appointed. Im not that familiar with that. The Clinton Administration allowed the independent counsel
statute to expire after ken starrs investigation. The Final Report Requirement was a major reason why the statute was allowed to expire. Even president clintons a. G. , janet reno, expressed concerns about the Final Report Requirement. Ill quote a. G. Reno. She said, on one hand, the American People have an interest in knowing the outcome of an investigation of their highest officials. On the other hand, the Report Requirement Cuts against many of the most basic traditions and practices of american Law Enforcement. Under our system, we presume innocence and we value privacy. We believe that information obtained during a Criminal Investigation should, in most cases, be made public only if theres an indictment and prosecution, not in a lengthy and detailed report filed after a decision has been made not to prosecute. The final report provides a forum for unfairly airing a
targets dirty laundry. It also creates yet another incentive for an independent counsel to overinvestigate in order to justify his or her Tenure Teen Avoid Criticism that the independent counsel may have left a stone unturned. Again, mr. Mueller, those are a. G. Renos words. Didnt you do exactly what a. G. Reno feared . Didnt you publish a lengthy report, unfairly airing the targets dirty laundry without recommending charges . I disagree with that. Okay. And did any of your witnesses have the chance to be crossexamined . Can i finish my answer on that . Quickly. I operate under the current statute, not the original statute. So i am most familiar with the current statute, not the older statute. Did any of the witnesses have a chance to be crossexamined . Did any of the witnesses in our investigation . Yes. Im not going to answer that. Did you allow the people mentioned in your report to challenge how they were characterized . Im not going to get into
that. Given that a. G. Barr stated multiple times during his Confirmation Hearing that he would make as much of your report public as possible, did you write your report knowing that it would likely be shared with the public . No. Did knowing that the report could and likely would be made public, did that alter the contents which you included . I cant speak to that. Despite the expectations that your report would be released to the public, you left out significant Exculpatory Evidence. In other words, evidence favorable to the president , correct . Well, i actually would disagree with you. I think we strove to put into the report Exculpatory Evidence as well. You said there was evidence you left out. You make a choice as to what goes into an indictment. Isnt it true, mr. Mueller, that on page one of volume two, you state you had the obligation
to either prosecute or not prosecute. Generally, thats the case. Although, most cases are not done in the context of the president. In this case, you made a decision not to prosecute, correct . No, we made a decision not to decide whether to prosecute or not. So essentially what your report did was everything that a. G. Reno warned against. I cant agree with that characterization. Well, what you did is you compiled a nearly 450 pages of the very worst information you gathered against the target of your investigation, who happens to be the president of the United States. And you did this knowing that you were not going to recommend charges and that the report would be made public. Not true. Mr. Mueller, as a former officer in the United States jag corps, i prosecuted nearly 100 terrorists in a baghdad courtroom. I crossexamined the butcher of fallujah in defense of our navy s. E. A. L. S. I was elected a ju