If were going on three years, innocent people have been accused of serious crimes, including treason. They have had their lives disrupted and in some cases destroyed by false accusations for which there is no basis other than some people wish it was so. Your report is clear, no evidence of conspiracy, no evidence of coordination and i believe we owe it to these people who have been falsely accused to the president and his family to make that clear. The credibility of your report is based on the integrity of how its handled. Im holding here in my hand a binder of 25 examples of leaks that occurred from the Special Counsels Office Dating back to as early as a few weeks of your inception and the beginning of your work, and continuing up to just a few months ago. All of these all of them have
one thing in common. They were designed to weaken or embarrass the president. Every single one. Never was it leaked. You found no evidence of inclusion. Never was it leaked that the Steele Dossier was funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign. I could go on and on. Are you aware of anyone from your team having given advanced knowledge on the raid of roger stones home to the press including cnn. Im not going to talk about specifics. I will mention, talk for a moment about persons who become involved in an investigation, and the understanding that a lengthy thorough investigation, some persons will be under a cloud, that they should not be under a cloud. And one of the reasons for emphasizing as i have, the speed of an election or not election, the speed of an
investigation, is that so those persons who are disrupted as a result of the i appreciate that. But i do have a series of questions. May i with the result of that investigation. Its an unfair clouding to dozens of people. Are you aware of anyone providing information to the media about the raid on roger stones home, including cnn . Im not going to speak to that. You sent a letter to Attorney General barr in which you claimed the memo did not characterize the content of the report. Did you make any effort to determine who leaked this confidential letter . No, and im not sure this is the letter of march 27th . Yes, sir. I did not believe we would be responsible for the leaks. I do believe we have done a good job in ensuring that no leaks occur. We have 25 examples here of where you did not do a good job. Not you, sir, but where your office did not do a good example. Do you know anyone who made claims to the press about the March 24th Letter to congress, misrepresented the basis of your report. Do you know who Aknown Mousily made claims to the press that Attorney General bars March 24th Letter to congress misrepresented the findings of your report . No. Given these examples as well as others, you must have realized the leaks were coming from someone associated with the Special Counsels office. I do not believe that. Well, sir, this was your work. Youre the only one, your office is the only one that had information regarding this that had to come from your office. My question is, did you do anything about it . From the outside, weve taken steps to minimize leaks. I wish you had been more successful, sir. My time has expired, i yield back. Mr. Quigley. Thank you for being here. Earlier today, and throughout the day, have you stated the policy that a seated president cannot be indicted, correct . Correct. And upon questioning this morning, you were asked that could a president be indicted after their service. Correct. Your answer was they could. They could. Please speak into the microphone. Im sorry, thank you. They could. The followup question that should be concerning is, what if
a president serves beyond the statute of limitations . I dont know the answer to that one. Would it not indicate that if the statute of limitations on federal crimes such as this, that a president who serves a second term is under the policy Above The Law . Im not sure i would agree with the conclusion. Im not certain i can see the statue doesnt toll, is that correct . It clearly doesnt. As the American Public is watching this and learning about many of these for the first time, we need to consider that, and the other alternatives are all that we have, but i appreciate your response earlier in questioning someone mentioned that was a question whether
anyone in the trump world publicized the emails, i want to refer to volume one page 60, trump junior tweeted to the link of stolen Podesta Emails youre familiar with that . Yes. That would be a republishing of this information, would it not . Im not certain i would agree with that. Director pompeo assessed wikileaks as the costco of intelligence. Given your knowledge of what wikileaks did here, and what they do generally, would assess that to be accurate or something similar . How would you assess . What wikileaks does . Absolutely, and they are currently under indictment. As julian assange. Would it be fair to describe
them as you woe agree with this Director Pompeo thats what he was when he made that remark. If we could put up slide 6. I love wikileaks. Donald trump. This wikileaks stuff is unbelievable. You have to read it. October 12th, 2016. This wiki leaks is like a treasure trove. Donald trump october 31st, 2016. Boy, i love reading those wikileaks. Woe any of those quotes disturb you, mr. Director . Im not certain i would say. How do you react to those . Its problematic is an under statement in terms of what it displays in terms of giving some
hope or some boost to what is and should be illegal activity. Page 59, donald trump junior had direct communications with wikileaks during the campaign period. On october 3rd, 2016, wikileaks cenned another Message To Trump junior, asking you guys to have a link to clinton. Julian assange responded to that, he had already done so. This behavior at the very least disturbing . Disturbing and also subject to investigation. Could it be described as aide and comfort to a hostile service, sir . I wouldnt characterize it with any specificity. I yield the balance to the chairman, please. Im not sure i can make good use of 27 seconds, but director, you made it clear you think it unethical to put it politely to tout a Foreign Service like wikileaks publishing documents. It certainly calls for investigation. Were going to go to mr. Crawford and after mr. Crawfords five minutes, well take a five or ten minute break. Thank you for being here. Days after your appointment, theres no big there there. Did struck or anyone else who work on the fbis investigation, tell you about 10 months into the investigation, the fbi had no case for collusion . Who . Can you repeat that . Peter strok. Can you move the microphone closer . Sure, theres a quote attributed to peter strok. He testified that theres no big there there in the Trump Campaign investigation. Did he or anyone else who worked on the investigation tell you that, around 10 months into the investigation, the fbi still had no case tore collusion in. No. Is the Inspector General report correct that the phones for lisa page were not retained after they left the Special Counsels office . I dont it depends on what youre talking about, an investigation into those peter strok went on for a period of time, and im not certain what it encompasses. Let me move on quickly, did you ask the department to authorize the origin of the trump russia investigation . Im not going to get into that. It goes to internal deliberations. The circumstances have yet to
be fully vetted. Im certainly glad that Attorney General barr and durham are looking into this matter, with that, id like to yield the balance of my time to Ranking Member nunez. Thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Mueller i want to make sure youre aware of Who Fusion Gps is, they are a political operations firm working directly for the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democrat National committee. They produced the dossier, so they paid steele who then went out and got the dossier, i know you dont want to answer any dossier questions, so im not going there. But your report mentions natalia 65 times, she meets in the trump tower, its an Infamous Trump tower several times. The meeting was shorter than 20
minutes, i believe, correct . What we have in our report it reflects it was about that length. Do you know, so fusion gps the main actor of fusion gps, the president of the company, or the owner of a company. Working for Hillary ClintonGlenn Simpson, you know how many times Glenn Simpson met with natalia . No. Would it surprise you to know the Clinton Campaign dirty ops arm met with natalia more times than the Trump Campaign did . Im not going to get into it as i indicated at the outset. Did you ever interview Glenn Simpson . Im going to pass on that. According to notes from the state Department Official kathleen cadillac. Christopher steele told her that former russian intelligence head and Putin Adviser were sources for the Steele Dossier . Knowing that these are not getting into whether these sources were real or not real was there any concern that there could have been disinformation that was going from the kremlin into the Clinton Campaign. And then being fed into the fbi . As i said before, this is an area i cannot speak to. Is that because its not in the report or because its involved in other deliberations, other proceedings and the like. When Andrew Wiseman joined your team, were you aware that
bruce fuller, directly briefed the Dossier Allegations to them in the summer of 2016 . Again, im not going to speak to that issue. Okay. Before you arrested George Papadopoulos in july of 2017, he was given 10,000 in cash in israel. Do you know who gave him that cash . Again, its outside our gambit and questions such as that should go to the fbi or the department. It involved your investigation . It involved persons involved in my investigation. Thank you, sir. We will stand in recess for five or ten minutes. Please, folks, remain in your seats, allow the director and mr. Zebley to exit the chamber. The first half of the second part of this day has concluded,
about 1 15 minutes or so. Robert mueller opened up by trying to clarify about what he earlier said in response to ted lieu from california. The question being, you did not indict donald trump, is that because of the olc, the office of Legal Counsel stating you cannot indict a sitting president . Correct . Mueller said, that is correct. He opened up this Statement Today by saying that was not the correct way to phrase it. As we say in the report, as i said at the option, we did not reach a determination as to whether the president committed a crime. Yeah, in fact i think we have that if we want to roll tape. This is Robert Mueller clarifying something he said that gave the mistaken impression that they would have definitively indicted President Trump had it not been for the olc memo. Thats not what he wanted to say its not the impression he wanted to leave. So were going to play for you
the first thing he said to ted liu in the earlier hearing, and then the cleanup which just happened moments ago. Lets roll tape. To recap what weve heard, we have heard today that the president ordered former White House Counsel Don Mcgahn to fire you. The president ordered don mcgahn to cover that up and create a false paper trail. Now we heard that the president Ordered Lewandowski to tell Jeff Sessions to limit your investigation so that he you stop investigating the president. I believe a reasonable person looking at these facts could conclude that all three elements of a crime of Obstruction Of Justice have been met. Id like to ask you, the reason again that you did not indict donald trump is because of olc opinion stating you cannot indict a sitting president , correct . That is correct. I want to go back to one thing that was said this
morning. By mr. Liu. He said and i quote, you didnt charge the president because of the olc opinion. That is not the correct way to say it. As we say in the report, and as i said at the option, we did not reach a determination as to whether the president committed a crime. So a cleanup there, it seemed as though in the earlier hearing, that Robert Mueller had said something. The democrats were excited about. But he walked it back and hes back where the report is which is to say that before they could ever make a conclusion about whether or not they thought the president obstructed justice, they knew that they would not be able to indict him, so they never even reached a conclusion. But there was some news and some illumination that took place during the beginning of the House Intelligence Committee hearing, at the top of it, adam schiff from california, asked some probing questions, basically trying to make the case that even if there was no prosecutable evidence of
conspiracy between the trump team and russia, there were things that happened that were wrong. Take a listen. And during the course of this russian interference in the election, the russians made outreach to the Trump Campaign, did they not . That occurred over the portion of yeah, that occurred. Its also clear from your report that during that russian outreach to the Trump Campaign, no one associated with the Trump Campaign ever called the fbi to report it, am i right . I dont know that for sure. In fact the Campaign Welcomed the russian help, did they not . I think we have. We reported our Report Indications that that occurred, yes. Gloria borger, let me bring you in here. Not illegal, but not good news, not what President Trump and his team want to be out there on television. He went on later to say its a responsibility of political campaigns to inform the fbi if they get this kind of
communication from a Foreign Government offering help, so he did go there. One other thing that i thought was kind of pushing the envelope here for bob mueller at least, i think it was more forceful on the russian interference in a way than he was this morning. But when he was read by congressman quigley, the congressmans tweets and transcribing what the president said about wikileaks, i love you and all the rest. And mueller was asked, well, what did you think about that . And mueller said, problematic is an understatement. And then when schiff brought it up again, schiff being the prosecutor here. He brought it up again, and asked about it, and mueller called these Communications Disturbing and also subject to investigation. Which i think is kind of interesting, because its the first time we heard him sort of take on the president and say, that was completely out of line and problematic. But again, hes making the
case that they did not find anything they could have prosecuted in terms of actual tangible evidence of conspiracy with russia . Right. And again, theres an evidentiary center they have to reach here, and i think thats where the issue lies for politicians who want to win elections. And in some cases, want to win at all costs. The question is, does what happened in 2016 and does this report, does it make it okay for future campaigns to do this again . I think thats where mueller is having trouble. Youre seeing him go beyond what i thought he would do, where he said problematic is an understatement. I think you heard that from him, certainly when he made that press statement, but i think he believes that volume one and the findings here are things he wants us to all focus on. But at the same time it wasnt enough to bring charges against anyone as a Conspiracy Charge or
anything like that. I think he wants to tell people that this is not okay. Thats what he wants people to take away. The fbi director said if someone comes to a campaign of a Foreign Government. Especially a hostile Foreign Government. That says we have information on your opponent, that could be helpful to you. Its an important thing. A lot of republicans on this panel are not going to say that, nobody wants to say that, nobody wants to certainly incur the wrath of the president. Or say the 2016 election was illegitimate. Thats where the president gets most unnerved and thats what drives so much of his reaction. He might do it again. Thats why the republicans dont want to cross him, i think this is where theres been a lot of questioning about why does Robert Mueller not answer these questions. Why does he seem unfamiliar at times with his own report. He was the ceo of the operation
if you will. Other people are questioning, is he all the