Correct. You found in your investigation july 27th, candidate trump called on russia to hack Hillary Clintons email for the first time they did about five hours later, correct . Thats correct. You found august 2 that mr. Manafort met with a person tied to russian intelligence, mr. Kilimnik, gave him internal Campaign Strategy where russia was intending to do a misinformation campaign. Im not certain of the tie. The fact of the meeting yes, that is accurate. Your investigation as i understand it also found that in late summer of 2016, the Trump Campaign in fact devised its strategy and messaging around Wikileaks Releases of materials that were stolen from the Democratic National committee, correct . Is that from the report . Yes. According to mr. Gates. Yes. Thank you. You also talked earlier about the finding in your investigation in september and october of 2016, donald trump jr. Had email communications with wikileaks now indicted about releasing information damaging to the clinton campaign, correct . True. So i understand you made a decision, a prosecutorial decision that this wouldnt rise beyond proof beyond a reasonable doubt. My concern is, have we established a new normal from this past campaign that will apply to future campaigns so that if anyone of us running for the u. S. House, any candidate for the u. S. Senate, any candidate for the presidency of the United States aware that if
hostile foreign powers trying to influence an election has no duty to report that to the fbi or other authorities . I hope this is not the new normal. But i fear it is. In fact, have the ability without fear of legal repercussions to meet with agents of that foreign entity hostile with the American Election . What is the question . Is that an apprehension that you share with me . Yes. And that there would be no repercussions whatsoever to russia if they did this again and as you have stated earlier, as we sit here, theyre doing it now. Is that correct . Youre absolutely right. Do you have any advice to this congress as together what we should do to protect our Electoral System and accept responsibility on our part to report to you or your successor
when were aware of hostile foreign engagement in our elections . I would say the basis first line of defense really is the ability of the various agencies that have some piece of this to not only share information but share expertise, Share Targets and use the full resources that we have to address this problem. Thank you, director mueller. I yield back. Mr. Maloney. Mr. Mueller, thank you. I know its been a long day. I want to make clear how much respect i have for your service and your career. I want you to understand my questionses in that context. Im going to be asking you about appendix c to your report. In particular, the decision not to do a sworn interview with the president. Its the only subject i want to
talk to you about, sir. Why didnt you subpoena the president . After we took over and initiated the investigation if i could ask you to speak in the microphone. At the outset, after we took over the investigation, i pursued it. Obviously one of the things that we anticipated wanting to accomplish that is having to interview of the president. We negotiated with him for a little over a year. I think what you would allude to in the appendix lays out our expectations as a result of those negotiations. Finally we were almost towards the end of our investigation and we had little success in pushing to get the interview of the president , we decided that we did not want to exercise the Subpoena Powers because of the necessity of expediting the end
of the investigation. Was that i was going to say, the expectation was if we did subpoena for the president , he would fight it and we would be in the midst of the investigation for a substantial period of time. As we sit here, you never had an opportunity to ask the president in person questions under oath. So obviously that must have been a difficult decision. Youre right, appendix c lays that out. You described the inperson interview as vital, your word and you made clear you had the authority and the legal justification to do it as you point out. You waited a year, negotiated, made numerous accommodations so he could prepare. I take it you were trying to be fair to the president. By the way, you were going to limit the questions when you got to written questions to russia only. In fact, you did go with written questions after about nine months. The president responded to those
and you have hard language for what you thought of those responses. What did you think of them, mr. Mueller . It was not as useful as the interview would be. In fact, you pointed out by my count, there were more than 30 times when the president said he didnt recall, he didnt remember, no independent recollection, no current recollection. I take it by your answer it wasnt as helpful. Thats why you used words like incomplete, imprecise, inadequate, insufficient. Is that a fair summary of what you thought of those answers . That is a fair summary. I presume that comes from the report. I ask this respectfully by the way, the president didnt claim to the fifth amount, did he . Im not going to talk to that. At one point it was vital and another point it wasnt. Why did it stop being vital . I can three of three explanations. One is somebody told you you couldnt do it. Nobody told you you couldnt subpoena the president , right . We understood we could
subpoena the president. Rosenstein didnt tell you, barr didnt tell you we could serve a subpoena. Theres two other explanations. One that you just flinched. You had the opportunity but you didnt do it. You dont strike me as the kind of guy that flinches. I hope not. The third explanation i hope not, too. The third explanation you didnt think you needed it. What caught my eye page 13 of volume two. You said you had a body of ed and you cite cases about how you often have to prove intent to obstruct Justice Without an inperson interview. Thats the nature of it. You used terms like a substantial body of evidence of the president s intent. So my question, sir, did you have sufficient evidence of the president s intent to obstruct justice and is that why you didnt do the interview . Theres a balance. How much evidence you have to satisfy the last element against how much time are you willing to spend in the courts litigating
the interview with the president. In this case you felt you had enough evidence of the president s intent . We had to make a balanced decision in terms of how much evidence we had compared to the length of time it would take because i have limited time, you thought if you gave to it the Attorney General or this congress, there was sufficient evidence that it was better than that delay . State that again. It was better than the delay to present the sufficient evidence of the president s intent to obstruct justice to the Attorney General and this committee . Is that why you didnt do the interview . No. Because of the length of time it would take to resolve the issues intended to that. Thank you, sir. Mrs. Demings. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Director mueller, thanks for being a person of honor and integrity. Thanks for your service to the
nation. Were certainly better for it. Director mueller, i too want to focus on the written responses that the president did provide and the continued efforts to lie and cover up what happened during the 2016 elections. Did the President Answer submitted questions under yes. Yes. Thank you. They were. Were these all the answers your office wanted to ask the president about russian interference in the 2016 election . Not necessarily. There were other questions that you wanted to answer. Did you am lies his written records and drew up the conclusion for his availability . It was one of the factors. Nothing more than that. It was one of the factors. So what did you determine about the president s credibility . That i cant get into. Director mueller, i know based on your decades of experience, you probably had an opportunity to analyze the
credibility of countless witnesses. But you werent able to do so with this witness . Every witness particularly, leading witness, one assesses the credibility day by day witness by witness, document by document. Thats what happened in this case. So we started with very little and by the end, we ended up with a fair amount. Thank you. Lets go through some of the answers to take a closer look at his credibility. Seems to me, director mueller, his answers were not credible at all. To some of President Trumps incomplete answers relate to Trump Tower Moscow . Yes. For example, did you ask the president whether he had had at any time directed or suggested that discussions about trump moscow project should cease . Should what . Cease. Do you have a citation . The first page . Yes. Did the President Answer whether you had discussions about the trump moscow project should cease but hes since made Public Comments about this topic. Okay. The question was . Did the president let me go on. Did the president fully answer that question in his Written Statement to you about the trump moscow Project Ceasing . Again, appendix c. Can you direct me to the particular paragraph youre averting to . Appendix cc1. Let me move forward. Nine days after he submitted his Written Answers, didnt the president say publicly that he decided not to do the project and that is in your report. Id ask you if you would to point out the particular paragraph that youre focused on. We can move on. Did the President Answer your follow up questions according to the report there were follow up questions because of the president s incomplete answers about the moscow project. Did the President Answer your questions in writing or orally . Were now in volume 2, 150151. No. He did not. In fact, there were many questions that you asked the president that he didnt answer. Isnt that correct . True. And there were many answers that contradicted other evidence that you had gathered during the investigation. Isnt that correct . Yes. Director mueller, for example, the president in his Written Answers stated he didnt recall having advanced knowledge of Wikileaks Releases. Is that correct . Thats what he said. Didnt your investigation undercover evidence that the president did have advanced knowledge of the emails
damaging to his opponent . I cant get into that. Did your investigation determine after very careful vetting of rick gates and Michael Cohen that you found them to be credible . That we found the president to be credible . You found gates and cohen those are areas i wont discuss. Okay. Could you say that the president was credible . I cant answer that question. Isnt it fair to say that the president s Written Answers were not only inadequate and incomplete because he didnt answer many of your questions, but where he did his answers showed that he wasnt always being truthful . I would say generally. Generally. Director mueller its one thing for the president to lie to the American People about your investigation. Falsely claiming that you found no collusion and no obstruction. Its Something Else altogether for him to get away with not
answering your questions and lying about them and as a former Law Enforcement officer of almost 30 years, i find that a disgrace to our criminal Justice System. I yield back to the chairman. Mr. Mueller, thanks for your devoted service to the country. Earlier today, you described your report as detailing a criminal investigation, correct . Yes. Director, since it was outside the purview of your investigation, your report did not reach counter evidence conclusions regarding the Subject Matter of your report. Thats true. For instance, since it was outside your purview, your report did not reach Counter Intelligence conclusions regarding any Trump Administration officials who might potentially be vulnerable to compromise or blackmail by
russia, correct . Those decisions probably were made in the counter the fbi. But not in your report, correct . Not in my report. We avert to the Counter Intelligence goals of our investigation, which were secondary to any criminal wrongdoing that we could find. Lets talk about one Administration Official in particular, namely. Donald trump. Other than Trump Tower Moscow, your report does not address or detail the president s final ties or dealings with correct . Correct. Similarly, your report does not address the question of whether Russian Oligarchs engaged in Money Laundering through any of the president s businesses, correct . Correct. Your office did not obtain
the president s tax returns which could otherwise show foreign financial sources, correct . Im not going to speak to that. In july 2017, the president said his personal finances were off limits or outside the purview of your investigation. He drew a red line around his personal finances. Were the president s personal finances outside the purview of your investigation . Im not growing to get into that. Were you instructed by anyone not to investigate the president s personal finances . No. Mr. Mueller, id like to turn your attention to Counter Intelligence risks associated with lying. Individuals can be subject to blackmail if they lie about their interactions with foreign countries, correct . True. For example, you successfully charged Michael Flynn of lying to federal agents about his conversations with russian officials, correct . Correct. Since it was outside the purview of your investigation, your report did not address how flynns false statements could pose a National Security risk because the russians knew the falsity of those statements, right . I cannot get into that mainly because theres many elements of the fbi that are looking at different aspects of that issue. Currently. Currently. Thank you. As you noted in vol 2, donald trump repeated five times in one Press Conference in 2016, i have nothing to do with russia. Of course, Michael Cohen said donald trump was not being truthful because at this time trump was attempts to build Trump Tower Moscow. Your report does not address whether or not donald trump was compromised in any way because of any potential false statements that he made about Trump Tower Moscow, correct . Thats right. I think thats right. Director mueller, i want to turn your attention to a couple other issues. You served as fbi director during three president ial elections, correct . Yes. And during those three president ial elections, you have never initiated an investigation at the fbi looking into whether a Foreign Government interfered in our elections the same way you did in this particular instance, correct . I would say i personally, no. But the fbi has. The defense and the attacks that the russians undertook in 2016. Director mueller, is there any information youd like to share with this committee that you have not so far today . Thats a broad question. It would take me awhile to get an answer. Im going to say no. Mr. Mueller, you said that every american should pay very close attention to the systematic and sweeping fashion in which the russians interfered in our democracy. Are you concerned that were not doing enough currently to prevent this from happening again . Ill speak generally. What i said in my Opening Statement this morning, and no, much more needs to be done to protect against the intrusions, not just by the russians but others as well. Thank you, director. Two fiveminute periods remaining. Mr. Nunes and myself. Mr. Nunes, youre recognized. Mr. Mueller, its been a long day for you. Youve had a long great career. I want to thank you for your Long Time Service starting in vietnam. Obviously in the u. S. Attorneys
office, Department Of Justice and the fbi. I want to thank you for doing something you didnt have to do. You came here upon your own free will. We appreciate your time today. With that, i yield back. Thank you, sir. Mr. Mueller, i want to close out my questions, turn to some of text change that you had with mr. Welch earlier. Id like to see if we can broaden the aperture at the end of the hearing. From your testimony today, i gather that you believe that knowingly accepting foreign assistance during a president ial campaign is an unethical thing to do . And a crime. And a crime. Yes. And given circumstances. And to the degree that it undermines our democracy and our institutions, we can agree that its also unpatriotic . True. And wrong. True. The standard of behavior for
a president ial candidate or any candidate for that matter shouldnt be merely whether something is criminal, should be held to a higher standard. Youd agree . I will not get into that because it goes to the standards to be applied by other institutions besides ours. Im just referring to ethical standards. We should hold our elected officials to a standard higher than mere avoidance of criminalality, shouldnt we . Absolutely. You have served this country for decades. You have taken an oath to