Trump’s genius move on Mueller to ‘avoid perjury trap’
Donald Trump has been cleared of colluding with Russia. But the outcome could have been very different if it wasn’t for one thing.
It’s the highly anticipated report containing the findings of a long-running investigation into US President Donald Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia in the 2016 election campaign.
But it was this week revealed the still-secret Mueller report reached no conclusion, leaving Attorney-General William Barr and his deputy Rod Rosenstein to render a judgment.
Mr Barr, a political appointee installed by Mr Trump less than a month ago, started reading Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Friday and has since revealed the US President has been cleared of committing any criminal offence.
“The special counsel’s decision to describe the facts of his obstruction investigation without reaching any legal conclusions leaves it to the Attorney-General to determine whether the conduct described in the report constitutes a crime,” Mr Barr wrote in a four-page letter delivered to Congress on Sunday.
Mr Barr said he and his deputy “concluded that the evidence developed during the special counsel’s investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offence”.
The President didn’t testify in an apparent bid to “avoid a perjury trap” at the inquiry — a move that ultimately worked in his favour because it gave prosecutors less to work with.
But Mr Trump’s legal team reportedly feared the outcome of the investigation could have been very different if he’d been interviewed as part of the probe.
Mr Mueller’s staffers had requested a face-to-face interview with Mr Trump for months, but the President’s lawyers refused to commit and negotiations continued. Last August, Mr Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani said he had discouraged him from testifying out of concern for a “perjury trap” he believed might be set.
The New York Timesreports the President’s lawyers were instead “concerned about his penchant for falsehoods and whether he might perjure himself (so) persuaded the special counsel team to accept written answers to their questions”.
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Investigators ultimately submitted written questions to the President concerning the time frame before the 2016 election.
The questions number “roughly two dozen” and focus on five topics, all relating “to issues before Trump won the 2016 presidential election”, the Washington Post reports.
Mr Trump returned his answers — which were heavily vetted by his legal team -— in late November. He was never interrogated in person by investigators, although Mr Mueller had deliberated at length about subpoenaing him before deciding not to make a formal request within the Justice Department, according to CNN.
“I answered the questions very easily. Very easily,” Mr Trump told reporters at the time.
It’s not yet known exactly what he wrote in his submission. And if Mr Trump’s team gets its way, the information will not be released publicly.
One of Mr Trump’s lawyers, Jay Sekulow, on Monday said he didn’t want the President’s “confidential” written answers submitted to Mr Mueller to be released.
“Well, that would not be a position that I would want, to just make a statement where we would release confidential communications that took place between the President of the United States and the Department of Justice or the special counsel’s office,” Mr Sekulow told CNN.
“As a lawyer, you don’t waive privileges and you don’t waive investigative detail absent either a court order or an agreement between the parties.
“And you’d have to weigh a lot of factors there on how that affects other presidencies.”
Mr Sekulow said the notion of making the responses public was “very inappropriate”.
“(It’ll) be a decision (Attorney-General William Barr) makes, but I’ve some strong opinions about that,” he said.
“No matter your ideologies or your loyalties, this is a good day for America. No American conspired to cooperate with Russia in its efforts to interfere with the 2016 election, according to Robert Mueller, and that is good.†@BretBaier @FoxNews
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 25, 2019
I don’t want a summary of the Mueller report. I want the whole damn report. https://t.co/VU1oNfBMK0
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) March 24, 2019
In one excerpt from the Mueller report — highlighted in Mr Barr’s summary — the special counsel said “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also doesn’t exonerate him”.
In light of the findings, experts say it’s highly unlikely Mr Trump will face impeachment charges.
“The special counsel’s investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or co-ordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 US presidential election,” Mr Barr wrote to Congress.
Congress voted 420-0 to release the full Mueller report. Not a "summary" from his handpicked Attorney General. AG Barr, make the full report public. Immediately.
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) March 24, 2019
Attorney General Barr must release the full Mueller report and underlying evidence without any further delay or obfuscation.
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) March 24, 2019
For the American people, the underlying documents may be even more important to the truth than the report itself.#ReleaseTheReport
Mr Trump’s campaign and transition teams have been plagued by accusations of conspiring with Russian agents to influence the US election in the then Republican candidate’s favour. Mr Trump has previously called it “the greatest political witch-hunt in history”.
US intelligence agencies concluded in 2016 that Russia was behind an effort to tip the scales of the US election against Hillary Clinton with a state-authorised campaign of cyber attacks and fake news stories planted on social media.
Thirty-four people, including six of Mr Trump’s aides and advisers, were charged in the investigation. Twenty-five are Russians accused of election interference either through hacking into Democratic accounts or orchestrating a social media campaign to spread disinformation on the internet.
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