Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller on Wednesday said in dramatic U.S. congressional testimony he had not exonerated President Donald Trump of obstruction of justice and defended the integrity of his inquiry under repeated attacks by conservative Republican allies of the president, APA reports citing ABS News.
Mueller initially testified he would have sought to indict Trump were it not for a Justice Department policy against charging a sitting president. But hours later he corrected himself and said “we did not reach a determination as to whether the president committed a crime.”
Answering questions publicly for the first time on his inquiry, Mueller appeared for eagerly anticipated testimony in two back-to-back televised congressional hearings that carried high stakes for Trump and Democrats who are split between impeaching him or moving on to the 2020 election.
The former FBI director, who spent 22 months investigating what he concluded was Russian interference in a “sweeping and systematic fashion” in the 2016 U.S. election to help Trump and the president’s conduct, appeared for more than 3-1/2 hours before the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee.
Mueller then appeared before the House Intelligence Committee for more questioning. Democrats control the House, while Trump’s fellow Republicans control the Senate.
The Judiciary Committee’s Democratic chairman, Jerrold Nadler, praised Mueller and said no one, including Trump, is “above the law.” The Intelligence Committee’s Democratic chairman, Adam Schiff, accused Trump’s 2016 campaign of “disloyalty to country” for inviting, encouraging and making full use of Russian election meddling.
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