Donald Trump Claimed "No Collusion" Once Again Ahead Of AG Barr's Testimony
On Wednesday, May 1, United States Attorney General William Barr testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee about Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report. While some representatives were anticipating new information from the attorney general, Donald Trump's tweet ahead of William Barr's testimony is claiming "no collusion" yet again.
On May 1, Barr sat in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee and testified about Mueller's report, which investigated whether the Trump campaign actively colluded with Russian operatives during the 2016 presidential election. The special counsel submitted his report on March 22, and in a public letter summarizing the findings n March 24, Barr wrote that the investigation had not found sufficient evidence to prove that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia. However, the report expressly did not exonerate the president on obstruction of justice. On April 18, a full redacted report was released that detailed Mueller's findings, and they were not flattering to the president, with Mueller laying out 10 separate incidents which could be considered obstruction. As of May 1, the president has not been formally accused of nor charged with any crime.
Since Mueller's investigation began in 2017, President Donald Trump has consistently declared that there was "no collusion." Well, Trump kept that tune when he tweeted ahead of Barr's testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He wrote,
NO COLLUSION, NO OBSTRUCTION. Besides, how can you have Obstruction when not only was there No Collusion (by Trump), but the bad actions were done by the “other” side? The greatest con-job in the history of American Politics!
It turns out that the special counsel wasn't entirely thrilled with Barr's handling of his report either. On May 1, the House Judiciary Committee released a letter Mueller wrote to Barr on March 27 which criticized the attorney general for his letter, declaring that Barr's summary had caused "confusion."
Mueller wrote,
The summary letter the Department sent to Congress and released to the public late in the afternoon of March 24 did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this office's work and conclusion. There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation. This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations.
Elite Daily reached out to both the special counsel and attorney general offices for comment on the letter at the time, but did not hear back.
Barr might have testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, but there's a chance that this won't be the last hearing dedicated to the report. Barr may still testify in front of the House committee (depending on whether he and House Democrats can come to an agreement). On April 8, Politico reported that House Republicans and Democrats are calling for Mueller to testify in front of the House Judiciary Committee about the report himself. So far there's been no word whether Mueller will voluntarily testify, but Barr has stated several times that he does not object to the special counsel testifying in front of the House Committee.
Another day, another interesting development to this story.
