President Trump said Thursday he would allow Attorney General William Barr to decide whether Robert Mueller may testify to Congress, even as he unloaded on the special counsel over his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
“I’m going to leave that up to our very great attorney general,” Trump said when asked during an impromptu news conference at the White House about the possibility of Mueller testifying.
The comments marked an apparent reversal from Sunday, when the president tweeted that Mueller “should not” appear before Congress. But White House advisers said this week that the president was merely voicing an opinion and not directing Mueller not to testify.
{mosads}Trump, however did not pull any punches when speaking about Mueller, whom he said is “no friend of mine” and “in love with James Comey,” the former FBI director whose firing by Trump helped trigger Mueller’s hiring as special counsel.
The president said Mueller’s investigation was conducted by “angry Democrats who hated Donald Trump” and argued that a congressional hearing would amount to a “redo” of the 448-page special counsel report, which he described as “beautiful.”
But Trump appeared to hedge when describing the report’s findings, saying it showed “no collusion and, essentially, no obstruction.”
Mueller, a registered Republican, did not find a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 race. He investigated 10 instances of possible obstruction of justice by Trump, but failed to decide whether to press charges. Barr ultimately determined no obstructions charges would be brought against Trump.
“There’s no crime, there never was a crime, this was a hoax,” Trump said. “This comes back totally exonerating Donald Trump.”
House Democrats have been eager to hear testimony from Mueller as part of their wide-ranging investigations into Trump. Both sides had tentatively agreed to a hearing next week, but those plans were thrown into doubt by Trump’s weekend statements as well as his White House’s effort to fight the Democratic probes.
Barr has previously said he has no objections to Mueller testifying before Congress.