Dem House chairs: Mueller report ‘does not exonerate the president’

Six top House Democrats blasted Attorney General William Barr on Thursday evening while maintaining that special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on his nearly two-year investigation “does not exonerate” President Trump.

In a joint statement, Democratic Reps. Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.), Adam Schiff (Calif.), Maxine Waters (Calif.), Richard Neal (Mass.), Elijah Cummings (Md.) and Eliot Engel (N.Y.) condemned what they said was a “damning portrait of lies” that could amount to obstruction of justice committed by the president.{mosads}

“Taken as a whole, Mueller’s report paints a damning portrait of lies that appear to have materially impaired the investigation, a body of evidence of improper contacts with a foreign adversary, and serious allegations about how President Trump sought to obstruct a legitimate, and deeply important, counterintelligence investigation,” the committee chairs wrote.

“We are profoundly troubled by the astonishing efforts by President Trump identified in the report to obstruct the investigation, including his attempts to remove the Special Counsel and encourage witnesses to lie and to destroy or conceal evidence,” the lawmakers continued.

Nadler, Schiff, Waters, Neal, Cummings and Engel serve as chairs of the House Judiciary, Intelligence, Financial Services, Ways and Means, Oversight and Reform and Foreign Affairs panels, respectively.

Democrats have accused Barr of misrepresenting Mueller’s findings, citing sections of the report that state Congress should be allowed to decide whether to investigate a sitting president for “corrupt” uses of presidential power.

“With respect to whether the President can be found to have obstructed justice by exercising his powers under Article II of the Constitution, we concluded that Congress has authority to prohibit a President’s corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice,” Mueller wrote.

Barr wrote in a four-page summary of the report sent to Congress last month that Mueller had left the determination of whether to prosecute Trump for obstruction up to the attorney general. Barr said that he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein decided there was not enough evidence to pursue an obstruction charge.

Democrats have criticized Barr and Rosenstein’s decision not to pursue prosecution of the president for obstruction of justice, arguing that actions taken by the president, including the firing of former FBI Director James Comey, amounted to such a crime.