Mueller: “If we had confidence that the president did NOT commit a crime, we would say so”
UPDATE, 11:10amEDT — There is your big takeaway.
Robert Mueller took no questions as he laid out his own summary of the Office of Special Counsel’s investigation and report on allegations of the Trump Campaign’s coordination with Russians and obstruction of justice by Trump and his associates.
Nueller underlined the gravity of the obstruction of justice charges and, by saying the the Constitution does not allow investigators and prosecutors to file criminal charges against a president, implied that Congress needs to investigate.
UPDATE, 10:30amEDT — Tom Winter at NBC reports that Wolff’s allegations (see below) are not the subject of Mueller’s pending statement. Ken Dilanean clarified an earlier report: Mueller’s team informed the White House last night that there may be a statement today but gave no details and the White House did not mose to stop teh statement.
UPDATE, 10:10amEDT — : NBC’s Ken Dilanean . reports that the White House got a heads-up about Mueller making an announcement last night, but has not been briefed on the substance. Their guess is as good as ours. WaPo’s Philip Rucker says that, per his souces , the statement will be “substantial.”
The Department of Justice just announced that Special Counsel Robert Mueller will be making a public statement at 11AM.
Could this report have prompted this unusual move?
A new book from Fire and Fury author Michael Wolff says special counsel Robert Mueller drew up a three-count obstruction of justice indictment against Donald Trump before deciding to shelve it – an explosive claim which a spokesman for Mueller flatly denied.
The Guardian obtained a copy of Siege and viewed the documents concerned.
In an author’s note, Wolff states that his findings on the Mueller investigation are “based on internal documents given to me by sources close to the Office of the Special Counsel”.
But Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller, told the Guardian: “The documents that you’ve described do not exist.”
If one word of Wolff’s claim is even slightly inaccurate, the Office of Special Counseel has plausible deniability. That does not mean Wolff’s claims are not 99% true.
Expect a media tsunami.
DEVELOPING…
