Today, Explained - Mueller speaks

Episode Date: May 29, 2019

Special counsel Robert Mueller made his first public statement about his investigation today. No questions. (Transcript here.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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He described the charges against the Russian intelligence officers for hacking the DNC and John Podesta's email accounts. Second, Mueller said that there was insufficient evidence to charge a broader conspiracy. He did not go so far as to say there was no collusion. He just said there was not evidence to bring charges of such a conspiracy. And a judgment like that is pretty common in prosecutor speak. Third, Mueller said that he did not clear Trump of obstruction of justice charges.

He did not say no obstruction. Instead, If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. And, you know, he didn't say that. Fourth, Mueller explored his reasoning for why he did not charge Trump with obstruction and basically said that he couldn't

even if he wanted to. Under long-standing department policy, a president cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office. That is unconstitutional. That last bit, at least, that the Department of Justice's role here was not to charge the president with a crime sounds familiar. That sounds like something we've heard from Attorney General Barr. How did the rest of what Mueller said today compare to, say, Barr's summary or Barr's testifying before Congress? It was very different, and you would not be surprised to learn that it more closely matches what is in Mueller's actual report. Barr has been much more out front by saying that Mueller found no collusion.

Mueller doesn't go anywhere close to saying something like that. Second, on the obstruction matter, Barr himself said that Mueller simply decided not to decide whether Trump committed a crime, which is true. But then what happened is that Barr stepped in and said that in his view, it was clear that Trump didn't commit a crime. Therefore, no charges would be brought. Mueller, it's very clear, disagrees with this. He said, if we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said that. And he didn't say that.

A couple of weeks ago, something like 450 former federal prosecutors signed a statement that said that they would have charged President Trump with obstruction based on the Mueller report, if not for the fact that President Trump is the president. Does this look like Mueller is basically saying the same thing? I don't think he goes quite so far. The report actually describes these various instances of potential obstruction of justice. And if you read the report, Mueller describes what the criteria for an obstruction offense would be. And he seems to quite strongly suggest that several things Trump did fit that description. But in his statement,

he didn't go that far. And he made clear that he wasn't prevented from making that decision by higher ups. He made very clear that he owns it. That is the office's final position, and we will not comment on any other conclusions or hypotheticals about the president. At one point, Mueller said, The Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing. Was that Mueller reminding Congress that, hey, if y'all want to impeach, you should? Some have interpreted it that way, but it's not entirely clear. This is Congress's job. But he doesn't go so far to say, Congress, you should do this or Congress, you should do that.

He just doesn't want to go there. But he has the power to get up there in front of the country, in front of the world and say, you know, based on my findings, the president should be impeached, right? He's just choosing not to do that. Isn't that something that Ken Starr did with the Clinton investigation? Yes, Ken Starr's finding, and he operated under a different system. He was a independent counsel, not a special counsel. But Ken Starr did submit an impeachment referral to Congress saying Bill Clinton had, in his view, committed criminal offenses. Mueller is not saying that. Some people have read Mueller's report to essentially be implying that, but Mueller himself will not say anything either way on the topic. Now, you would think that

if Mueller did believe that impeachment was some sort of a clear necessity or that he really wanted Congress to impeach or that he thought William Barr was trying to cover up this whole thing, wouldn't he be using some stronger language? I think it's also possible that he's looked at all this and he is fully aware that a call for impeachment would start a politicized partisan process that would likely end in failure. And he just doesn't want to pull the trigger on that. But he's made it clear that, you know, if Congress wants to do that, that's up to them. Why did this happen today, Andrew, after all this time, after Barr's summary,

after Barr's testimony, after who knows how many tweets and statements from the president? Why today? Well, he's certainly been watching all this unfold. But I think there is one major thing going on that he is trying to get out in front of, which is the calls from members of Congress that he testify. I think he views this statement today as an alternative to being hauled in front of the hill and being forced to finally speak for the first time in that more partisan setting. Here, he got to say exactly what he wanted to and leave without taking questions, which is the approach he's shown he prefers.

So, should he or shouldn't he? I'm Sean Ramos from That's Next on Today Explained. Megan Adams, you work here at Vox in people and culture. Yes, absolutely. So I'm our people and culture coordinator here. But I'm actually here to talk about my previous job, which was, no offense to Vox Media, the best job I've ever had. Ouch. Was working as a nanny with little children.

I miss that every day, though I love my job here. But when you nannied kids, it turns out you used KiwiCo sometimes to entertain them, to stimulate their minds? Yeah, absolutely. How did it go? It was great. We love them. So they go by age group. I'm most familiar with the koala crate.

What's the koala crate? It's like the three to four range, I think. So it's more like little kiddo crafts, but it's focused on science and learning about animals or space. So really fun stuff to keep them entertained when as a nanny you need to do other things. And I'm sure the same is true as a parent. Like, it keeps them busy for hours and then— Hours? Yes, hours.

And they make something that isn't just, like, junky that you want to throw away. Like, it came with something that you actually want to keep for them and that they can continue to play with that they made themselves. You're making me want to get a KiwiCo crate. Good. Yeah, you should try it. The koala crate. They go up, so you don't have to do the three to four. Maybe like the tween kit would be better.

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So now you can tell like your nanny network, KiwiCo.com slash explained to find crates for kids of all ages. All right. I'm going to call them all up. Thank you. Matthew Iglesias, host of the Weeds podcast here at Vox. Today, Robert Mueller told the world that his report speaks for itself. But a lot of members of Congress disagree. Who's calling on him to testify?

I think Jerry Nadler, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, is the number one voice calling for a testimony. With respect to impeachment question, at this point, all options are on the table. Terry Nadler, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, is the number one voice calling for a testimony. With respect to impeachment question at this point, all options are on the table and nothing should be ruled out. Nancy Pelosi has been resisting calls to begin impeachment proceedings. I think she and her team have seen data that indicates that the word impeachment is alienating to swing voters, that the public does not want impeachment. At the same time, I think it's clear that these air of scandals around Trump have hurt him quite a bit and are one of the reasons why his approval rating is relatively low despite good economy, other kinds of things like that. So my guess is that Pelosi welcomes this statement from Mueller, would love to hear Robert Mueller say again that he didn't really

clear Trump. We'd love to hear again that Trump's characterization of this is inaccurate, that kind of thing. The question of impeachment per se remains a difficult one for Democratic leaders. But I think anytime you can have a former FBI director up there making it clear that the president was in fact involved in some mischief and that the line Republicans have been using about this is false, that's a good day for Democrats. Yeah. Is there a sense that getting him up there on live TV, the way he was presented on live TV today, will reach more people who perhaps haven't read the Mueller report? Yeah, I think that's the key thing. Mueller is saying, look, the report speaks for itself.

But in the real world, documents like that don't speak for themselves. He came up today. He didn't say anything that's not in the report. But it led the news, right? It made big headlines. If they had cleared Trump of obstruction, they would have said that. They can't charge him and that's why they didn't charge him. That was in the report.

Yeah. But saying it live is dramatic. The fact that Mueller and Trump himself disagree on the significance of the Russian intervention campaign is itself a politically interesting thing. It tends to drop out of the limelight. Mueller saying it makes a difference. And Mueller says he has nothing to add to what's in the report. But he also says that what's in the report is important.

Of course, most people have not read that report. They're not going to read that report. They do read news coverage. They do watch video clips of things. Mueller going to Congress and repeating the substance of that report will drive home its significance and its contents. And so I think it's reasonable the Democrats are asking him to do it. And I think if he follows the logic of his own statements, he should go up there and do it. There's a sense that he wants to stay out of the fray. Is that unrealistic? Is he already in it? Was this thing he did today reentering the fray that he's already the center of in a way?

I mean, I'm sure this is an uncomfortable situation for him. Mueller's a Republican. He was a Reagan appointee. He was a George W. Bush appointee. He has never been a super political person. Normal human beings do not enjoy being in the center of highly partisan food fights. But that's where he is, right? I mean what he said today and what he says in his report is that the Justice Department cannot indict a sitting president.

That means ultimately assessments of culpability have to be made by Congress. Congress is Congress. It's a political institution. Partisan politics are an important part of Congress. The media is an important part of partisan politics. So you're inherently involved, right? He doesn't want to be involved, but he took the assignment as special counsel. He did this investigation. He says the conclusions of his investigation are significant. He wants people to know about them. And things like public testimony,

like dragging people up there, making them say things on camera, that's how Congress operates. Is there more to why Mueller doesn't want to testify or is it just this political phrase stuff? I think one thing that's been clear throughout this investigation is that Robert Mueller does not want to play the same role in this saga that Ken Starr played. Ken Starr played a very political role in 1997, 1998. There were a lot of leaks to the press from his office. His report formally made a case for impeachment. He was a very sort of aggressive advocate for impeachment. And one reason for that is that Starr came out of the conservative movement and Republican Party politics.

This is Life, Liberty and Levin. We have a tremendous guest, Kenneth Starr. How are you, sir? And after that whole drama wrapped up, he's continued to be a conservative legal theory guy. Is the report going to be written in a fair and balanced way? It's a concern. And that's not Mueller, right? Mueller is a moderate Republican, a law enforcement professional. He has no interest in becoming a sort of Democratic party talking head or spokesperson. And he keeps trying to just be a cop, right? Like there were

no leaks coming out of his shop this whole time. There were no public statements this whole time. He's saying as little as is humanly possible. And I think it's also clear that a lot of people involved in law enforcement look at how James Comey tried to play the politics of the Hillary Clinton email server thing and think that fundamentally it didn't work, right? It backfired all over him. And so he doesn't want to be in the position Comey was in of doing extramural commentary. If you remember that, right, Comey said that Clinton wouldn't be charged with a crime,

but that her conduct was extremely reckless. I would love to know, does he think the Trump administration's reaction to all these Russian agents, was that careless? Was it reckless? Was it responsible? But he doesn't want to do that, right? That's not his job. And that's why he keeps clarifying that even if congressional Democrats drag him up to the hill, he's not going to say stuff that's outside the report.

They're not going to be able to bait him into generally slagging on President Trump. I think that's appropriate, right? I mean, if you don't like Trump, you're probably not thrilled that Mueller doesn't want to play that role. But I think it's smart. It's a reaction to problems that previous high-profile investigations have gotten into. One element of what happened today that seemed dramatic was that he kind of resigned up there on live TV. We are formally closing the special counsel's office. And as well, I'm resigning from the Department of Justice to return to private life. And I think one possible read of this is that even though he said he didn't want to testify, by resigning,

he on some level opened the door to him testifying because it means he is no longer an employee of the Justice Department. He's no longer a part of the executive branch. So nobody is in a position to order him not to testify or to contest it other than himself. So he can now sort of play the good soldier, right? I wrote my report. It says what it says. That's all I have to say. But then if Congress drags him up there, he can go along. Nobody else can make him sort of fight the battle.

The other thing, though, is the investigation is finished. You've got to resign at some point. And I will close by reiterating the central allegation of our indictments, that there were multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our election. And that allegation deserves the attention of every American. Thank you. Thank you for being here today. Thank you. What's your kid doing right now? Is it empowering your kid? KiwiCo is on a mission to empower kids, not just to make stuff, but to make a difference. They're offering today, Explained listeners, the chance to try them out for free at kiwico.com slash explained, which is also the website on the internet where you can learn more about their projects for kids of all ages.