Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) said that former special counsel Robert Mueller walked back his comments about indicting the President because he didn’t want to implicitly call Trump a “felon,” though that’s what Lieu thinks Mueller “actually believes.”
During the hearing Wednesday, Lieu asked: “I’d like to ask you the reason, again, that you did not indict Donald Trump is because of the OLC opinion stating that you cannot indict a sitting President?”
Mueller responded, “that is correct.”
Mueller cleaned up his answer in his second hearing before the House Intel Committee:
“I want to go back to one thing that was said this morning by Mr. Lieu who said, and I quote, ‘you didn’t charge the president because of the OLC opinion.’ That is not the correct way to say it,” Mueller said. “As we say in the report and as I said at the opening, we did not reach a determination as to whether the president committed a crime.”
Lieu isn’t buying it.
“I believe he fully understood my question,” Lieu told CNN’s Anderson Cooper Wednesday evening. “It was a logical extension of me getting him to establish the three elements of obstruction of justice were met and I think it’s what he actually believes. I think he may have walked it back because he understood that what that means is we got a felon in the White House and that’s what the hearing showed today, that Donald Trump committed multiple acts of obstruction of justice.”
Lieu thinks Mueller’s first answer to why he didn’t indict Trump is what he “actually believes” pic.twitter.com/jisBtHip2l
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) July 25, 2019
I absolutely agree with Ted Lieu’s assessment of this.
I think someone (the assistant? LowBarr?) got to Mueller in the break and reined him in.
But the first reaction (and IIRC, Lieu asked him the question twice) was Mueller’s honest opinion.
It does mean we have a felon in the White House. Except he hasn’t been convicted yet. And Republicans showed yesterday that they are OK with that.
Madame Speaker:
Review your messaging re/ impeachment. Get out in front of the train.
Very hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube. I tend to agree with Sen. Lieu. Most of the time the initial response is what’s the most accurate assessment of the speaker’s thoughts on a matter.
Which only makes Mueller’s report and testimony worse. If he believes Trump committed felonies, then do your job and say it.