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What the Mueller Report Says About Obstruction - FactCheck.orgThe above is substantially less daunting than wading through the whole report (or even just the second volume), though it summarizes 11 “key events,” the first being “Trump’s campaign’s response to reports about Russian support,” presumably not included in the Top Ten that is so often mentioned but less often delineated.The meat (with some fat: better to provide too much context than not enough) of those summaries follows, but I encourage you to read the original article, and even the (redacted) report if you have the time and inclination, as there are (unsurprisingly) some funny details (I only fit one in below).[As an aside, I strongly suspect that the specifics are unlikely to. change any minds on either side of the about the seriousness of the potential offenses.]1. President’s conduct concerning the investigation of Michael Flynn“Flynn in late 2017 pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI about conversations he had with a Russian ambassador during the transition regarding U.S. sanctions leveled by the Obama administration.”….“After learning about the FBI’s questioning of Flynn, according to the report, Trump invited Comey to a private dinner meeting on Jan. 27, 2017 — the one in which Comey says Trump asked for his ‘loyalty.’….”“Likewise, former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions confirmed that Trump in February 2017 asked the attendees of a homeland security briefing to leave the Oval Office so he could speak with Comey alone. Comey has testified that Trump brought up Flynn, who had resigned a day earlier, saying: ‘I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.’“Assessing that episode, the special counsel’s office wrote that ‘the President later denied that he cleared the room and asked Comey to ‘let[] Flynn go’—a denial that would have been unnecessary if he believed his request was a proper exercise of prosecutorial discretion.’” ….“The report also says that, despite some conflicting information, the investigation ‘did not produce evidence that established that the President knew about Flynn’s discussions of sanctions’ with the ambassador at the time.“Evidence does establish that the President connected the Flynn investigation to the FBI’s broader Russia investigation and that he believed, as he told [New Jersey Gov. Chris] Christie, that terminating Flynn would end ‘the whole Russia thing,’” the report states. It also notes: ‘Multiple witnesses recalled that the President viewed the Russia investigations as a challenge to the legitimacy of his election.’”2. Trump’s reaction to the continuing Russia investigation“The third area of possible obstruction that Mueller investigated is President Trump’s reaction to the continuing Russia investigation in March and April 2017. This includes Trump’s efforts to prevent and then reverse then-Attorney General Jeff Session’s decision to recuse himself on issues related to the Russia investigation, as well as multiple attempts by the president to convince officials to make statements to the public clarifying that the FBI was not personally investigating him….“Without coming to definitive conclusions, the Mueller report notes that Trump ‘attempted to prevent Sessions’s recusal, even after being told that Sessions was following DOJ conflict-of-interest rules.’….”“The special counsel’s report concludes that the evidence ‘does not establish that the President asked or directed intelligence agency leaders to stop or interfere with the FBI’s Russia investigation.’“ ‘But the President’s intent in trying to prevent Sessions’s recusal, and in reaching out to Coats, Pompeo, Rogers, and Comey following Comey’s public announcement of the FBI’s Russia investigation,’ the report reads, ‘is nevertheless relevant to understanding what motivated the President’s other actions towards the investigation.’”3.The firing of FBI Director James Comey“Trump fired FBI Director James Comey on May 9, 2017.“Before Comey’s May 3, 2017, testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Trump had said ‘it would be the last straw if Comey did not take the opportunity to set the record straight by publicly announcing that the President was not under investigation,’ the Mueller report says, citing then-White House counsel McGahn….”“In analyzing this incident, the Mueller report says that removing Comey would be an obstructive act if it interfered with or impeded the investigation. While this could affect the way a successor conducted the investigation, Trump appointed Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe interim director, and McCabe had told the president that he worked ‘very closely’ with Comey….”“‘The president ‘had a motive to put the FBI’s Russia investigation behind him,’ the report says, saying that ‘the evidence does indicate that a thorough FBI investigation would uncover facts about the campaign and the President personally that the President could have understood to be crimes or that would give rise to personal and political concerns.’ The report cites Trump’s public statements during the campaign that he had no connections to Russia, even while he was briefed on progress of a Trump Tower Moscow. Some ‘witnesses’ also said ‘that Trump privately sought information about future WikiLeaks releases’ and that Trump was aware of something, which is redacted, ‘at a time when public reports stated that Russian intelligence officials were behind the hacks.’”4. Trump’s efforts to remove the special counsel“Rosenstein appointed Mueller the special counsel to oversee the Russia inquiry on May 17, 2017.“Trump’s reaction to the appointment, according to the report, was to say, ‘This is the end of my Presidency.’….”“Days later, Trump began to tell his White House advisers that Mueller couldn’t serve as special counsel because of conflicts of interest. Specifically, the report says, Trump said Mueller had interviewed to become FBI director prior to being named special counsel, that he had been employed by a law firm that had represented people connected to Trump, and that Mueller had disputed membership fees that he was charged by a Trump golf course in Virginia. But Trump advisers told him that those did not count as conflicts….”“Then, on June 14, 2017, the Washington Post reported that the special counsel was, in fact, investigating whether Trump had attempted to obstruct justice by firing Comey. Trump responded to the news report by criticizing the investigation in a series of tweets over the next two days. Trump then called McGhan twice on June 17, 2017, and ordered him to call Rosenstein and have Mueller removed as special counsel based on the conflicts that Trump believed existed… McGahn said he had no intention of relaying the president’s message to Rosenstein, and instead decided that he would resign if the president persisted.“Trump also consulted Christie about having Mueller fired, and Christie, the report says, advised him against it.“Regarding the president’s intent, the report says there is evidence the president was aware that he should not have given McGhan those instructions.“ ‘The President made the calls to McGahn after McGahn had specifically told the President that the White House Counsel’s Office — and McGahn himself — could not be involved in pressing conflict claims and that the President should consult with his personal counsel if he wished to raise conflicts,’ the report says. “Instead of relying on his personal counsel to submit the conflicts claims, the President sought to use his official powers to remove the Special Counsel. And after the media reported on the President’s actions, he denied that he ever ordered McGahn to have the Special Counsel terminated and made repeated efforts to have McGahn deny the story. … Those denials are contrary to the evidence and suggest the President’s awareness that the direction to McGahn could be seen as improper.’”5. Efforts to curtail the special counsel’s investigation“In the summer of 2017 the president sought the help of Corey Lewandowski — his original campaign manager whom White House officials quoted in the report described as a ‘devotee’ — to limit the scope of the Russia investigation….“The special counsel’s analysis of this evidence concluded that the president sought to limit the special counsel’s review to only future elections after he had learned that his own conduct was part of the investigation.”6. Efforts to prevent public disclosure of Trump Tower meeting“The Mueller report provides a detailed analysis of Trump’s efforts to mislead the public or evade public disclosure about the now-infamous June 9, 2016, meeting at Trump Tower between senior campaign officials, including Donald Trump Jr., and Russians offering dirt on Hillary Clinton….“Still, the president’s efforts merely withheld information from the press, the report states, and there is no evidence that Trump ‘took steps to prevent the emails or other information about the June 9 meeting from being provided to Congress or the Special Counsel’ — which would be required to amount to criminal obstruction.”7. Efforts to get the attorney general to take over the investigation“Trump tried to get then-Attorney General Sessions to reverse his recusal and take over the Russia investigation….“Trump fired Sessions the day after the midterm elections, Nov. 7, 2018.“In assessing the president’s intent, the Mueller report says there’s evidence the president wanted Sessions to take control of the Russia investigation and ‘supervise it in a way that would restrict its scope.’ In the summer of 2017, Trump knew that he was being personally investigated for obstruction of justice, and that the investigation included his son and son-in-law, due to the Trump Tower meeting disclosure. Trump told Sessions he wanted to be ‘treated fairly,’ and often suggested an attorney general should protect the president. ‘A reasonable inference from those statements and the President’s actions is that the President believed that an unrecused Attorney General would play a protective role and could shield the President from the ongoing Russia investigation.’”8. Efforts to squash report that McGahn was ordered to have special counsel removed“According to the report, Trump’s personal counsel called the attorney for White House counsel McGahn and relayed that Trump wanted McGahn to put out a statement denying a New York Times story that Trump had asked him to fire the special counsel. There was just one problem: McGahn said the story was accurate on that point, and he refused to do it….“The report concludes that, ‘Substantial evidence indicates that in repeatedly urging McGahn to dispute that he was ordered to have the Special Counsel terminated, the President acted for the purpose of influencing McGahn’s account in order to deflect or prevent further scrutiny of the President’s conduct towards the investigation.’”9. Trump’s conduct toward Flynn, Manafort“After Flynn pleaded guilty to making false statements, the press asked Trump whether he would pardon Flynn. Trump said, on Dec. 15, 2017, ‘I don’t want to talk about pardons for Michael Flynn yet. We’ll see what happens.’….“Trump repeatedly, in press interviews and on Twitter, said Paul Manafort, his former campaign chairman, was being treated unfairly, during his prosecution and jury deliberations.“Also, in January 2018, Manafort told former deputy campaign manager Richard Gates, who had been indicted along with Manafort on multiple felony counts at that point, that the president’s personal attorney had told him they would ‘take care of us.”’Manafort told Gates they should ‘sit tight’ and ‘we’ll be taken care of,’ though he said no one used the word ‘pardon.’”10. Trump’s conduct toward Cohen“With respect to obstruction as it relates to Cohen, the special counsel’s concern was two-pronged: 1) whether Trump or others helped or participated in Cohen’s false congressional testimony, and 2) whether the president did things that would have “a natural tendency” to prevent Cohen from being truthful.“The report concludes that while there is evidence that Trump “knew Cohen provided false testimony to Congress,” it “does not establish that the President directed or aided” that false testimony… the report states that the absence of evidence “precludes us from assessing what, if any, role the President played….“On the question of intent, the special counsel repeatedly indicates that the evidence ‘could support an inference’ that Trump meant to discourage Cohen from cooperating because it would reflect negatively on the president. That is true for Cohen’s false testimony, which minimized connections between Trump and Russia, and for Trump’s attacks against Cohen’s family once he began cooperating, which the report says ‘could be viewed as an effort to retaliate against Cohen and chill further testimony adverse to the President by Cohen or others.’”

1. Why did you accept the Special Counsel appointment when you had such obvious (and personal) conflicts of interest? (First, Mueller was interested in returning to his old job as FBI Director. President Trump turned him down the day before Rosenstein appointed him to the Special Counsel; Next, Mueller had a close long-term relationship with James Comey, whose firing triggered the Special Counsel; Last, Mueller had been involved in a financial dispute with Trump years ago over a portion of his membership fee ($15,000) at one of Trump’s golf clubs.)2. When did you learn that President Trump had not colluded with the Russians?3. Why did you choose only Democrats for your investigation team? (Special Counsel rules require a bipartisan team. They also require that the Special Counsel be a Washington outsider. Mueller was the ultimate Washington insider.)4. Why did you give the strong impression during your press conference that, although there may very well have been a prosecutable case against the President, you weren’t able to draw a conclusion due to the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel rules? And, given that you were able to draw a conclusion about collusion, why couldn’t you have done so on obstruction?5. Why did you stir up impeachment fever among House Democrats during your press conference? (Mueller tossed out a not so thinly veiled call to action.)6. Why did you ignore Hillary Clinton and her obvious crimes of obstruction of justice? Why did you ignore her collusion with Russia and Ukraine?7. When did you realize the Steele dossier was a pack of lies? And that the FBI had obtained a warrant to spy on Carter Page using the bogus dossier as the basis of their application?8. A DOJ court filing shows that the FBI actually began spying on Michael Flynn in January 2016 rather than December 2016 as the FBI and the Mueller report maintain. Please explain.9. The Mueller report omits a significant sentence from a voicemail left for Michael Flynn’s attorney’s by Trump’s attorney, John Dowd, which materially changes the meaning of the message. Please explain.10. In the opening of the report, the Mueller team ties Ukrainian businessman Konstantin Kilimnik, who worked for Paul Manafort’s lobbying firm, to Russian intelligence. The reality is that Kilimnik was a top informant for the U.S. State Department and other Western intelligence agencies as well. Please explain.11. In Volume II, page 103, in reference to the participants in the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting, you refer to “the firm that produced the Steele reporting.” Why did you intentionally omit citing the name Fusion GPS or its owner, Glenn Simpson, throughout the 448-page report?12. Did you know that at the same time Fusion GPS was working to collect opposition research on Donald Trump for the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee it also was representing Prevezon, a Russian-based company sanctioned by the U.S. government?13. Why did you omit the fact that Glenn Simpson was working with Natalia Veselnitskya, the so-called Russian lawyer, on the Prevezon project and that Simpson met with her before the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting that she attended with Trump campaign associates including Donald Trump, Jr.?14. Why did you also omit the fact the Glenn Simpson was working with Rinat Akhmetshin—another attendee of the Trump Tower meeting—on the Prevezon project and that Simpson met with both Veselnitskya and Akhmetshin the day after the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting?15. Your office scrubbed the iPhone devices used by Peter Strzok and Lisa Page after they were dismissed from the team. Is that obstruction of justice since both are subjects of ongoing congressional investigations?16. At what point did Comey inform Trump that the campaign was under investigation since there is no indication in Comey’s own memos that he disclosed that information to the president at any time prior to March 2017?17. Aside from Comey’s own memos, do you have additional evidence to support the allegation that the president asked Comey to drop any inquiries related to Michael Flynn?18. The report cites numerous news articles, including a few that contain classified information sourced by anonymous government officials. As you know, it is a felony to disclose classified information, such as intercepted phone calls with foreign ambassadors under surveillance and the existence of a FISA warrant. Did you identify any of the government officials who were illegally leaking classified information to the news media?19. Is it illegal for the president of the United States to fire the FBI director, with or without cause?20. Is it illegal for the president of the United States to consider firing, or to fire, a special counsel?21. As a former prosecutor, yourself, if a DA requested a search warrant based on felonious and false pretense, should he be disbarred?22. If it was not your job to determine if the President had committed a crime, what have you been doing for the past 22 months?