Mueller Report Details Trump’s Attempts to Influence Probe

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report details ten “incidents” in which President Trump sought to curtail or otherwise affect the direction of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Mueller’s report outlines the president’s attempts to intervene in the special-counsel probe to bring it to a premature conclusion or to affect the public perception of it by manipulating government officials’ statements. It stops short, however, of making a prosecutorial determination regarding whether Trump obstructed justice — a decision it indicates is best left to Congress.

“The incidents were often carried out through one-on-one meetings in which the President sought to use his official power outside of usual channels,” the report reads. “These actions ranged from efforts to remove the Special Counsel and to reverse the effect of the Attorney General’s recusal; to the attempted use of official power to limit the scope of the investigation; to direct and indirect contacts with witnesses with the potential to influence their testimony. Viewing the acts collectively can help to illuminate their significance.”

The most prominent example of Trump’s attempted intervention in the special counsel probe is his directing White House Counsel Don McGahn to remove Mueller. McGahn, according to the report, flatly refused to do so and threatened to resign rather than carry out the directive. McGahn then refused Trump’s directive to state publicly that he had not been ordered to remove the special counsel.

In another example provided in the report, Trump urged then-attorney general Jeff Sessions, who had recused himself from the probe, to reassert control over it, telling the former Alabama senator that he’d be considered a “hero” for doing so.

Trump also asked his former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, to ask Sessions to say publicly that the investigation was “very unfair” to the president. Lewandowski was uncomfortable with the task, so he asked another White House official, Rick Dearborn, to deliver the message, but Dearborn never complied.