Robert Mueller Testimony before House Intelligence Committee

"So the circumstances surrounding the origin of the investigation have yet to be fully vetted then. I'm... glad that Attorney General Barr and U.S. Attorney Durham are looking into this matter."

"[T]his was your work. ...[Y]our office is the only one who had information regarding this. It had to come from your office. Putting that aside... [D]id you do anything about it?"

"[Y]ou sent a letter, dated March 27th, to Attorney General Barr, in which you claim the Attorney General's memo to Congress did not fully capture the context of your report. You stated earlier today that response was not authorized. Did you make any effort to determine who leaked this confidential letter?"

"[Y]ou're right, it is a cloud, and it's an unfair cloud for dozens of people. But to my point, are you aware of anyone providing information to the media regarding the raid on Roger Stone's home, including CNN?"

"But you make no mention of it in your report. Would you agree with that?"

"Volume 1, page 5: "the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities." So it would therefore be inaccurate, based on this, to describe that finding, as open to doubt. That finding being that the Trump campaign was involved with theft or publication of the Clinton campaign emails. You following that, sir?"

"So you believe that... Bill Barr believes that somewhere in the hallways of the Department of Justice, there's an office of exoneration?"

"[T]he Attorney General probably knows that he can't exonerate either, and that's the part that... confuses me. Because if the Attorney General doesn't have the power to exonerate, then you don't have the power to exonerate, and I believe he knows he doesn't have the power to exonerate. And so this is that I don't understand. If your report is to the Attorney General, and the Attorney General doesn't have the power to exonerate—and he does not, and he knows you do not have that power—you don't have to tell him that you're not exonerating the President. He knows this already. [T]hat.. changed the context of the report."

"[I]n... your opening statement you indicate that pursuant to Justice Department regulations... you submitted a confidential report to the Attorney General at the conclusion of the investigation. What I'd like you to confirm is, the report that you did—that is the subject matter of this hearing—was to the Attorney General."

"[G]iven your constraints on what you're able or allowed to answer, with respect to counterintelligence matters or other matters that are currently open under investigation, you're not going to be able to answer my remaining questions..."

"The stated purpose of your appointment as Special Counsel was to ensure a full and thorough investigation of the Russian government efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. As part of that full and thorough investigation, what determination did the Special Counsel office make about whether the Steele dossier was part of the Russian government efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election?"

"In your May 29th press conference and, again... this morning, you made it pretty clear you wanted the Special Counsel report to speak for itself. You said at your press conference... that was the office's final position, and [would] not comment on any other conclusions or hypotheticals about the President. Now, you spent the last few hours... [with] Democrats trying to get you to answer... hypotheticals about the President... I think you've stayed pretty much true to what your intent and desire was, but... regardless of that, the Special Counsel's office has closed, and it has no continuing jurisdiction or authority. So, what would be your authority or jurisdiction for adding new conclusions or determinations to the Special Counsel's written report?"

"...Were you aware that Prince has made these allegations that he was surveilled. He's concerned that there were leaks about this surveillance. Did you make any referrals about these things?"

"Did your investigation find that the releases of the hacked e-mails were strategically timed to maximize impact on the election? ...Page 36 ..."the release of the documents were designed and timed to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election." ...[W]hich presidential candidate was Russia's hacking and dumping operation designed to benefit, Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump?"

"The second operation in the Russian attack was a scheme—what we called the hack and dump—to steal and release hundreds of thousands of e-mails from the Democratic Party and the Clinton campaign. Is Is that a fair summary?"

"Russia informed campaign officials of that? ...through an intermediary that informed Papadopoulos that they could help with the anonymous release of stolen emails?"

"[W]ho did the Russian social media campaign ultimately intend to benefit, Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump?"

"Facebook estimated, as per your report, that the Russian fake images reached 126 million people, is that correct?"

"In short, your investigation found evidence that Russia wanted to help Trump win the election, right?"

"Mike Flynn lied?"

"[T]his attack on our democracy involved, as you said, two operations. First, a social media disinformation campaign... a targeted campaign to spread false information on places like Twitter and Facebook. Is that correct?"

"[Y]our report opens with two statements of remarkable clarity and power. The first statement is one that is, as of today, not acknowledged by the President of the United States, and that is... "the Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion". The second statement remains controversial amongst members of this body, same page... "the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome". Do I have that statement right?"

"You would consider a billion dollar deal to build a tower in Moscow to be business dealings, wouldn't you, Director Mueller?"

"The difficulty with this... is we are all left to wonder whether the President is representing us or his financial interests. ...The facts you set out in your report and have elucidated here today tell a disturbing tale of a massive Russian intervention in our election, of a campaign so eager to win, so driven by greed, that it was willing to accept the help of a hostile foreign power, and a presidential election decided by a handful of votes in a few key states. Your work tells of a campaign so determined to conceal their corrupt use of foreign help, that they risked going to jail by lying to you, to the FBI, and to Congress about it and, indeed, some have gone to jail over such lies. And your work speaks of a president who committed countless acts of obstruction of justice, that in my opinion and that of many other prosecutors, had it been anyone else in the country, they would have been indicted. Notwithstanding the many things you have addressed today and in your report, there were some questions you could not answer given the constraints you're operating under. You would not tell us whether you would have indicted the president, but for the OLC opinion that you could not. And so the Justice Department will have to make that decision when the President leaves office, both as to the crime of obstruction of justice, and as to the campaign finance fraud scheme that individual [number] one directed and coordinated, and for which Michael Cohen went to jail. You would not tell us whether the president should be impeached, nor did we ask you, since it is our responsibility to determine the proper remedy for the conduct outlined in your report. Whether we decide to impeach the President... or we do not, we must take any action necessary to protect the country, while he is in office. You would not tell us the results or whether other bodies looked into Russian compromise in the form of , so we must do so. You would not tell us whether the counterintelligence investigation revealed whether people still serving within the administration pose a risk of compromise, and should never have been given a security clearance, so we must find out. We did not bother to ask whether financial inducements from any Gulf nations were influencing this U.S. policy, since it is outside the four corners of your report, and so we must find out. But one thing is clear from your report [and] your testimony from Director Wray's statements yesterday. The Russians massively intervened in 2016, and they are prepared to do so again, in voting that is set to begin a mere eight months from now. The President seems to welcome the help, again. And so, we must make all efforts to harden our election's infrastructure, to ensure there is a paper trail for all voting, to deter the Russians from meddling, to discover it when they do, to disrupt it, and to make them pay. , however, We cannot control what the Russians do, not completely, but we can decide what we do, and that the centuries old experiment we call American democracy is worth cherishing."

"If the President was concerned that if he lost his election, he didn't want to miss out on that money, might he have the same concern about losing his reelection?"

"When the president said he had no business dealings with Russia, in fact he was seeking to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, was he not?"

"When your investigation looked into these matters, numerous Trump associates lied to your team, the grand jury, and to Congress?"

"The President himself called on the Russians to hack Hillary's emails?"

"The second thing he said was, why should I miss out on all those opportunities? I mean, why indeed. Merely running a Presidential campaign, why should you miss out on making all that money, was the import of his statement. Were you ever able to ascertain whether Donald Trump still intends to build that tower when he leaves office? ...Were you able to ascertain, because he wouldn't answer your questions completely, whether or if he ever ended that desire to build that tower?"

"And when this was revealed, that there were these communications, notwithstanding President's denials, the President was confronted about this and he said two things. First... that's not a crime. But I think you and I have already agreed that shouldn't be the standard. Right, Mr. Mueller?"

"When the President said he had no business dealings with Russia, that was false, wasn't it?"

"That's the stuff of counterintelligence nightmares, is it not?"

"[S]o we have Candidate Trump who's saying "I have no dealings with the Russians," but if the Russians had a tape recording, they could expose that, could they not?"

"And when he told it to Putin, that was false, too, wasn't it?"

"Donald Trump was trying to make millions from a real estate deal in Moscow?"

"[L]et's look at , the spokesperson for the Kremlin, someone that the Trump organization was in contact with to make that deal happen. Your report indicates that Michael Cohen had a long conversation on the phone with someone from Dmitry Peskov's office. Presumably, the Russians could have tape recorded that conversation, could they not?"

"If a presidential candidate was doing business in Russia and saying he wasn't, Russians could expose that too, could they not?"

"When he said it publicly, it was false?"

"He also lied about his discussions with the Russian ambassador, and since the Russians were on the other side of the conversation, they could have exposed that, could they not?"

"And that could open him up to compromise that financial relationship."

"When the President said the Russian interference was a hoax, that was false, wasn't it?"

"was trying to make money from Turkey?"

"The President's son said, when he was approached about dirt on Hillary Clinton, that the Trump campaign would love it?"

"And during the course of this Russian interference in the election, the Russians made outreach to the Trump campaign, did they not?"

"Would you agree, sir, these acts demonstrated a betrayal of the democratic values that our country rests on?"

"I can tell you that in my years of experience as a law enforcement officer and as a member of Congress, fortunate to serve on the Intel Committee, I know enough to say yes. Trading political secrets for money with a foreign adversary can corrupt, and it can leave you open to blackmail, and it... represents the betrayal of the values underpinning our democracy. ..."

"I can say without fear of contradiction that you are the greatest patriot in this room today..."

"You said in your report... that the Russian intervention was sweeping and systematic. ...I don't think it was just an intervention. I think it was an invasion. ...I don't think it was just sweeping and systematic. I think it was sinister and scheming. ...[O]ne of my colleagues earlier here referred to this Russian intervention as a hoax, and I'd like to get your comment on that. On page 26... you talk about the , and how tens of millions of U.S. persons became engaged with the posts that they made, that there were some 80,000 posts on Facebook; that Facebook itself admitted that 126 million people had probably seen the posts, that were put up by the Internet Research Agency... [T]hey had 3,800 Twitter accounts and had designed more than 175,000 tweets, that probably reached 1.4 million people. The Internet Research Agency was spending about $1.25 million a month on all of this social media in the United States, in what I would call an invasion in our country. Would you agree that it was not a hoax, that the Russians were engaged in, trying to impact our election?"

"The Internet Research Agency actually started in 2014, by sending over staff (as tourists, I guess) to start looking at where they wanted to engage. ...[T]here are many that suggest—and I'm interested in your opinion—as to whether or not Russia is presently in the United States looking for ways to impact the 2020 election."

"Would you agree, sir, that Manafort's contacts with Russians close to Vladimir Putin, and his efforts to exchange private information on Americans for money, left him vulnerable to blackmail by the Russians?"