Calls for Impeachment Continue After Mueller Remarks

whether President Trump had obstructed justice. If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. Now Mueller's statements led more Democrats to call for impeachment, something the President says the courts won't allow. I don't see how they can, because they're possibly allowed, although I can't imagine the courts allowing it. The courts, of course, have no role in whether Congress

can or cannot impeach a president. Joining me as former federal prosecutor Robert Mann's a partner McCarter in English, Bob, did Mueller's statements clarify what was in his report? Because it seems that people heard what they wanted to hear, and there were as many questions before as after. Well, it was a little bit of a political or shock test where everybody who listened to that could take away

whatever they wanted to hear to some extent. But I do think Mueller made one point that was crystal clear and that may have been misunderstood until he appeared for that press conference, and that is that he said that charging a sitting president was never an option, no matter what the evidence was. So what his investigation was really all about was his other question, which was could they

clear the president of these allegations? And the answer to that was, as to the question of collusion, they did clear the president. As to the question of obstruction of justice, they did not. So, as you say, Mueller accepted the Justice Department policy that a sitting president can't be indicted and said that even if the charge is kept under seal and hidden from public view, that also is prohibited.

But during Watergate, Leon Jeworski persuaded a grand jury to name Richard Nixon as an unindicted co conspirator, So why couldn't Mueller have done the same. Well, the president actually was named as an unindicted co conspirator in the Michael Cone case in New York but but not by name. The Department Justice policy says that if you're going to make allegations about an individual, you have to charge that individual.

And the logic behind that is it's unfair to charge somebody with a crime, or to suggest that somebody committed a crime, but never give them their day in court in order to clear their name. So Mueller took that guideline, tying it with the other guideline, which says you can indict a sitting president. And essentially his mandate was to determine whether or not he could clear the president, but he was not going to find that the president had

committed a crime, and that's where he came up short. Now, Attorney General Barr interpreted there's rules differently because when he gave his summary of what was in the Mueller report, he took it upon himself to clear the president of of wrongdoing. And that's something that I think was directly contrary to what was actually in the Mueller report. And I think Mueller came pretty close to saying that he

broke ranks with the Attorney General on that issue. Mueller made it perfectly clear that he did not want to testify any further than what he's done in his past, and that the report speaks for itself. The report is his testimony. But is it likely that Congress will end up subpoenaing him and will he have to abide by a subpoena? Well, that's the big question. Uh. You know, Robert Mueller is kind of an old school prosecutor. He's known as sort of a Joe Friday, just the facts,

ma'am kind of guy. And I think it was quite clear from that statement, which had been carefully scripted and just read before reporters taking no questions, that he was going to heu pretty closely to the words in that report. Now, that doesn't mean that he will not respond to a subpoena, but I think it's gonna be difficult for people in Congress to pry additional information out of him. He is

not somebody who has uh gravitated towards the limelight. He likes to simply do his job issues report and let the report, as you said, speak for itself. So he may be summoned to testify, and I think if he is asked, he will testify, But I think Congress is going to have a hard time getting additional information out

of him. It certainly seems so. Now, how much was his report designed to take the heat off his investigators and prosecutors with this investigation of the investigation by the a G. Now, Well, he did address that issue, although somewhat indirectly. He stood up for his team conducting the investigation.

He called it a fair and independent investigation, and he said that his team was of the highest integrity, And that was clearly a direct response to the ceaseless attacks on his team the Trump Some Trump supporters had called them angry democrats. I believe the president had called them angry democrats. He referred to the entire investigation as a

witch hunt. Clearly, this is Robert Mueller's understated way to stand up for not only the integrity of the investigation, but the integrity of the prosecutors who he hand picked to help him with his investigation. Many have said that Mueller was basically calling for the House to start impeachment proceedings. Is that your view? Well, he clearly kicked it over to the House by saying that there is another mechanism that can be used to determine whether or not the

president has committed wrongdoing. And although he did not speak the word impeachment. That is clearly what he was what he was referring to. So it's now really up to Congress to decipher exactly what is in that report. And as as you mentioned earlier, the question of impeachment is Charlie,

a political question rather than a legal one. So it's really going to depend, I think, in large part on taking the pulse of the country, and the Democrats will have to decide whether or not it's in their political interests to proceed with impeachment. And Bob, if they do proceed with impeachment, do the courts give them more leeway in calling witnesses for example, Don McGann and some of the other witnesses that the president is saying cannot testify

because of executive privilege. Yeah, I think it would give them broader authority in that regard, because then they will be looking at the conduct of the president himself as opposed to simply being hamstrung by the question of whether or not their inquiry is driven by legislation and having a legislative purpose. So it would give them a broader mandate and probably a greater ability to force people to testify before them about a minute here. So what's next

in your view? Well, I think what's One of the things that came out of this that was quite interesting was that Robert Mueller made a point of saying that one of the things that he found was Russia's concerted attack to attack on our political system. He really looked at the report as standing up for our institutions, standing up for process, standing up for the rule of law.

I think you can contrast that somewhat with the response by the Attorney General, who looked more at whether or not he felt that the report and implicated wrongdoing by the president. So on the one hand, the Attorney General was looking at this more as whether or not there was individual wrongdoing, while Robert Mueller was looking more as to whether or not there had been damaged to our institutions, to the process during the election, and that really was

his focus. I will have to see whether Congress takes up that a to you and strives to protect the elections coming forward. All right, thanks so much, Bob. That's repert minds of McCarter in English. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple Podcasts. SoundCloud and on bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso. This is Bloomberg Ye