‘The Report Is My Testimony.’ Robert Mueller Signals He’d Rather Not Testify to Congress

Special Counsel Robert Mueller formally ended his investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, refusing to take questions from reporters and signaling that he would prefer not to testify to Congress.

“The report is my testimony,” he told a group of reporters hastily assembled at the Justice Department on Wednesday.

During the nine-minute statement, Mueller reiterated the conclusions of his his team’s 448-page report: that Russians systematically interfered in the 2016 election by hacking, that investigators found “insufficient evidence” to find any Americans conspired with the Russians in that effort, that his team pointedly did not say whether or not President Donald Trump obstructed justice during the investigation and that Congress could make that decision on its own.

“I have not spoken publicly during our investigation,” he said, in his first public remarks since the report came out. “I am speaking out today because our investigation is complete, the attorney general has made the report on our investigation largely public, we are formally losing the special counsel’s office and as well I am resigning from the Department of Justice to return to private life.”

He also noted that the Justice Department has traditionally found that prosecutors should not indict a sitting president.

“The evidence we obtained about the President’s actions and intent presents difficult issues that would need to be resolved if we were making a traditional prosecutorial judgment,” the report says. “At the same time, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

Barr’s summary, released ahead of the redacted report, stated the investigation didn’t conclude Trump or his campaign “conspired or coordinated” with Russia. But Mueller took issue with that generalization, and wrote a letter to Barr asking him to release the fuller report as soon as possible in order to “alleviate the misunderstandings that have arisen” about the context of Mueller’s findings.

Although the White House had been informed about the statement on Tuesday night, according to a senior official, leadership aides in both parties in Congress said they were unaware until the announcement was issued.

House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff’s team, however, declined to comment, and House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler’s team did not respond to requests for comment. Both committees are in the process of negotiating with the Justice Department for Mueller to appear before Congress.

With reporting by Alana Abramson