From the Washington Post:
Standing alone on stage in a room used for press conferences on the Justice Department’s seventh floor, Mueller said that if his office “had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so,” and noted that the Constitution “requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse the president of wrongdoing.”
Mueller noted that his team found “insufficient evidence” to accuse Trump’s campaign of conspiring with Russia to tilt the 2016 election, but emphasized they did not make a similar determination on whether the president obstructed justice.
But if Mueller was trying to suggest Democrats could initiate impeachment proceedings, he also seemed to dash any hopes they might have had of doing so with him as their star witness. The special counsel — who noted he was closing up shop and formally resigning from the Justice Department — said he hoped the news conference would be his last public comments, and if he were compelled to testify before Congress, he would not speak beyond what he wrote in his 448-page report.
For the whole story, click here.
My Take:
Mueller was careful also to say Justice Dept. guidelines do not allow an indictment of a sitting president, and that to make an accusation against someone who could not then defend himself in court would not be fair. He is saying the president is guilty of obstruction of justice, that he cannot be criminally indicted for it while president, and congress can impeach if they want to do something about it. Congress should begin an impeachment inquiry without further delay.
