Robert Mueller’s special counsel probe debunked the claim that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia and declined to refer obstruction charges against the president.
But the conventional wisdom is that, as Mueller put it in his 448-page report, Russia interfered in the 2016 in a “sweeping and systemic” fashion through so-called Russian internet troll farms linked to the Kremlin that distributed “fake news.”
However, at a House hearing Wednesday, Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., pointed out to the former special counsel that he and his prosecutors were “excoriated” by a judge for claiming the Russian companies were linked to the Kremlin.
At a May 28 hearing, the California lawmaker noted, Judge Dabney Friedrich threatened to hold Mueller prosecutors in criminal contempt for claiming without evidence that the Internet Research Agency and Concord Management and Company were linked to the Russian government.
“Why did you suggest Russia was responsible for the troll farms when in court you were unable to produce any evidence to support it?” McClintock asked.
“I’m, I’m not going to get into that any further than I already have,” Mueller replied.
“But you have left the clear impression throughout the country through your report that it was the Russian government behind the troll farms,” McClintock said. “And yet when you’re call upon to provide actual evidence in court, you fail to do so.”
Mueller responded: “Well, I would again, uh, uh, dispute your characterization of what occurred in that [unintelligible].”
McClintock said the judge backed off only after Mueller’s hastily called press conference the next day in which he retroactively made a distinction between the Russian government and the Russian troll farms.
The congressman asked Mueller if his May 29 press conference had anything to do with the judge’s threat to hold his prosecutors in contempt.
After asking for the question to be repeated, Mueller said, “No.”
McClintock said the “fundamental” problem is that Congress members must take Mueller and his team for its word that all of the evidence referenced in the special counsel report has been faithfully described.
However, the congressman said, “we’re finding more and more evidence that this just isn’t the case.”
“It’s starting to look like, having desperately tried and failed to make a legal case against the president, you made a political case instead,” McClintock said.
“You put it in a paper sack, lit it on fire, dropped it on our porch, rang the doorbell and ran.”
Mueller replied: “I don’t think you have (ever) reviewed a report that is as thorough, as fair, as consistent as the report that we have in front of us.”
McClintock retorted, as his time expired, “Then why is contradictory information continuing to come out?
Judge Friedrich wrote in a memo that “the Special Counsel Report describes efforts by the Russian government to interfere with the 2016 presidential election, but the indictment, which alleges that private Russian entities and individual conducted an ‘information warfare’ campaign designed to sow discord among US voters, Indictment 10, does not link the defendants to the Russian government.”
The judge said that with the exception of “a single allegation that Concord and Concord Catering had several ‘government contracts’ (with no further elaboration), the indictment alleges only private conduct by private actors.”
