Washington - Whether or not US special counsel Robert S.
Mueller III will testify before Congress about his Russia election
meddling report will be left to Attorney General William P. Barr,
President Donald Trump said Thursday.
The president appeared to contradict himself just days after a Sunday
tweet that included this statement: "Bob Mueller should not testify."
Trump wrote that day that the former FBI director testifying before
Democratic-run House committees would amount to the opposition party
trying to invent evidence of negative information about him.
"No redos for the Dems!" Trump wrote Sunday.
But by Thursday, the president had returned to his original position
on the issue.
"I'm going to leave that up to our very great attorney general,"
Trump told reporters during another impromptu White House
question-and-answer session following a health care event. "He'll
make a decision on that."
Trump then again falsely stated that Mueller's report "fully
exonerated" him. The report, in fact, states the special counsel was
unable to clear the president on obstruction of justice.
"There was no crime," Trump said again. "It was a witch hunt."
Democrats in Congress strongly disagree, as their investigations of
Trump's Russia connections and questions about obstruction of justice
continue as relations between the two sides worsen.
For instance, Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and House Judiciary
Chairman Jerrold Nadler of New York say the actions of Trump and Barr
- including claiming executive privilege to block Congress from
seeing a completely unredacted version of Mueller's report - amounts
to a "constitutional crisis."
"President Trump has taken a series of actions over his two years as
president where he has genuinely pushed the boundaries, across a
whole range of things: criticizing sitting federal court judges, the
way he talks about the media, and now the way that he is challenging
the power of Congress," Senate Judiciary member Chris Coons, D-Del.,
said Wednesday.
"He's done this previously, in terms of spending decisions, he's done
it in other ways, in terms of the reach and scope of his executive
orders," Coons told CNN.
A day after the GOP-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee issued a
subpoena to his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., to get additional
testimony, the president said his son did nothing wrong.
"The Mueller report came out, that's the Bible," Trump said,
contending it failed to implicate Donald Jr. in any crime.
In what became one part mini-press conference and another part one of
his political rallies, the president addressed a range of topics.
Trump expressed confidence in national security adviser John Bolton
amid several foreign policy crises - and noted he often has to
"temper" his hawkish aide.
"John's very good. He has strong views on things, which is OK," Trump
said. "I'm the one who tempers him, which is OK. I have John Bolton
and I have people who are a little more dovish than him."
One of those crises is North Korea, which U.S. and South Korean
intelligence officials say fired two missiles overnight. Trump called
them "short-range missiles."
"Nobody's happy about it," he said, adding his relationship with Kim
Jong Un "continues." But the president poured cold water on the
notion the two countries are nearing a nuclear disarmament pact: "I
don't think they're ready to negotiate."
Ahead of the early evening resumption of trade talks with China in
Washington, Trump sounded hopeful even as his top negotiators have
said Beijing is backing away from the pact that was emerging.
"I think it'll be a very strong day frankly," he said of the evening
meeting. "It was their idea to come back."
He said Chinese President Xi Jinping just sent him a "beautiful
letter" that indicated a desire to work together.
In the session's most Trumpian moment, the president again suggested
his Justice Department should investigate a former Obama
administration official.
"He should be prosecuted for that," Trump said of former Secretary of
State John Kerry, referring to conversations the longtime
Massachusetts Democratic senator has had with Iranian officials since
Trump took office. "He violated the Logan Act."
Trump often makes such public pronouncements without the Justice
Department launching investigations.