Mueller for Dummies, Part II: Obstruction of justice

Report on the Investigation Into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election
Presented with Related Material by The Washington Post
Rosalind S. Helderman and Matt Zapotsky
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In Volume II, Mueller’s inquiry focuses “on a series of actions by the President that related to the Russian-interference investigations, including the President’s conduct towards the law enforcement officials overseeing the investigations and the witnesses to relevant events.” While Mueller once again acknowledged that, given DOJ policy, he couldn’t make a prosecutorial judgment about obstruction, he noted that given its extensive Article One powers: “Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the President’s corrupt exercise of the powers of office” in accordance “with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law.”

Mueller lists the actions that prompted his decision “that there was a sufficient factual and legal basis to further investigate potential obstruction-of-justice issues involving the President.”

“(a) The President’s January 27, 2017 dinner with former FBI Director James Comey in which the President reportedly asked for Comey’s loyalty, one day after the White House had been briefed by the Department of Justice on contacts between former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and the Russian Ambassador;

“(b) The President’s February 14, 2017 meeting with Comey in which the President reportedly asked Comey not to pursue an investigation of Flynn;

“(c) The President’s private requests to Comey to make public the fact that the President was not the subject of an FBI investigation and to lift what the President regarded as a cloud;

“(d) The President’s outreach to the Director of National Intelligence and the Directors of the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency about the FBI’s Russia investigation;

“(e) The President’s stated rationales for terminating Comey on May 9, 2017, including statements that could reasonably be understood as acknowledging that the FBI’s Russia investigation was a factor in Comey’s termination; an

“(f) The President’s reported involvement in issuing a statement about the June 9, 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Russians and senior Trump Campaign officials that said the meeting was about adoption and omitted that the Russians had offered to provide the Trump Campaign with derogatory information about Hillary Clinton.”

The Table of Contents of Volume II lists a summary of Mueller’s “Factual Results of the Obstruction Investigation:

A. The Campaign’s Response to Reports About Russian Support for Trump
B. The President’s Conduct Concerning the Investigation of Michael Flynn
C. The President’s Reaction to Public Confirmation of the FBI’s Russia Investigation
D. Events Leading Up To and Surrounding the Termination of FBI Director Comey
E. The President’s Efforts to Remove the Special Counsel
F. The President’s Efforts to Curtail the Special Counsel Investigation
G. The President’s Efforts to Prevent Disclosure of Emails About the June 9, 2016 Meeting Between Russians and Senior Campaign Officials
H. The President’s Further Efforts to Have the Attorney General Take Over the Investigation
I. The President Orders McGahn to Deny that the President Tried to Fire the Special Counsel
J. The President’s Conduct Towards Flynn, Manafort, [++++++] (Ongoing Matters redaction).
K. The President’s Conduct Involving Michael Cohen

Mueller explains that the issue of intent is at the heart of an investigation into obstruction: “We therefore requested that the White House provide us with documentary evidence in its possession on the relevant events. We also sought and obtained the White House’s concurrence in our conducting interviews of White House personnel who had relevant information … These investigative steps allowed us to gather a substantial amount of evidence.

“We also sought a voluntary interview with the President. After more than a year of discussion, the President declined to be interviewed. [~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~] During the course of our discussions, the President did agree to answer written questions on certain Russia-related topics, and he provided us with answers. He did not similarly agree to provide written answers to questions on obstruction topics or questions on events during the transition.” (Grand jury redactions. Emphasis added). 

At which point Mueller made a critical decision that has sparked much criticism: “Ultimately, while we believed that we had the authority and legal justification to issue a grand jury subpoena to obtain the President’s testimony, we chose not to do so. We made that decision in view of the substantial delay that such an investigative step would likely produce at a late stage in our investigation. (Emphasis added).

Now it’s back to law school and United States v. Croteau, 819 F.3d 1293, 1305 (11th Cir. 2016): “In assessing the evidence we obtained, we relied on common principles that apply in any investigation. The issue of criminal intent is often inferred from circumstantial evidence.” Mueller explains: “The principle that intent can be inferred from circumstantial evidence is a necessity in criminal cases, given the right of a subject to assert his privilege against compelled self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment and therefore decline to testify. Accordingly, determinations on intent are frequently reached without the opportunity to interview an investigatory subject.”

According to uslegal.com, circumstantial evidence “is indirect evidence which creates an inference from which a main fact may be inferred. For example, circumstantial evidence of a murder is not based on first-hand eyewitness accounts, but may consist of threats made, fingerprints at the crime scene, or the presence of the accused in the vicinity of the crime.

Direct evidence, such as eyewitness testimony, is generally considered more powerful, but successful criminal prosecutions often rely largely on circumstantial evidence, and civil charges are frequently based on circumstantial or indirect evidence. When circumstantial evidence is cumulative, the weakness of such circumstantial evidence is strengthened.”

Mueller summarizes the evidence he found based on “the three statutory obstruction-of-justice elements: obstructive act, nexus to a proceeding, and intent.” The key issues and events Mueller examined include the following:

“The Campaign’s response to reports about Russian support for Trump … After WikiLeaks released politically damaging Democratic Party emails that were reported to have been hacked by Russia, Trump publicly expressed skepticism that Russia was responsible for the hacks at the same time that he and other Campaign officials privately sought information [+ + + + + + + + + + + + +] about any further planned WikiLeaks releases. Trump also denied having any business in or connections to Russia, even though as late as June 2016 the Trump Organization had been pursuing a licensing deal for a skyscraper to be built in Russia called Trump Tower Moscow. After the election, the President expressed concerns to advisors that reports of Russia’s election interference might lead the public to question the legitimacy of his election.” (Ongoing matter redactions. Emphasis added).

“Conduct involving FBI Director Comey and Michael Flynn. In mid-January 2017, incoming National Security Advisor Michael Flynn falsely denied to the Vice President, other administration officials, and FBI agents that he had talked to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak about Russia’s response to U.S. sanctions on Russia for its election interference. On January 27, the day after the President was told that Flynn had lied to the Vice President and had made similar statements to the FBI, the President invited FBI Director Comey to a private dinner at the White House and told Comey that he needed loyalty. On February 14, the day after the President requested Flynn’s resignation, the President told an outside advisor, “Now that we fired Flynn, the Russia thing is over.” …

“Later that afternoon, the President cleared the Oval Office to have a one-on-one meeting with Comey. Referring to the FBI’s investigation of Flynn, the President said, “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.” Shortly after requesting Flynn’s resignation and speaking privately to Comey, the President sought to have Deputy National Security Advisor K.T. McFarland draft an internal letter stating that the President had not directed Flynn to discuss sanctions with Kislyak. McFarland declined because she did not know whether that was true, and a White House Counsel’s Office attorney thought that the request would look like a quid pro quo for an ambassadorship she had been offered. (Emphasis added).

“The President’s reaction to the continuing Russia investigation. In February 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions began to assess whether he had to recuse himself from campaign-related investigations because of his role in the Trump Campaign. In early March, the President told White House Counsel Donald McGahn to stop Sessions from recusing. And after Sessions announced his recusal on March 2, the President expressed anger at the decision and told advisors that he should have an Attorney General who would protect him. That weekend, the President took Sessions aside at an event and urged him to “unrecuse.”

“Later in March, Comey publicly disclosed at a congressional hearing that the FBI was investigating “the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election,” including any links or coordination between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign. In the following days, the President reached out to the Director of National Intelligence and the leaders of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA) to ask them what they could do to publicly dispel the suggestion that the President had any connection to the Russian election-interference effort. The President also twice called Comey directly, notwithstanding guidance from McGahn to avoid direct contacts with the Department of Justice. Comey had previously assured the President that the FBI was not investigating him personally, and the President asked Comey to “lift the cloud” of the Russia investigation by saying that publicly. (Emphasis added).

“The President’s termination of Comey. On May 3, 2017, Comey testified in a congressional hearing, but declined to answer questions about whether the President was personally under investigation. Within days, the President decided to terminate Comey. The President insisted that the termination letter, which was written for public release, state that Comey had informed the President that he was not under investigation. The day of the firing, the White House maintained that Comey’s termination resulted from independent recommendations from the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General that Comey should be discharged for mishandling the Hillary Clinton email investigation. But the President had decided to fire Comey before hearing from the Department of Justice.

President Trump hosted Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and Ambassador Kislyak at the White House and told them he fired James Comey. Photo courtesy NPR

“The day after firing Comey, the President told Russian officials that he had ‘faced great pressure because of Russia,’ which had been ‘taken off’ by Comey’s firing. The next day, the President acknowledged in a television interview that he was going to fire Comey regardless of the Department of Justice’s recommendation and that when he ‘decided to just do it’ he was thinking that ‘this thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story.’ In response to a question about whether he was angry with Comey about the Russia investigation, the President said, ‘As far as I’m concerned, I want that thing to be absolutely done properly,’ adding that firing Comey ‘might even lengthen out the investigation.’ (Emphasis added).

“The appointment of a Special Counsel and efforts to remove him. On May 17, 2017, the Acting Attorney General for the Russia investigation appointed a Special Counsel to conduct the investigation and related matters. The President reacted to news that a Special Counsel had been appointed by telling advisors that it was ‘the end of his presidency’ and demanding that Sessions resign. Sessions submitted his resignation, but the President ultimately did not accept it. The President told aides that the Special Counsel had conflicts of interest and suggested that the Special Counsel therefore could not serve. The President’s advisors told him the asserted conflicts were meritless and had already been considered by the Department of Justice. (Emphasis added).

“On June 14, 2017, the media reported that the Special Counsel’s Office was investigating whether the President had obstructed justice … The President reacted to this news with a series of tweets criticizing the Department of Justice and the Special Counsel’s investigation. On June 17, 2017, the President called McGahn at home and directed him to call the Acting Attorney General and say that the Special Counsel had conflicts of interest and must be removed. McGahn did not carry out the direction, however, deciding that he would resign rather than trigger what he regarded as a potential Saturday Night Massacre. (Emphasis added).

Attorney Donald F. McGahn II. Photo: Doug Mills, New York Times

“Efforts to curtail the Special Counsel’s investigation. Two days after directing McGahn to have the Special Counsel removed, the President made another attempt to affect the course of the Russia investigation. On June 19, 2017, the President met one-on-one in the Oval Office with his former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, a trusted advisor outside the government, and dictated a message for Lewandowski to deliver to Sessions. The message said that Sessions should publicly announce that, notwithstanding his recusal from the Russia investigation, the investigation was ‘very unfair’ to the President, the President had done nothing wrong, and Sessions planned to meet with the Special Counsel and ‘let [him] move forward with investigating election meddling for future elections.’ Lewandowski said he understood what the President wanted Sessions to do. (Emphasis added).

“One month later, in another private meeting with Lewandowski on July 19, 2017, the President asked about the status of his message for Sessions to limit the Special Counsel investigation to future election interference. Lewandowski told the President that the message would be delivered soon. Hours after that meeting, the President publicly criticized Sessions in an interview with the New York Times, and then issued a series of tweets making it clear that Sessions’s job was in jeopardy. Lewandowski did not want to deliver the President’s message personally, so he asked senior White House official Rick Dearborn to deliver it to Sessions. Dearborn was uncomfortable with the task and did not follow through. (Emphasis added).

Quinta Jurecic, the managing editor of the Lawfare blog, discussed the significance of involving Lewandowski: “Simply firing Mr. Mueller would have been within the president’s power. Asking a private citizen to deliver that message, however, moves this outside the realm of the president’s management of the executive branch and toward clearer-cut obstruction of justice. Attorney General Bill Barr’s view that the president did not obstruct justice is informed by his argument that presidential conduct authorized by the Constitution cannot constitute obstruction. But this does not address conduct, like the order to Mr. Lewandowski, that took place outside the scope of the Constitution.”

“Efforts to prevent public disclosure of evidence. In the summer of 2017, the President learned that media outlets were asking questions about the June 9, 2016 meeting at Trump Tower between senior campaign officials, including Donald Trump Jr., and a Russian lawyer who was said to be offering damaging information about Hillary Clinton as ‘part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.’ On several occasions, the President directed aides not to publicly disclose the emails setting up the June 9 meeting, suggesting that the emails would not leak and that the number of lawyers with access to them should be limited. Before the emails became public, the President edited a press statement for Trump Jr. by deleting a line that acknowledged that the meeting was with ‘an individual who [Trump Jr.] was told might have information helpful to the campaign’ and instead said only that the meeting was about adoptions of Russian children. When the press asked questions about the President’s involvement in Trump Jr.’s statement, the President’s personal lawyer repeatedly denied the President had played any role. (Emphasis added).

“Further efforts to have the Attorney General take control of the investigation. In early summer 2017, the President called Sessions at home and again asked him to reverse his recusal from the Russia investigation. Sessions did not reverse his recusal. In October 2017, the President met privately with Sessions in the Oval Office and asked him to ‘take [a] look’ at investigating Clinton. In December 2017, shortly after Flynn pleaded guilty pursuant to a cooperation agreement, the President met with Sessions in the Oval Office and suggested, according to notes taken by a senior advisor, that if Sessions unrecused and took back supervision of the Russia investigation, he would be a ‘hero.’ The President told Sessions, ‘I’m not going to do anything or direct you to do anything. I just want to be treated fairly.’ In response, Sessions volunteered that he had never seen anything “improper” on the campaign and told the President there was a ‘whole new leadership team’ in place. He did not unrecuse. (Emphasis added).

“Efforts to have McGahn deny that the President had ordered him to have the Special Counsel removed. In early 2018, the press reported that the President had directed McGahn to have the Special Counsel removed in June 2017 and that McGahn had threatened to resign rather than carry out the order. The President reacted to the news stories by directing White House officials to tell McGahn to dispute the story and create a record stating he had not been ordered to have the Special Counsel removed. McGahn told those officials that the media reports were accurate in stating that the President had directed McGahn to have the Special Counsel removed. The President then met with McGahn in the Oval Office and again pressured him to deny the reports. In the same meeting, the President also asked McGahn why he had told the Special Counsel about the President’s effort to remove the Special Counsel and why McGahn took notes of his conversations with the President. McGahn refused to back away from what he remembered happening and perceived the President to be testing his mettle. (Emphasis added).

“Conduct towards Flynn, Manafort, [+ + + + +]. After Flynn withdrew from a joint defense agreement with the President and began cooperating with the government, the President’s personal counsel left a message for Flynn’s attorneys reminding them of the President’s warm feelings towards Flynn, which he said ‘still remains,’ and asking for a ‘heads up’ if Flynn knew “information that implicates the President.” When Flynn’s counsel reiterated that Flynn could no longer share information pursuant to a joint defense agreement, the President’s personal counsel said he would make sure that the President knew that Flynn’s actions reflected “hostility” towards the President. During Manafort’s prosecution and when the jury in his criminal trial was deliberating, the President praised Manafort in public, said that Manafort was being treated unfairly, and declined to rule out a pardon. After Manafort was convicted, the President called Manafort ‘a brave man’ for refusing to ‘break’ and said that ‘flipping’ ‘almost ought to be [+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +] Ongoing matter redactions. Emphasis added).

“Conduct involving Michael Cohen. The President’s conduct towards Michael Cohen, a former Trump Organization executive, changed from praise for Cohen when he falsely minimized the President’s involvement in the Trump Tower Moscow project, to castigation of Cohen when he became a cooperating witness. From September 2015 to June 2016, Cohen had pursued the Trump Tower Moscow project on behalf of the Trump Organization and had briefed candidate Trump on the project numerous times, including discussing whether Trump should travel to Russia to advance the deal.

“In 2017, Cohen provided false testimony to Congress about the project, including stating that he had only briefed Trump on the project three times and never discussed travel to Russia with him, in an effort to adhere to a ‘party line’ that Cohen said was developed to minimize the President’s connections to Russia. While preparing for his congressional testimony, Cohen had extensive discussions with the President’s personal counsel, who, according to Cohen, said that Cohen should ‘stay on message’ and not contradict the President. After the FBI searched Cohen’s home and office in April 2018, the President publicly asserted that Cohen would not ‘flip,’ contacted him directly to tell him to ‘stay strong,’ and privately passed messages of support to him. Cohen also discussed pardons with the President’s personal counsel and believed that if he stayed on message he would be taken care of. But after Cohen began cooperating with the government in the summer of 2018, the President publicly criticized him, called him a ‘rat,’ and suggested that his family members had committed crimes.” (Emphasis added).

Mueller offers some details about how the Trump Campaign reacted to allegations that Russia was seeking to aid candidate Trump: “On July 26, 2016, Trump tweeted that it was ‘[crazy’ to suggest that Russia was ‘dealing with Trump’ and that ‘[f]or the record,’ he had ‘ZERO investments in Russia’ …

“In a press conference the next day, July 27, 2016, Trump characterized ‘this whole thing with Russia’ as ‘a total deflection’ and stated that it was ‘farfetched’ and ‘ridiculous.’ Trump said that the assertion that Russia had hacked the emails was unproven, but stated that it would give him ‘no pause’ if Russia had Clinton’s emails. Trump added, ‘Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.’ Trump also said that ‘there’s nothing that I can think of that I’d rather do than have Russia friendly as opposed to the way they are right now,’ and in response to a question about whether he would recognize Crimea as Russian territory and consider lifting sanctions, Trump replied, ‘We’ll be looking at that. Yeah, we’ll be looking.’ (Emphasis added).

“During the press conference, Trump repeated ‘I have nothing to do with Russia’ five times. He stated that ‘the closest [he] came to Russia’ was that Russians may have purchased a home or condos from him. He said that after he held the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow in 2013 he had been interested in working with Russian companies that ‘wanted to put a lot of money into developments in Russia’ but ‘it never worked out.’ He explained, ‘[f]rankly, I didn’t want to do it for a couple of different reasons. But we had a major developer . . . that wanted to develop property in Moscow and other places. But we decided not to do it.’ The Trump Organization, however, had been pursuing a building project in Moscow—the Trump Tower Moscow project—from approximately September 2015 through June 2016, and the candidate was regularly updated on developments, including possible trips by Michael Cohen to Moscow to promote the deal and by Trump himself to finalize it.

“Cohen recalled speaking with Trump after the press conference about Trump’s denial of any business dealings in Russia, which Cohen regarded as untrue. Trump told Cohen that Trump Tower Moscow was not a deal yet and said, ‘Why mention it if it is not a deal?’ According to Cohen, at around this time, in response to Trump’s disavowal of connections to Russia, campaign advisors had developed a ‘party line’ that Trump had no business with Russia and no connections to Russia. (Emphasis added).

The policy of denying contacts between Russia and the Trump team continued after the election: “On November 8, 2016, Trump was elected President. Two days later, Russian officials told the press that the Russian government had maintained contacts with Trump’s ‘immediate entourage’ during the campaign. In response, Hope Hicks, who had been the Trump Campaign spokesperson, said, ‘We are not aware of any campaign representatives that were in touch with any foreign entities before yesterday, when Mr. Trump spoke with many world leaders.’ Hicks gave an additional statement denying any contacts between the Campaign and Russia: ‘It never happened. There was no communication between the campaign and any foreign entity during the campaign.’ (Emphasis added)

Image courtesy New York Times

“On December 10, 2016, the press reported that U.S. intelligence agencies had ‘concluded that Russia interfered in last month’s presidential election to boost Donald Trump’s bid for the White House.’ Reacting to the story the next day, President-Elect Trump stated, ‘I think it’s ridiculous. I think it’s just another excuse.’ He continued that no one really knew who was responsible for the hacking, suggesting that the intelligence community had ‘no idea if it’s Russia or China or somebody. It could be somebody sitting in a bed some place.’ The President-Elect also said that Democrats were ‘putting [] out’ the story of Russian interference ‘because they suffered one of the greatest defeats in the history of politics.’ (Emphasis added) …

Trump’s need to dismiss the increasingly convincing evidence that the Russians interfered in a systematic and sweeping way in our elections as a conspiracy to tarnish his electoral victory provides a strong motive for his attempts to impede the investigation: “Several advisors recalled that the President-Elect viewed stories about his Russian connections, the Russia investigations, and the intelligence community assessment of Russian interference as a threat to the legitimacy of his electoral victory. Hicks, for example, said that the President-Elect viewed the intelligence community assessment as his “Achilles heel” because, even if Russia had no impact on the election, people would think Russia helped him win, taking away from what he had accomplished. Sean Spicer, the first White House communications director, recalled that the President thought the Russia story was developed to undermine the legitimacy of his election. Gates said the President viewed the Russia investigation as an attack on the legitimacy of his win. And Priebus recalled that when the intelligence assessment came out, the President-Elect was concerned people would question the legitimacy of his win.”

Hope Hicks. Photo courtesy ABC News

And, these actions certainly prompt speculation that he knew more about, or perhaps encouraged, or participated in some ways in the Russian efforts.

Quinta Jurecic’s analysis of this critical issue points again to our need to see the full, unredacted report: “How much did Mr. Trump personally know about Russian efforts to assist his campaign, and when did he know it? Three pages of heavily redacted text provide hints. Rick Gates, a top adviser, said that the campaign was ‘planning a press strategy, a communications campaign, and messaging based on the possible release’ of Hillary Clinton emails by WikiLeaks.

Mueller Report, ongoing matters redactions

Quinta Jurecic continues: “After receiving a call during a drive to La Guardia Airport, Mr. Trump ‘told Gates that more releases of damaging information would be coming.’ The details are redacted, and the redactions are marked ‘harm to ongoing matter,’ perhaps related to the prosecution of Roger Stone. Mr. Mueller has alleged that Mr. Stone, a Trump affiliate, sought to obtain information about WikiLeaks’ planned release of anti-Clinton material and pass that information to the campaign. Mr. Mueller found ‘insufficient evidence’ to charge a criminal conspiracy between the Russian government and the campaign. But the campaign was clearly keeping a close eye on Russia-linked hacking and leaking efforts and expecting to benefit from them.”

This section suggests that Mr. Trump may have been in the loop on the campaign’s efforts to get a heads up about what WikiLeaks had planned. And that is a very long way from “no collusion.”

Back to Mr. Mueller: “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, however, we are unable to reach that judgment. The evidence we obtained about the President’s actions and intent presents difficult issues that prevent us from conclusively determining that no criminal conduct occurred. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” (Emphasis added).

Beginning May 6, 2019, and continuing during the month since, 1,006 former DOJ federal prosecutors took it upon themselves to say what Robert Mueller couldn’t say:

“We are former federal prosecutors. We served under both Republican and Democratic administrations at different levels of the federal system: as line attorneys, supervisors, special prosecutors, United States Attorneys, and senior officials at the Department of Justice. The offices in which we served were small, medium, and large; urban, suburban, and rural; and located in all parts of our country.

“Each of us believes that the conduct of President Trump described in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report would, in the case of any other person not covered by the Office of Legal Counsel policy against indicting a sitting President, result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice.

“The Mueller report describes several acts that satisfy all of the elements for an obstruction charge: conduct that obstructed or attempted to obstruct the truth-finding process, as to which the evidence of corrupt intent and connection to pending proceedings is overwhelming. These include:

• The President’s efforts to fire Mueller and to falsify evidence about that effort;
• The President’s efforts to limit the scope of Mueller’s investigation to exclude his conduct; and
• The President’s efforts to prevent witnesses from cooperating with investigators probing him and his campaign.” (Emphasis added).

Finally, for those of you who still underestimate what the Mueller team was up against when it came to eliciting useful testimony from the President, here is just one short example of the 29 times President Trump couldn’t recall the answer to one of Mueller’s reasonable questions:

This is but a short summary of the extraordinarily detailed examination of the President’s attempts to lie, limit, and obstruct the investigation into the efforts of the Russians to influence the 2016 election. So often his orders were ignored or disobeyed or carried out with incompetence. But always the intent was clear and corrupt.

Please read the Mueller Report.
https://games-cdn.washingtonpost.com/notes/prod/default/documents/f5fe536c-81bb-45be-86e5-a9fee9794664/note/a8d336ef-e98d-4a08-987d-b4c154b22700.pdf

___________________________________________________________________

Sources

“4 Disturbing Details You May Have Missed in the Mueller Report”
Quinta Jurecic, June 7, 2019, New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/07/opinion/mueller-report-trump-impeachment.html?

DOJ Alumni Statement, May 6, 2019
https://medium.com/@dojalumni/statement-by-former-federal-prosecutors-8ab7691c2aa1