Moments after Special Counsel Robert Mueller broke his two-year public silence to explain that he couldn’t charge President Trump with obstruction of justice because his hands were tied by existing DOJ policy, Fox News anchor Bret Baier said that the special counsel’s remarks were a far cry from Trump’s constant refrain that the Mueller report revealed “no collusion, no obstruction.”
Delivering a prepared statement during a surprise press conference on Wednesday morning, Mueller said that “charging the president with a crime was therefore not an option we could consider,” pointing to the policy dictating that a sitting president cannot be indicted. The former FBI director, however, added that “if we had had confidence the president clearly did not commit a crime we would have said so.”
“The Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing,” Mueller further stated, seemingly placing the ball in Congress’ court for impeachment.
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Baier, appearing on Fox News shortly after the presser, told Fox’s audience that the special counsel was specifically contradicting the president and Attorney General William Barr’s interpretation of the Mueller report.
“This was not, as the president says time and time again, ‘no collusion, no obstruction.’ It was much more nuanced than that,” Baier, one of Fox’s consummate newsmen, declared.
“He said specifically they couldn’t find evidence to move forward with the crime of collusion for the investigation of the Trump campaign,” the anchor continued. “He said specifically if they had found that the president did not commit a crime on obstruction, they would have said that, and then went into specific details about the DOJ policy and why they couldn’t move forward with anything else than their decision.”
At the same time, over on Fox Business Network, senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano noted that the evidence Mueller “laid it is remarkably similar to the impeachment charges against” former presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, adding that it “opens the door for Democrats to pounce.” And appearing later on the mothership network, Napolitano added that Barr had “basically whitewashed what Mueller said” in his own report.
Trump, meanwhile, took to Twitter to insist that the ordeal is completely over, despite what Mueller had just publicly said.
“Nothing changes from the Mueller Report,” he tweeted. “There was insufficient evidence and therefore, in our Country, a person is innocent. The case is closed! Thank you.”
