May 9, 2019 - Issue: Vol. 165, No. 77 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 1st Session

[Pages H3661-H3663]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           THE MUELLER REPORT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2019, the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Madam Speaker, the report on the investigation into 
Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, more commonly 
known as the Mueller report, outlines efforts by the Russian Government 
to manipulate the United States election

[[Page H3662]]

system and directly attack American democracy. It outlines alleged 
coordination between individuals associated with one camp and Russia to 
influence our election.
  It also documents multiple instances of potential obstruction of 
justice.
  The report has been mischaracterized and spun in inappropriate ways 
in the Halls of Congress and within the media.
  In reality, the report documents widespread activities undertaken by 
many in positions of power that were at best unethical and at worst 
illegal.
  But you don't have to take my word for it. Instead, listen to the 
following examples taken directly from the report and judge for 
yourself.
  I am going to begin with a quote from the Mueller report and then 
invite my colleagues to also simply read from the document, which the 
American people should know can be downloaded for free from the 
Department of Justice website.
  ``The evidence we obtained about the President's actions and intent 
present difficult issues that would need to be resolved if we were 
making a traditional prosecutorial judgment. At the same time, 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, we are 
unable to reach that judgment. Accordingly, while this report does not 
conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not 
exonerate him.'' Volume II, page 8.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from 
engaging in personalities toward the President.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from 
California (Mrs. Davis) to quote from the Mueller report.
  Mrs. DAVIS of California. ``On Saturday, June 17, 2017, the President 
called McGahn and directed him to have the special counsel removed . . 
. In interviews with the Special Counsel's Office, McGahn recalled that 
the President called him at home twice and on both occasions directed 
him to call Rosenstein and say that Mueller had conflicts that 
precluded him from serving as special counsel. On the first call, 
McGahn recalled that the President said something like, `You gotta do 
this. You gotta call Rod.' '' Volume II, page 85.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Lee).
  Ms. LEE of California. ``Substantial evidence indicates that the 
catalyst for the President's decision to fire Comey was Comey's 
unwillingness to publicly state that the President was not personally 
under investigation, despite the President's repeated requests that 
Comey make such an announcement. Other evidence, however, indicates 
that the President wanted to protect himself from an investigation into 
his campaign.'' Volume II, pages 75 and 76.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Illinois 
(Mr. Casten).
  Mr. CASTEN of Illinois. Madam Speaker, this is in response to the 
attorney general's claim that the President has constitutional immunity 
from prosecution. Mr. Mueller writes: ``We were not persuaded by the 
argument that the President has blanket constitutional immunity to 
engage in acts that would corruptly obstruct justice through the 
exercise of otherwise valid Article II powers.''
  He goes on at some length to talk about what that standard is, but I 
want to read the footnote in that section.
  ``A possible remedy through impeachment for abuses of power would not 
substitute for potential criminal liability after a President leaves 
office. Impeachment would remove a President from office, but would not 
address the underlying culpability of the conduct or serve the usual 
purposes of the criminal law. . . .
  ``Impeachment is also a drastic and rarely invoked remedy, and 
Congress is not restricted to relying only on impeachment, rather than 
making criminal law applicable to a former President . . . ''
  That is from Volume II, page 178.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from 
Michigan (Mrs. Lawrence).
  Mrs. LAWRENCE. ``On Saturday, June 17, 2017, the President called 
McGahn and directed him to have the special counsel removed . . . In 
interviews with the special counsel's office, McGahn recalled that the 
President called him at home twice and on both occasions directed him 
to call Rosenstein and say that Mueller had conflicts that precluded 
him from serving as special counsel. On the first call, McGahn recalled 
that the President said something like, `You gotta do this. You gotta 
call Rod.' '' This is from Volume II, page 85.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio 
(Mrs. Beatty).
  Mrs. BEATTY. Reading from Volume II, page 8: ``Congress has authority 
to prohibit a President's corrupt use of his authority in order to 
protect the integrity of the administration of justice.''
  ``Article II of the Constitution does not categorically and 
permanently immunize the President from potential liability for the 
conduct that we investigated. Rather, our analysis led us to conclude 
that the obstruction-of-justice statutes can validly prohibit a 
President's corrupt efforts to use his official powers to curtail, end, 
or interfere with an investigation.''
  ``The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the 
President's corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our 
constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that 
no person is above the law.''

  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from 
Minnesota (Ms. Omar).
  Ms. OMAR. Reading from Volume II, page 157: The ``investigation found 
multiple acts by the President that were capable of exerting undue 
influence over law enforcement investigations, including the Russian-
interference and obstruction investigations. The incidents were often 
carried out through one-on-one meetings in which the President sought 
to use his official power outside of usual channels. These actions 
ranged from efforts to remove the special counsel and to reverse the 
effect of the attorney general's recusal; to the attempted use of 
official power to limit the scope of the investigation; to direct and 
indirect contacts with witnesses with the potential to influence their 
testimony. Viewing the acts collectively can help to illuminate their 
significance.'' Volume II, page 157.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York 
(Mr. Morelle).
  Mr. MORELLE. ``After it was reported that Cohen intended to cooperate 
with the government, however, the President accused Cohen of `making up 
stories in order to get himself out of an unrelated jam (taxicabs 
maybe?),' called Cohen a `rat,' and on multiple occasions publicly 
suggested that Cohen's family members had committed crimes. The 
evidence concerning this sequence of events could support an inference 
that the President used inducements in the form of positive messages in 
an effort to get Cohen not to cooperate, and then turned to attacks and 
intimidation to deter the provision of information or undermine Cohen's 
credibility once Cohen began cooperating.'' Volume II, page 154.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Lowenthal).
  Mr. LOWENTHAL. ``The President launched public attacks on the 
investigation and individuals involved in it who could possess evidence 
adverse to the President, while in private, the President engaged in a 
series of targeted efforts to control the investigation. For instance, 
the President attempted to remove the special counsel; he sought to 
have Attorney General Sessions unrecuse himself and limit the 
investigation; he sought to prevent public disclosure of information 
about the June 9, 2016, meeting between Russians and campaign 
officials; and he used public forums to attack potential witnesses who 
might offer adverse information and to praise witnesses who declined to 
cooperate with the government.'' Volume II, page 157.

                              {time}  1945

  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Lee).
  Ms. LEE of California. ``In early 2018, the press reported that the 
President had directed McGahn to have the special counsel removed in 
June 2017 and

[[Page H3663]]

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.''
  Volume II, pages 5 and 6.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York 
(Mr. Morelle).
  Mr. MORELLE. ``Congress can permissibly criminalize certain 
obstructive conduct by the President, such as suborning perjury, 
intimidating witnesses, or fabricating evidence, because those 
prohibitions raise no separation of powers questions. . . . The 
Constitution does not authorize the President to engage in such 
conduct, and those actions would transgress the President's duty to 
`take care that the laws be faithfully executed.' ''
  Volume II, page 170.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio 
(Mrs. Beatty).
  Mrs. BEATTY. ``On October 7, 2016, the media released video of 
candidate Trump speaking in graphic terms about women years earlier, 
which was considered damaging to his candidacy. Less than an hour 
later, WikiLeaks made its second release: thousands of John Podesta's 
emails that had been stolen by the GRU in late March 2016. The FBI and 
other U.S. Government institutions were at the time continuing their 
investigation of suspected Russian Government efforts to interfere in 
the Presidential election.
  ``That same day, October 7, the Department of Homeland Security and 
the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint 
public statement `that the Russian Government directed the recent 
compromises of emails from U.S. persons and institutions, including 
from U.S. political organizations.' Those `thefts' and the 
`disclosures' of the hacked materials through online platforms such as 
WikiLeaks, the statement continued, `are intended to interfere with the 
U.S. election process.' ''
  Volume I, page 7.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from 
Connecticut (Mrs. Hayes).
  Mrs. HAYES. ``Further, the Office learned that some of the 
individuals we interviewed or whose conduct we investigated--including 
some associated with the Trump campaign--deleted relevant 
communications or communicated during the relevant period using 
applications that feature encryption or that do not provide for long-
term retention of data or communications records. In such cases, the 
Office was not able to corroborate witness statements through 
comparison to contemporaneous communications or fully question 
witnesses about statements that appeared inconsistent with other known 
facts.''
  Volume I, page 10.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from 
Michigan (Mrs. Lawrence).
  Mrs. LAWRENCE. ``Cohen also recalled speaking with the President's 
personal counsel about pardons after the searches of his home and 
office had occurred, at a time when the media had reported that pardon 
discussions were occurring at the White House. . . . Cohen understood, 
based on this conversation and previous conversations about pardons 
with the President's personal counsel, that as long as he stayed on 
message, he would be taken care of by the President, either through a 
pardon or through the investigation being shut down.''
  Volume II, page 147.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Lee).
  Ms. LEE of California. ``The investigation established that several 
individuals affiliated with the Trump campaign lied to the Office, and 
to Congress, about their interactions with Russian-affiliated 
individuals and related matters. Those lies materially impaired the 
investigation of Russian election interference. The Office charged some 
of those lies as violations of the Federal false statements statute.''
  Volume I, page 9.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from 
Connecticut (Mrs. Hayes).
  Mrs. HAYES. ``The President and his personal counsel made repeated 
statements suggesting that a pardon was a possibility for Manafort, 
while also making it clear that the President did not want Manafort to 
`flip' and cooperate with the government.''
  Volume II, page 131.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio 
(Mrs. Beatty).
  Mrs. BEATTY. ``Immediately after the November 8 election, Russian 
Government officials and prominent Russian businessmen began trying to 
make inroads into the new administration. The most senior levels of 
Russian Government encouraged these efforts. The Russian Embassy made 
contact hours after the election to congratulate the President-elect 
and to arrange a call with President Putin. Several Russian businessmen 
picked up the effort from there.''
  Volume I, page 7.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. ``The President engaged in a second phase of conduct, 
involving public attacks of the investigation, nonpublic efforts to 
control it, and efforts in both public and private to encourage 
witnesses not to cooperate with the investigation.''
  Volume II, page 7.
  ``The President's position as the head of the executive branch 
provided him with unique and powerful means of influencing official 
proceedings, subordinate officers, and potential witnesses.''
  Volume II, page 7.
  ``Substantial evidence indicates that the President's effort to have 
Sessions limit the scope of the special counsel's investigation to 
future election interference was intended to prevent further 
investigative scrutiny of the President's and his campaign's conduct.''

  Volume II, page 97.
  Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).
  Ms. LEE of California. ``Two days after the President directed 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 with Corey Lewandowski in the Oval Office and 
dictated a message to be delivered to Attorney General Sessions that 
would have had the effect of limiting the Russia investigation to 
future election interference only.''
  Volume II, page 90.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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