[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 124 (Tuesday, July 23, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5020-S5025]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             MUELLER REPORT

  Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, as our Founders worked to design what 
would become the Constitution of the United States, they had certain 
core principles in mind--certain principles that were the exact 
opposite of the way government worked in Europe. They did not want to 
see America be a land run by a dictator or a King. They wanted to make 
sure that power was distributed between voting Americans, a principle 
Jefferson called the equal voice principle, because distributed power 
among the people would lead to laws by and for the people, not laws by 
and for the powerful.
  They had another principle, and it was the opposite of what existed 
in Europe, where a King and perhaps the King's circle were above the 
law, not accountable to any core principles of conduct or any rules. 
What they did in their lives as rulers in that fashion just simply was 
accountable to no one.
  But our Constitution had a different vision. The goal was to have 
everyone in America accountable to the law--that we are all in this 
together. No one is a King. No one is a dictator. That vision is really 
embodied in four simple words carved into the facade of the doors of 
the Supreme Court: Equal Justice Under Law.
  If you stand here in the Johnson Room, just across the hallway, and 
you look out the window toward the Supreme Court, you see this: Equal 
Justice Under Law. It is a principle so foundational to our vision of a 
citizen-run nation, a nation by and for the people, that it was the 
source of my first political act.
  If memory serves me well, I was a junior in high school. I read an 
article in the evening newspaper. Now, at that point, many cities in 
the country had a morning newspaper, which was more of the business 
community's newspaper, and an evening newspaper, which was more the 
workers' newspaper, which made sense. For my father, a union machinist, 
his work started at 7 in the morning and concluded 9 hours later at 4 
in the afternoon. He would come home, get the evening newspaper, read 
it, have dinner, and watch the evening news on television.
  In that newspaper that evening, there was an article about Spiro 
Agnew, our former Vice President. He was convicted of taking $100,000 
in bribes, but what was his penalty? His penalty was a $10,000 fine. I 
was enraged: Like, what? People get sent to prison for stealing a loaf 
of bread, and the Vice President illegally took $100,000 and gets to 
keep 90 percent of it. What kind of a story is that to America, that if 
you are wealthy and powerful, you can commit crimes and keep the vast 
share of what you have taken in that crime? So I wrote an outraged 
letter to the newspaper, and the newspaper published it.
  Equal Justice Under Law--it is a very important principle to our 
Nation. But today we face a political crisis--a crisis about whether we 
have a President who is above the law, and that somehow this phrase, 
this principle, the foundation of our country, doesn't apply to this 
particular President. If that stands, then we will have lost a core 
principle of our democratic Republic.
  Tomorrow we are going to have testimony from former Special Counsel 
Mueller in the House of Representatives. He is scheduled for some 3 
hours before the Judiciary Committee of the House and another couple of 
hours with the Intelligence Committee. He will be following up to share 
insights and answer questions related to this hefty document: Report On 
The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential 
Election.
  There is a lot in this report. You wouldn't know that if you just 
listened to our Attorney General, because our current Attorney General 
Barr said there is nothing here--nothing in this. That is not the case, 
and I have come to the floor tonight to make that absolutely clear.
  Here is the easiest way to summarize it. We received an open letter 
from more than 1,000 former prosecutors evaluating what is in this 
hefty book. It says:

       We are former federal prosecutors. We served under both 
     Republican and Democratic administrations at different levels 
     . . . 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

[[Page S5021]]

     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 the investigators probing him and his 
     campaign.

  This statement goes on in some detail, but the point that needs to be 
repeated is this point: ``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 . . . result in multiple felony 
charges.''
  In other words, 1,000--in fact, more than 1,000--Federal prosecutors 
said, in their minds, reading just this report, that the President has 
committed multiple crimes.
  What happened to the principle of equal justice under the law? There 
are 1,000 Federal prosecutors who said that anyone else--you or you or 
you--would be indicted for felonies as a result of the conduct that is 
in this report. But the President has not been indicted.
  Why has he not been indicted? It is simply this: An indictment has to 
stem from the Department of Justice, which is now run by an Attorney 
General who has dedicated himself to preventing the President from 
being held accountable rather than to the principle of equal justice 
under the law.
  No one who does not believe in the founding principle of our Nation 
should ever serve as Attorney General of the United States. Yet he 
serves and refuses to conduct his responsibilities under the 
Constitution. That is why there is no choice but for the House to act. 
In the failure of Attorney General Barr to honor the principle that our 
Nation was founded on, equal justice under the law, the only recourse 
is the House of Representatives.
  Down this hallway, through these double doors, not far away, is the 
House of Representatives, which is charged under the Constitution with 
determining if a President has committed high crimes and misdemeanors. 
While there may be a discussion of exactly what is meant by high crimes 
and misdemeanors, surely they entail acts of obstruction of justice for 
which any other American would have been indicted. Surely, felony 
crimes qualify.
  The House doesn't determine guilt or innocence. The House plays the 
role of Federal prosecutors who are deciding whether to indict. Is the 
evidence sufficient to say it is credible and substantial that the 
individual conducted a felony, a crime? The answer by 1,000 Federal 
prosecutors is absolutely.
  It can't be done by the Supreme Court. It can't be done by the 
judiciary as long as the Attorney General is blocking it. It can be 
done only by the House. That is why the House has to act now and has to 
proceed to put together a committee on impeachment or this principle 
means nothing.
  Then it would come to this Chamber to hold the actual trial. But 
there will be no trial if there is no indictment. There is no trial in 
the Senate Chamber if there is no impeachment, and there is no 
credibility to this principle in America if the House doesn't act.
  So I call upon the House to convene that committee and to conduct 
that impeachment inquiry, and if they come out of that inquiry with 
1,000 Federal prosecutors, they must act and vote to impeach.
  This cannot be about politics: Is it a smart thing to do? How will it 
affect the next election? Will it put our Presidential candidates in a 
strange space? Let's do an opinion poll of America. No, absolutely not.
  Our institutions are under assault, and we have a responsibility 
because we took an oath of office to the Constitution to defend this 
principle. The House took the same oath, and they have a responsibility 
to defend that principle.

  I am going to take the time to lay out four of those charges of 
obstruction justice just to set the stage for tomorrow.
  This is what is referred to as a ``heat map.'' It lays out different 
cases in which the President interfered with the judicial process, and 
then it proceeds to ask: Is there substantial evidence of the three 
things that are needed as a foundation for saying that a felony crime 
has been committed?
  The first is, was there an obstructive act? The second is, was there 
a nexus to an issue? The third is, was there criminal intent?
  There are four cases in which capable individuals have reviewed the 
Mueller report and have said yes on all three--meaning, each of these 
is red.
  Let's take a look at this. First, let's turn to this issue of efforts 
to fire Mueller. I am reading now from page 87 of this hefty report on 
the investigation, the special counsel's report.
  On page 87, under ``Analysis,'' it proceeds to say: ``In analyzing 
the President's direction to McGahn to have the Special Counsel 
removed, the following evidence is relevant to the elements of 
obstruction of justice.''
  Then he walks through each of these three pieces:

       Obstructive act. As with the President's firing of Comey, 
     the attempt to remove the Special Counsel would qualify as an 
     obstructive act if it would naturally obstruct the 
     investigation and any grand jury proceedings that might flow 
     from the inquiry. Even if the removal of the lead prosecutor 
     would not prevent the investigation from continuing under a 
     new appointee, a factfinder would need to consider whether 
     the act had the potential to delay further action in the 
     investigation, chill the actions of any replacement Special 
     Counsel, or otherwise impede the investigation.
       A threshold question is whether the President in fact 
     directed McGahn to have the Special Counsel removed. After 
     news organizations reported that in June 2017 the President 
     had ordered McGahn to have the Special Counsel removed, the 
     President publicly disputed these accounts, and privately 
     told McGahn that he had simply wanted McGahn to bring 
     conflicts of interest to the Department of Justice's 
     attention. . . . Some of the President's specific language 
     that McGahn recalled from the calls is consistent with that 
     explanation. Substantial evidence, however, supports the 
     conclusion that the President went further and in fact 
     directed McGahn to call Rosenstein to have the Special 
     Counsel removed.
       First, McGahn's clear recollection was that the President 
     directed him to tell Rosenstein not only that conflicts 
     existed but also that ``Mueller has to go.'' McGahn is a 
     credible witness with no motive to lie or exaggerate given 
     the position he held in the White House. McGahn spoke with 
     the President twice and understood the directive the same way 
     both times, making it unlikely that he misheard or 
     misinterpreted the President's request. In response to that 
     request, McGahn decided to quit because he did not want to 
     participate in events that he described as akin to the 
     Saturday Night Massacre.

  That is a reference to Watergate.

       He called his lawyer, drove to the White House, packed up 
     his office, prepared to submit a resignation letter with his 
     chief of staff, told Priebus that the President had asked him 
     to ``do crazy shit,'' and informed Priebus and Bannon that he 
     was leaving. Those acts would be a highly unusual reaction to 
     a request to convey information to the Department of Justice.
       Second, in the days before the calls to McGahn, the 
     President, through his counsel, had already brought the 
     asserted conflicts to the attention of the Department of 
     Justice. Accordingly, the President had no reason to have 
     McGahn call Rosenstein that weekend to raise conflicts issues 
     that already had been raised.
       Third, the President's sense of urgency and repeated 
     requests to McGahn to take immediate action on a weekend--
     ``You gotta do this. You gotta call Rod.''--support McGahn's 
     recollection that the President wanted the Department of 
     Justice to take action to remove the Special Counsel. Had the 
     President instead sought only to have the Department of 
     Justice re-examine asserted conflicts to evaluate whether 
     they posed an ethical bar, it would have been unnecessary to 
     set the process in motion on a Saturday and to make repeated 
     calls to McGahn.
       Finally, the President had discussed ``knocking out 
     Mueller'' and raised conflicts of interest in a May 23, 2017 
     call to McGahn, reflecting that the President connected the 
     conflicts to a plan to remove the Special Counsel. And in the 
     days leading up to June 17, 2017, the President made clear to 
     Priebus and Bannon, who then told Ruddy, that the President 
     was considering terminating the Special Counsel. Also, during 
     this time period, the President reached out to Christie to 
     get his thoughts on firing the Special Counsel. This evidence 
     shows that the President was not just seeking an examination 
     of whether conflicts existed but instead was looking to use 
     asserted conflicts as a way to terminate the Special Counsel.

  So those are the obstructive acts, efforts to fire special counsel 
Mueller.

       Nexus to an official proceeding [the second test]. To 
     satisfy the proceeding requirement, it would be necessary to 
     establish a nexus

[[Page S5022]]

     between the President's act of seeking to terminate the 
     Special Counsel and a pending or foreseeable grand jury 
     proceeding.
       Substantial evidence indicates that by June 17, 2017, the 
     President knew his conduct was under investigation by a 
     federal prosecutor who could present any evidence of federal 
     crimes to a grand jury. On May 23, 2017, McGahn explicitly 
     warned the President that his ``biggest exposure'' was not 
     his act of firing Comey but his ``other contacts'' and 
     ``calls,'' and his ``ask re: Flynn.'' By early June, it was 
     widely reported in the media that federal prosecutors had 
     issued grand jury subpoenas in the Flynn inquiry and that the 
     Special Counsel had taken over the Flynn investigation. On 
     June 9, 2017, the Special Counsel's Office informed the White 
     House that investigators would be interviewing intelligence 
     agency officials who allegedly had been asked by the 
     President to push back against the Russia investigation. On 
     June 14, 2017, news outlets began reporting that the 
     President himself was being investigated for obstruction 
     of justice. Based on widespread reporting, the President 
     knew that such an investigation could include his request 
     for Comey's loyalty; his request that Comey ``let[] Flynn 
     go''; his outreach to Coats and Rogers; and his 
     termination of Comey and statement to the Russian Foreign 
     Minister that the termination had relieved ``great 
     pressure'' related to Russia. And on June 16, 2017, the 
     day before he directed McGahn to have the Special Counsel 
     removed, the President publicly acknowledged that his 
     conduct was under investigation by a federal prosecutor, 
     tweeting, ``I am being investigated for firing the FBI 
     Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI 
     Director!''

  That covers the nexus to an official proceeding, but what about this 
third issue, this issue of intent?
  Reading again from the special counsel's report evaluating this, 
going to the issue of intent on efforts to fire Mueller:

       Substantial evidence indicates that the President's 
     attempts to remove the Special Counsel were linked to the 
     Special Counsel's oversight of investigations that involved 
     the President's conduct--and, most immediately, to reports 
     that the President was being investigated for potential 
     obstruction of justice.
       Before the President terminated Comey, the President 
     considered it critically important that he was not under 
     investigation and that the public not erroneously think he 
     was being investigated. As described in Volume II . . . 
     advisors perceived the President, while he was drafting the 
     Comey termination letter, to be concerned more than anything 
     else about getting out that he was not personally under 
     investigation. When the President learned of the appointment 
     of the Special Counsel on May 17, 2017, he expressed further 
     concern about the investigation, saying ``[t]his is the end 
     of my Presidency.'' The President also faulted Sessions for 
     recusing, saying ``you were supposed to protect me.''
       On June 14, 2017, when the Washington Post reported that 
     the Special Counsel was investigating the President for 
     obstruction of justice, the President was facing what he had 
     wanted to avoid: a criminal investigation into his own 
     conduct that was the subject of widespread media attention. 
     The evidence indicates that news of the obstruction 
     investigation prompted the President to call McGahn and seek 
     to have the Special Counsel removed. By mid-June, the 
     Department of Justice had already cleared the Special 
     Counsel's service and the President's advisors had told him 
     that the claimed conflicts of interest were ``silly'' and did 
     not provide a basis to remove the Special Counsel. On June 
     13, 2017, the Acting Attorney General testified before 
     Congress that no good cause for removing the Special Counsel 
     existed, and the President dictated a press statement to 
     Sanders saying he had no intention of firing the Special 
     Counsel. But the next day, the media reported that the 
     President was under investigation for obstruction of justice 
     and the Special Counsel was interviewing witnesses about 
     events related to possible obstruction--spurring the 
     President to write critical tweets about the Special 
     Counsel's investigation. The President called McGahn at home 
     that night and then called him on Saturday from Camp David. 
     The evidence accordingly indicates that news that an 
     obstruction investigation had been opened is what led the 
     President to call McGahn to have the Special Counsel 
     terminated.
       There also is evidence that the President knew that he 
     should not have made those calls to McGahn. The President 
     made the calls to McGahn after McGahn had specifically told 
     the President that the White House Counsel's Office--and 
     McGahn himself--could not be involved in pressing conflict 
     claims and that the President should consult with his 
     personal counsel if he wished to raise conflicts. Instead of 
     relying on his personal counsel to submit the conflicts 
     claims, the President sought to use his official powers to 
     remove the Special Counsel. And after the media reported on 
     the President's actions, he denied that he had ever ordered 
     McGahn to have the Special Counsel terminated and made 
     repeated efforts to have McGahn deny the story, as discussed 
     in Volume II. . . . Those denials are contrary to the 
     evidence and suggest the President's awareness that the 
     direction to McGahn could be seen as improper.

  So there it is--obstruction, a nexus to an investigation, and 
criminal intent. Those are the efforts to fire Mueller. That is the 
first one laid out in this quote that I am reading from, the first one 
that I am conveying to you all, and there are four of these I am going 
to go through to set the stage for understanding the gravity of what is 
happening in the United States. I think this conversation has been 
going on for so long that people have lost sight of the egregious 
nature and the criminal nature of the President's conduct--at least the 
degree laid out in exquisite detail, as I am reading it to you--and 
that more than 1,000 former Federal prosecutors who have looked at 
these top four issues and others have said that anyone else would be 
indicted, meaning that in their minds, these acts met the three tests 
for felony conduct; that is, in their view, the President committed 
crimes.
  So the second issue is efforts to curtail the Mueller investigation. 
The first was to fire Mueller, and the second was to curtail the 
investigation. I will start reading the analysis laid out starting on 
page 97, continuing through page 98.

       In analyzing the President's efforts to have Lewandowski 
     deliver a message directing Sessions to publicly announce 
     that the Special Counsel investigation would be confined to 
     future election interference, the following evidence is 
     relevant to the elements of obstruction of justice.

  Looking first to the obstructive act.

       The President's effort to send Sessions a message through 
     Lewandowski would qualify as an obstructive act if it would 
     naturally obstruct the investigation in any grand jury 
     proceedings that might flow from the inquiry.
       The President sought to have Sessions announce that the 
     President ``shouldn't have a Special Prosecutor/Counsel'' and 
     that Sessions was going to ``meet with the Special Prosecutor 
     to explain this is very unfair and let the Special Prosecutor 
     move forward with investigating election meddling for future 
     elections so that nothing can happen in future elections.'' 
     The President wanted Sessions to disregard his recusal from 
     the investigation, which had followed from a former DOJ 
     ethics review, and have Sessions declare that he knew ``for a 
     fact'' that ``there were no Russians involved in the 
     campaign'' because he ``was there.'' The President further 
     directed that Sessions should explain that the President 
     should not be subject to an investigation ``because he hasn't 
     done anything wrong.'' Taken together, the President's 
     directives indicate that Sessions was being instructed to 
     tell the Special Counsel to end the existing investigation 
     into the President and his campaign, with the Special 
     Counsel being permitted to ``move forward with 
     investigating election meddling for future elections.''

  So the obstructive act was perceived to box in the Mueller 
investigation so it wouldn't touch on the President. That is an 
obstruction of justice. But is there a nexus to an official proceeding? 
That is next addressed in the Mueller report as follows:

       As described above, by the time of the President's initial 
     one-on-one meeting with Lewandowski on June 19, 2017, the 
     existence of a grand jury investigation supervised by the 
     Special Counsel was public knowledge. By the time of the 
     President's follow-up meeting with Lewandowski--

  I bet you would like to know what comes next, but take a look here. I 
can't tell you because it has been blacked out. So whatever it was, it 
created a key point about the nexus to the official proceeding. The 
section goes on after the blacked out section:

       To satisfy the nexus requirement, it would be necessary to 
     show that limiting the Special Counsel's investigation would 
     have the natural and probable effect of impeding that grand 
     jury proceeding.

  So nexus and substantial evidence. Let's go to intent. Again, I am 
reading from page 97:

       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.

  That sums it up. Then it goes on in some greater detail:

       As previously described, see Volume II . . . the President 
     knew that the Russian investigation was focused in part on 
     his campaign, and he perceived allegations of Russian 
     interference to cast doubt on the legitimacy of his election. 
     The President further knew that the investigation had 
     broadened to include his own conduct and whether he had 
     obstructed justice. Those investigations would not proceed if 
     the Special Counsel's jurisdiction were limited to future 
     election interference only.
       The timing and circumstances of the President's actions 
     support the conclusion that he sought that result. The 
     President's initial direction that Sessions should limit the 
     Special Counsel's investigation came just 2 days

[[Page S5023]]

     after the President ordered McGahn to have the Special 
     Counsel removed, which itself followed public reports that 
     the President was personally under investigation for 
     obstruction of justice. The sequence of those events raises 
     an inference that after seeking to terminate the Special 
     Counsel, the President sought to exclude his and his 
     campaign's conduct from the investigation's scope. The 
     President raised the matter with Lewandowski again on July 
     19, 2017, just days after emails and information about the 
     June 9, 2016 meeting between Russians and senior campaign 
     officials had been publicly disclosed, generating substantial 
     media coverage and investigative interest.
       The manner in which the President acted provides additional 
     evidence of his intent. Rather than rely on official 
     channels, the President met with Lewandowski alone in the 
     Oval Office. The President selected a loyal ``devotee'' 
     outside the White House to deliver the message, supporting an 
     inference that he was working outside White House channels, 
     including McGahn, who had previously resisted contacting the 
     Department of Justice about the Special Counsel. The 
     President also did not contact the Acting Attorney General, 
     who had just testified publicly that there was no cause to 
     remove the Special Counsel. Instead, the President tried to 
     use Sessions to restrict and redirect the Special Counsel's 
     investigation when Sessions was recused and could not 
     properly take any action on it.
       The July 19, 2017 events provide further evidence of the 
     President's intent. The President followed up with 
     Lewandowski in a separate one-on-one meeting one month after 
     he first dictated the message for Sessions, demonstrating he 
     still sought to pursue the request. And just hours after 
     Lewandowski assured the President that the message would soon 
     be delivered to Sessions, the President gave an unplanned 
     interview to the New York Times in which he publicly attacked 
     Sessions and raised questions about his job security. Four 
     days later, on July 22, 2017, the President directed Priebus 
     to obtain Sessions' resignation. That evidence could raise an 
     inference that the President wanted Sessions to realize that 
     his job might be on the line as he evaluated whether to 
     comply with the President's direction that Sessions publicly 
     announce that, notwithstanding his recusal, he was going to 
     confine the Special Counsel's investigation to future 
     election interference.

  It is laid out in great detail--an obstructive act, a nexus to an 
official proceeding, and the issue of intent. This did not happen by 
accident--not on the efforts to fire Mueller and not on the efforts to 
curtail the Mueller investigation.
  Now we will go to the third major point here--the order to McGahn to 
deny the attempt to fire Mueller. This analysis in the special 
prosecutor's report starts on page 118.

       In analyzing the President's efforts to have McGahn deny 
     that he had been ordered to have the Special Counsel removed, 
     the following evidence is relevant to the elements of 
     obstruction of justice.

  First, obstructive act.

       The President's repeated efforts to get McGahn to create a 
     record denying that the President had directed him to remove 
     the Special Counsel would qualify as an obstructive act if it 
     had a natural tendency to constrain McGahn from testifying 
     truthfully or to undermine his credibility as a potential 
     witness if he testified consistently with his memory rather 
     than with what the record said.
       There is some evidence that at the time the New York Times 
     and Washington Post stories were published in late January 
     2018, the President believed the stories were wrong and that 
     he had never told McGhan to have Rosenstein remove the 
     Special Counsel. The President correctly understood that 
     McGhan had not told the President directly that he planned to 
     resign. In addition, the President told Priebus and Porter 
     that he had not sought to terminate the Special Counsel, and 
     in the Oval Office meeting with McGhan, the President said, 
     ``I never said to fire Mueller. I never said `fire.' '' That 
     evidence could indicate that the President was not attempting 
     to persuade McGhan to change his story but instead offering 
     his own but different recollection of the substance of his 
     June 2017 conversations with McGhan and McGhan's reaction to 
     them.
       Other evidence cuts against that understanding of the 
     President's conduct.

  That is an important line to understand. Is it possible that the 
President simply had a different recollection? And the answer in the 
special prosecutor's report is this: ``Other evidence cuts against that 
understanding.''
  The special counsel continues:

       As previously described, see Volume II . . . substantial 
     evidence supports McGhan's account that the President had 
     directed him to have the Special Counsel removed, including 
     the timing and context of the President's directive; the 
     manner in which McGhan reacted; and the fact that the 
     President had been told the conflicts were insubstantial, 
     were be being considered by the Department of Justice, and 
     should be raised with the President's personal counsel rather 
     than brought to McGhan. In addition, the President's 
     subsequent denials that he had told McGhan to have the 
     Special Counsel removed were carefully worded. When first 
     asked about the New York Times story, the President said, 
     ``Fake news, folks. Fake news. A typical New York Times fake 
     story.'' And when the President spoke with McGhan in the Oval 
     Office, he focused on whether he had used the word ``fire,'' 
     saying, ``I never said to fire Mueller. I never said 
     ``fire.''

  He then said:

       ``Did I say the word `fire'? The President's assertion in 
     the Oval Office meeting that he had never directed McGhan to 
     have the Special Counsel removed thus runs counter to the 
     evidence.
       In addition, even if the President sincerely disagreed with 
     McGhan's memory of the June 17, 2017 events, the evidence 
     indicates that the President knew by the time of the Oval 
     Office meeting that McGhan's account differed and that McGhan 
     was firm in his views. Shortly after the story broke, the 
     President's counsel told McGhan's counsel that the President 
     wanted McGhan to make a statement denying he had been asked 
     to fire the Special Counsel, but McGhan responded through his 
     counsel that that aspect of the story was accurate and he 
     therefore could not comply with the President's request. The 
     President then directed Sanders to tell McGhan to correct the 
     story, but McGhan told her he would not do so because the 
     story was accurate in reporting on the President's order. 
     Consistent with that position, McGhan never issued a 
     correction. More than a week later, the President brought up 
     the issue again with Porter, made comments indicating that 
     the President thought McGhan had leaked the story, and 
     directed Porter to have McGhan create a record denying that 
     the President had tried to fire the Special Counsel. At that 
     point, the President said he might ``have to get rid of'' 
     McGhan if McGhan did not comply. McGhan again refused and 
     told Porter, as he told Sanders and as his counsel had told 
     the President's counsel, that the President had in fact 
     ordered him to have Rosenstein remove the Special Counsel. 
     That evidence indicates that by the time of the Oval Office 
     meeting the President was aware that McGhan did not think the 
     story was false and did not want to issue a statement or 
     create a written record denying facts that McGhan believed to 
     be true. The President nevertheless persisted and asked 
     McGhan to repudiate facts that McGhan had repeatedly said 
     were accurate.

  So that is the evidence of the order to McGhan to deny that he had 
been instructed to fire Mueller by the President. But is there a nexus 
to an official proceeding--the second test? The special counsel's 
report continues to address that issue.

       Nexus to an official proceeding. By January 2018, the 
     Special Counsel's use of a grand jury had been further 
     confirmed by the return of several indictments. The President 
     also was aware that the Special Counsel was investigating 
     obstruction-related events because, among other reasons, on 
     January 8, 2018, the Special Counsel's office provided his 
     counsel with a detailed list of topics for a possible 
     interview with the President. The President knew that McGhan 
     had personal knowledge in many of the events the Special 
     Counsel was investigating and that McGhan had already been 
     interviewed by Special Counsel investigators. And in the Oval 
     Office meeting, the President indicated he knew that McGhan 
     had told the Special Counsel's Office about the President's 
     effort to remove the Special Counsel. The President 
     challenged McGhan for disclosing that information and for 
     taking notes that he viewed as creating unnecessary legal 
     exposure. That evidence indicates the President's awareness 
     that the June 17, 2017 events were relevant to the Special 
     Counsel's investigation and any grand jury investigation that 
     might grow out of it.
       To establish a nexus, it would be necessary to show that 
     the President's actions would have the natural tendency to 
     affect such a proceeding or that they would hinder, delay or 
     prevent the communication of information to investigators. 
     Because McGhan had spoken to Special Counsel investigators 
     before January 2018, the President could not have been 
     seeking to influence his prior statements in those 
     interviews. But because McGhan had repeatedly spoken to 
     investigators and the obstruction inquiry was not complete, 
     it was foreseeable that he would be interviewed again on 
     obstruction-related topics. If the President were focused 
     solely on a press strategy in seeking to have McGhan 
     refute the New York Times article, a nexus to a proceeding 
     or to further investigative interviews would not be shown. 
     But the President's efforts to have McGhan write a letter 
     ``for our records'' approximately ten days after the story 
     had come out--well past the typical time to issue a 
     correction for a news story--indicates the President was 
     not focused solely on press strategy, but instead likely 
     contemplated the ongoing investigation and any proceedings 
     arising from it.

  So that is the nexus.
  And now to intent.

       Substantial evidence indicates that in repeatedly urging 
     McGhan to dispute that he was ordered to have the Special 
     Counsel terminated, the President acted for the purpose of 
     influencing McGhan's account in order to deflect or prevent 
     further scrutiny of the President's conduct towards the 
     investigation.


[[Page S5024]]


  That summarizes the intent.
  Let me just repeat a piece of that.

       Substantial evidence indicates that in repeatedly urging 
     McGhan to dispute that he was ordered to have the Special 
     Counsel terminated--

  In other words, his repeated efforts to have McGhan lie--

       the President acted for the purpose of influencing McGhan's 
     account in order to deflect or prevent further scrutiny of 
     the President's conduct. . . .
       Several facts support that conclusion. The President made 
     repeated attempts to get McGhan to change his story.

  Not just one, but repeated attempts.

       As described above, by the time of the last attempt, the 
     evidence suggests that the President had been told on 
     multiple occasions that McGhan believed the President had 
     ordered him to have the Special Counsel terminated. McGhan 
     interpreted his encounter with the President in the Oval 
     Office as an attempt to test his mettle and see how committed 
     he was to his memory of what had occurred. The President had 
     already laid the groundwork for pressing McGhan to alter his 
     account by telling Porter that it might be necessary to fire 
     McGhan if he did not deny the story, and Porter relayed that 
     statement to McGhan. Additional evidence of the President's 
     intent might be gleaned from the fact that his counsel was 
     sufficiently alarmed by the prospect of the President's 
     meeting with McGhan that he called McGhan's counsel and said 
     that McGhan could not resign no matter what happened in the 
     Oval Office that day. The President's counsel was well aware 
     of McGhan's resolve not to issue what he believed to be a 
     false account of events despite the President's request. 
     Finally, as noted above, the President brought up the Special 
     Counsel investigation in his Oval Office meeting with McGhan 
     and criticized him for telling this Office about the June 17, 
     2017 events. The President's statements reflect his 
     understanding--and his displeasure--that those events would 
     be part of an obstruction-of-justice inquiry.

  So there it is--the intent, all laid out very, very clearly in this 
report--obstructive acts, a nexus to an official proceeding, and the 
clear intent.
  So let's turn to the fourth issue: Conduct toward Manafort. This can 
be found on page 131 of the special counsel's report.

       In analyzing the President's conduct towards Flynn, 
     Manafort--

  And a third person who has been blacked out in the record--

     the following evidence is relevant to the elements of 
     obstruction of justice:
       Section a, Obstructive act.

  Here we are addressing if there is evidence--is there substantial 
evidence--of the President's conduct toward Manafort.

       With respect to Manafort, there is evidence that the 
     President's actions had the potential to influence Manafort's 
     decision whether to cooperate with the government. 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. On 
     June 15, 2018, the day the judge presiding over Manafort's 
     D.C. case was considering whether to revoke his bail, the 
     President said that he ``felt badly'' for Manafort and 
     stated, ``I think a lot of it is very unfair.'' And when 
     asked about a pardon for Manafort, the President said, ``I do 
     want to see people treated fairly. That's what it's all 
     about.'' Later that day, after Manafort's bail was revoked, 
     the President called it a ``tough sentence'' that was ``Very 
     unfair!'' Two days later, the President's personal counsel 
     stated that individuals involved in the Special Counsel's 
     investigation could receive a pardon ``if in fact the 
     [P]resident and his advisors . . . come to the conclusion 
     that you have been treated unfairly''--using language that 
     paralleled how the President had already described the 
     treatment of Manafort. Those statements, combined with the 
     President's commendation of Manafort for being a ``brave 
     man'' who ``refused to `break,' '' suggested that a pardon 
     was a more likely possibility if Manafort continued not to 
     cooperate with the government. And while Manafort eventually 
     pleaded guilty pursuant to a cooperation agreement, he was 
     found to have violated the agreement by lying to 
     investigators.
       The President's public statements during the Manafort 
     trial, including during jury deliberations, also had the 
     potential to influence the trial jury. On the second day of 
     trial, for example, the President called the prosecution a 
     ``terrible situation'' and a ``hoax'' that ``continues to 
     stain our country'' and referred to Manafort as a ``Reagan/
     Dole darling'' who was ``serving solitary confinement'' even 
     though he was ``convicted of nothing.'' Those statements were 
     widely picked up by the press. While jurors were instructed 
     not to watch or read news stories about the case and are 
     presumed to follow those instructions, the President's 
     statements during the trial generated substantial media 
     coverage that could have reached jurors if they happened to 
     see the statements or learned about them from others.
       And the President's statements during deliberations of 
     Manafort ``happens to be a very good person'' and that ``it's 
     very sad what they've done to Paul Manafort'' had the 
     potential to influence jurors who learned of the statements, 
     which the President made just as jurors were considering 
     whether to convict or acquit Manafort.

  Let me point out here that I see in this book substantial sections 
have been blocked out under No. 8, the Obstructive Act and under 
section C, the Intent. In spite of part of that section being blacked 
out, that was the substantial evidence of the effort to influence Paul 
Manafort and obstruct justice.

       Nexus to an official proceeding. The President's actions 
     towards Flynn and Manafort and a third person blacked out in 
     this book appeared to have been connected to pending or 
     anticipated official proceedings involving each individual.
       The President's conduct towards Flynn principally occurred 
     when both were under criminal investigation by the Special 
     Counsel's Office and press reports speculated about whether 
     they would cooperate with the Special Counsel's 
     investigation. And the President's conduct toward Manafort 
     was directly connected to the official proceedings involving 
     him. The President made statements about Manafort and the 
     charges against him during Manafort's criminal trial. And the 
     President's comments about the prospect of Manafort 
     ``flipping'' occurred when it was clear the Special Counsel 
     continued to oversee grand jury proceedings.

  So there is the nexus laid out very clearly in this report on this 
effort to influence Manafort's testimony.
  And then to intent, page 132.

       Evidence concerning the President's conduct towards 
     Manafort indicates that the President intended to encourage 
     Manafort to not cooperate with the government. Before 
     Manafort was convicted, the President repeatedly stated that 
     Manafort had been treated unfairly. One day after Manafort 
     was convicted on eight felony charges and potentially faced a 
     lengthy prison term, the President said that Manafort was a 
     ``brave man'' for refusing to ``break'' and that ``flipping'' 
     ``almost ought to be outlawed.'' At the same time, although 
     the President privately told aides he did not like Manafort, 
     he publicly called Manafort ``a good man'' and said he had a 
     ``wonderful family.'' And when the President was asked 
     whether he was asked whether he was considering a pardon for 
     Manafort, the President did not respond directly and instead 
     said he had ``great respect for what [Manafort]'s done, in 
     terms of what he's gone through.'' The President added that 
     ``some of the charges they threw against him, every 
     consultant, every lobbyist in Washington probably does.'' In 
     light of the President's counsel's previous statements that 
     the investigations ``might get cleaned up with some 
     presidential pardons'' and that a pardon would be possible if 
     the President come[s] to the conclusion that you have been 
     treated unfairly.'' The evidence supports the inference that 
     the President intended Manafort to believe that he could 
     receive a pardon, which would make cooperation with the 
     government as a means of a lesser sentence unnecessary.

  To read that again:

       The evidence supports the inference that the President 
     intended Manafort to believe that he could receive a pardon 
     which would make cooperation with the government as a means 
     of obtaining a lesser sentence unnecessary.

  The special counsel continues under intent:

       We also examined the evidence of the President's intent 
     making public statements about Manafort at the beginning of 
     his trial and when the jury was deliberating. Some evidence 
     supports a conclusion the President intended, at least in 
     part, to influence the jury. The trial generated widespread 
     publicity, and as the jury began to deliberate, commentators 
     suggested that an acquittal would add pressure to end the 
     Special Counsel's investigation. By publicly stating on the 
     second day of deliberations that Manafort ``happens to be a 
     very good person'' and that ``it's very sad what they've done 
     to Paul Manafort'' right after calling the Special Counsel's 
     investigation a ``rigged witch hunt,'' the President's 
     statements could, if they reached jurors, have the natural 
     tendency to engender sympathy for Manafort among jurors, and 
     a factfinder could infer that the President intended that 
     result. But there are alternative explanations to the 
     President's comments, including that he genuinely felt sorry 
     for Manafort or that his goal was not to influence the jury 
     but influence public opinion. The President's comments also 
     could have been intended to continue sending a message to 
     Manafort that a pardon was possible. As described above, the 
     President made his comments about Manafort being ``a very 
     good person'' immediately after declining to answer questions 
     about whether he would pardon Manafort.

  You might be very interested in the additional information about 
intent, but I can't read it to you because it is blacked out. 
Nonetheless, in that previous paragraph, it is clearly declared the 
evidence supports the inference the President intended Manafort to 
believe he could receive a pardon, which would make cooperation with 
the government

[[Page S5025]]

as a means of obtaining a lesser sentence unnecessary.
  Those are the first four cases of obstruction of justice in which a 
special prosecutor lays out substantial evidence on the obstructive 
act, on the nexus, and on the intent on the efforts to fire Mueller, on 
the efforts to curtail the Mueller investigation, on the order to 
McGahn to deny that he had attempted to fire Mueller, and on the effort 
to influence Manafort by alluding to a potential pardon.
  There is a lot more in this book--many other cases that, in the eyes 
of analysts, isn't as strong as the first four, but the evidence could 
support it, whether it is substantial evidence, but still very serious 
stories of efforts to obstruct justice.
  Ordinary Americans might say: If, in fact, the special prosecutor 
found all three standards met on at least four of these cases, then why 
hasn't the President been indicted? Well, indictment has to come from 
the executive branch and the Attorney General, who runs the Department 
of Justice, who isn't going to do that.
  There is a policy within the White House that basically says a 
President can't be indicted. Pull out your Constitution and try to find 
where the Constitution says that a President can't be indicted. Try to 
find that because it is not in there.
  ``Equal justice under law.'' That is what our Constitution is about, 
not the case of a King who is above the law, so we have a democratic 
republic, if we can keep it.
  But that means that we are in this principle ``equal justice under 
law,'' and if the special prosecutor is not going to make 
recommendations based on the White House executive branch principle 
that a President can't be indicted and the Department of Justice is not 
going to do it, there is only one option, and that is the House of 
Representatives. The House of Representatives has the huge 
responsibility of defending this principle ``equal justice under law.'' 
No one else is going to do it. It can't be done here in the Senate 
because the Constitution says the responsibility is in the House of 
Representatives to decide whether to impeach a President.
  There has been a lot of discussion of politics: Is this a smart thing 
to do? Does it take up too much time? How will people respond? I can 
tell you this, if the House fails to act, then this ``equal justice 
under law'' means nothing.
  This book is full of events that a thousand former Federal 
prosecutors have told us constitutes criminal conduct, and that is why 
the House must, in defending their oath of office to the Constitution, 
bring a committee together and defend the Constitution--the vision--
that no one in the United States of America, not even the President, is 
above the law. It is time--past time--to convene impeachment 
proceedings.

                          ____________________