[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 125 (Wednesday, July 24, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5035-S5036]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Mueller Report

  Mr. President, I will conclude my remarks by raising the third topic, 
and it is timely for today. I want to do two things with regard to the 
service and the work of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller but also 
talk about the report he issued.
  There is a reference in a narrative about Robert Mueller's service in 
Vietnam that I won't add to the Record because it is very long, but I 
will quote from it for just a couple of minutes. This is an account by 
the publication Wired. It is a long account, but I will just briefly 
read the beginning of it about his service.
  Just imagine this: someone who grew up with probably not too many 
concerns about economic security; someone who had the benefit of a 
great education and then volunteered to serve in Vietnam.
  This particular vignette says:

       After [serving] nine months at war, he was finally due--

  ``He'' meaning Robert Mueller--

     --for a few short days of R&R outside the battle zone. 
     Mueller had seen intense combat since he last said goodbye to 
     his wife. He'd received the Bronze Star with a distinction 
     for valor for his actions in one battle, and he'd been 
     airlifted out of the jungle during another firefight after 
     being shot in the thigh. [Robert Mueller] and [his wife] Ann 
     had spoken only twice since he had left for South Vietnam.

  Then it goes on to say why he wanted to keep serving in the Marine 
Corps:

       I didn't relish the US Marine Corps absent combat.

  Then it goes on to talk about his decision to go to law school after 
being in Vietnam, with the goal of serving his country as a prosecutor. 
He went on to lead the Criminal Division of the Justice Department and 
to prosecute a lot of bad guys--my words, not words from the 
publication--and then ``became director of the FBI one week before 
September 11, 2001, and stayed on to become the bureau's longest-
serving director since J. Edgar Hoover. And yet, throughout his five-
decade career, that year of combat experience with the Marines has 
loomed large in Mueller's mind. `I'm most proud the Marine Corps deemed 
me worthy of leading other Marines,' he [said] in . . . 2009.''
  So that is his background--just some of his background: service to 
his country in Vietnam, service as a Federal prosecutor for many, many 
years, and then called upon to serve his country again. He is the 
embodiment of public service. He gives integrity and meaning

[[Page S5036]]

and value to what President Kennedy called us all to do--to not ask 
what our country can do for us but what we can do for our country. 
Robert Mueller has answered that call over and over again. He is a 
person of integrity and ability.
  For just a few minutes before I yield the floor, I want to talk about 
some of his work.
  One of the points then-Special Counsel Mueller made in a statement I 
guess back in May was--he first of all outlined how the Russian 
Federation interfered with our election and pointed to the serious 
consequences of that, but then he also talked about how--when the 
second volume of the report deals with obstruction, he reminded us in 
that statement--at least I took from it, my impression of the 
statement--of not just the seriousness of what Russia did but the 
seriousness and the gravity of obstructing that kind of an 
investigation.
  So if someone wanted to read just a portion of the report--the almost 
500 pages--if you wanted to just zero in on some key parts of volume II 
about obstruction, you could start on page 77. That is a section titled 
``The President's Efforts to Remove the Special Counsel.'' Then there 
are other instances--several instances of obstruction--alleged 
obstruction there. So if you read between pages 77 and 120 of volume 
II, you are going to learn a lot about obstruction. Let me read a 
couple of the lines that the report sets forth.
  When the special counsel walks through the factual predicate of what 
happened in the first instance where the President calls the White 
House Counsel, Mr. McGahn, and says some things that the special 
counsel concluded were a directive to fire or have fired the special 
counsel, they say in the report on page--this is volume II, page 88:

       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.

  Page 89:

       Substantial evidence indicates that by June 17, 2017, the 
     President knew his conduct was under investigation by a 
     federal prosecutor who could present evidence of federal 
     crimes to a grand jury.

  It goes on from there in the ``Intent'' section, where the special 
counsel has to lay out the evidence to prove intent because if you 
can't prove intent, you can't go much further.

       Substantial evidence indicates that the President's 
     attempts to remove the Special Counsel were linked to the 
     Special Counsel's oversight on investigations that involved 
     the President's conduct and, most immediately, to reports 
     that the President was being investigated for potential 
     obstruction of justice.

  So those are just three vignettes from pages 88 and 89, operative 
words there being ``substantial evidence.'' In other parts of the 
report, evidence is laid out. Sometimes they say there is not enough 
evidence, but I think ``substantial evidence'' is a compelling part of 
what we saw.
  Let me just quickly--because I know I am over time. I will now move 
to page 113. This is a separate section. This section is titled ``The 
President Orders McGahn''--White House Counsel McGahn--``to Deny that 
the President Tried to Fire the Special Counsel,'' so referring back to 
the earlier section, and then, when they go through the evidence, they 
again get back to the consideration or the weighing of the evidence.
  I am looking at volume II, page 118--again, those words:

       Substantial evidence supports McGahn'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 McGahn reacted; and the fact 
     that the President had been told conflicts were substantial, 
     were being considered by the Department of Justice, and 
     should be raised with the President's personal counsel rather 
     than brought to McGahn.

  So you get the message I am sending. And the last one is on page 
120--``Substantial evidence indicates'' the following facts.
  So I raise all that because there is a lot of discussion about volume 
II and what the conclusion might have been. The reason I refer to those 
areas of substantial evidence is that in May of this year, there was a 
statement by former Federal prosecutors. We were told that as many as 
1,000 bipartisan prosecutors from both parties signed a letter, and I 
will read just one sentence from the letter: ``Each of us''--meaning 
these Republican and Democratic former prosecutors--``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's policy against indicting a sitting 
President, result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of 
justice.''
  I think those prosecutors--I believe those prosecutors are resting 
that determination that they each made individually on those areas of 
the report that begin with the words ``substantial evidence 
indicates.''
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Romney). The Senator from Iowa.