AG Barr will decide if Mueller testifies before Congress, says Trump

US Attorney General William Barr testifies during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington on the Mueller report. File picture: Andrew Harnik/AP

US Attorney General William Barr testifies during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington on the Mueller report. File picture: Andrew Harnik/AP

Published May 9, 2019

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Washington - Whether or not US special counsel Robert S.

Mueller III will testify before Congress about his Russia election

meddling report will be left to Attorney General William P. Barr,

President Donald Trump said Thursday.

The president appeared to contradict himself just days after a Sunday

tweet that included this statement: "Bob Mueller should not testify."

Trump wrote that day that the former FBI director testifying before

Democratic-run House committees would amount to the opposition party

trying to invent evidence of negative information about him.

"No redos for the Dems!" Trump wrote Sunday.

But by Thursday, the president had returned to his original position

on the issue.

"I'm going to leave that up to our very great attorney general,"

Trump told reporters during another impromptu White House

question-and-answer session following a health care event. "He'll

make a decision on that."

Trump then again falsely stated that Mueller's report "fully

exonerated" him. The report, in fact, states the special counsel was

unable to clear the president on obstruction of justice.

"There was no crime," Trump said again. "It was a witch hunt."

Democrats in Congress strongly disagree, as their investigations of

Trump's Russia connections and questions about obstruction of justice

continue as relations between the two sides worsen.

For instance, Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and House Judiciary

Chairman Jerrold Nadler of New York say the actions of Trump and Barr

- including claiming executive privilege to block Congress from

seeing a completely unredacted version of Mueller's report - amounts

to a "constitutional crisis."

"President Trump has taken a series of actions over his two years as

president where he has genuinely pushed the boundaries, across a

whole range of things: criticizing sitting federal court judges, the

way he talks about the media, and now the way that he is challenging

the power of Congress," Senate Judiciary member Chris Coons, D-Del.,

said Wednesday.

"He's done this previously, in terms of spending decisions, he's done

it in other ways, in terms of the reach and scope of his executive

orders," Coons told CNN.

A day after the GOP-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee issued a

subpoena to his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., to get additional

testimony, the president said his son did nothing wrong.

"The Mueller report came out, that's the Bible," Trump said,

contending it failed to implicate Donald Jr. in any crime.

In what became one part mini-press conference and another part one of

his political rallies, the president addressed a range of topics.

Trump expressed confidence in national security adviser John Bolton

amid several foreign policy crises - and noted he often has to

"temper" his hawkish aide.

"John's very good. He has strong views on things, which is OK," Trump

said. "I'm the one who tempers him, which is OK. I have John Bolton

and I have people who are a little more dovish than him."

One of those crises is North Korea, which U.S. and South Korean

intelligence officials say fired two missiles overnight. Trump called

them "short-range missiles."

"Nobody's happy about it," he said, adding his relationship with Kim

Jong Un "continues." But the president poured cold water on the

notion the two countries are nearing a nuclear disarmament pact: "I

don't think they're ready to negotiate."

Ahead of the early evening resumption of trade talks with China in

Washington, Trump sounded hopeful even as his top negotiators have

said Beijing is backing away from the pact that was emerging.

"I think it'll be a very strong day frankly," he said of the evening

meeting. "It was their idea to come back."

He said Chinese President Xi Jinping just sent him a "beautiful

letter" that indicated a desire to work together.

In the session's most Trumpian moment, the president again suggested

his Justice Department should investigate a former Obama

administration official.

"He should be prosecuted for that," Trump said of former Secretary of

State John Kerry, referring to conversations the longtime

Massachusetts Democratic senator has had with Iranian officials since

Trump took office. "He violated the Logan Act."

Trump often makes such public pronouncements without the Justice

Department launching investigations.

dpa

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