On Wednesday, former Special Counsel Robert Mueller testified before Congress, confirming that Trump “was not exculpated” by his report. Trump has repeatedly falsely claimed that the report found no evidence of collusion or obstruction. In fact, Mueller acknowledged multiple instances of obstruction. Yet, he also noted that a sitting president can’t be indicted.
MSNBC analyst Nicolle Wallace broke down the significance of the testimony–set to continue this afternoon.
“Look I think there are a couple of very important moments for the Democrats and for the country,” Wallace said. “Robert Mueller confirmed here in a line of questioning from Ted Lieu that the president’s conduct did meet the legal definition of obstruction,” she said. “If you’re anyone else but Donald Trump that means you’re guilty of the crime of obstructing justice,” she observed.
“Now, he wouldn’t play along when Swalwell tried to get him to say whether he would have signed off on what 800-plus former federal prosectors–Democrat and Republican–former prosecutors — who said that if it was anyone other than the president he would have been charged with a crime.”
When the report came out, analysts wondered if Mueller’s strategy was to preserve evidence for potential future prosecutions.
“Famously, Nancy Pelosi has said of one of her arguments against proceeding against impeachment is she’d like to see the president serve time for alleged criminal conduct. I think like everything, associated with this investigation, it can be parsed is sliced by each partisan side.
But Wallace saw a major difference in how the Democrats and Republican lawmakers conducted themselves during questioning.
“Let’s not ‘both sides’ the Democrats,” Wallace said. “The Democrats considered this a fact-finding mission. The Republicans were all auditioning for the next weeknight show on Fox News.”
She singled out Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Jim Jordan (R-OH) in particular.
“Matt Gaetz sounded like a lunatic auditioning to fill in for Sean Hannity,” she joked.
“None of them appeared to be looking for facts.”
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