Attorney General William Barr’s summary of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report contradicts the actual report, Chris Christie said Wednesday.
“Those comments by Bob Mueller about the other processes — obviously impeachment being the only constitutional way to accuse the president of wrongdoing — definitely contradicts what the attorney general said when he summarized Mueller’s report and said that he then had to draw the conclusion on that,” Christie told ABC News.
“Mueller clearly contradicts that today in a very concise way,” Christie said. “On the obstruction issue, this was never going to be a Department of Justice or special counsel call. In the end, on a sitting president, this is the call of the Congress playing their role as a coequal branch of government and they’re now going to have to decide what it is they want to do.”
Mueller said Wednesday in his first public comments about the Russia investigation that his team would have declared President Trump did not commit a crime “if we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime.”
He also explained that he did not make a determination on obstruction because of longstanding Justice Department guidelines against charging sitting presidents.
“The opinion says that the Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing,” Mueller said.
Barr released a four-page summary of the special counsel’s 448-page report weeks before the redacted document was made public. Barr said in his summary that Mueller “did not find any obstruction,” though Mueller detailed 10 instances of possible obstruction in his report.
