Rachel Maddow reflected on Robert Mueller’s two-year investigation into allegations Russia interfered with the 2016 presidential election, saying the special proseuctor and his investigative team “just got out played” by Bill Barr, who was appointed attorney general after the departure of Jeff Sessions.
Mueller died Saturday at age 81.
The findings of Mueller’s 2019 report “are pretty simple, actually,” Maddow told “The Weekend: Primetime” co-host Antonia Hylton. “And I think that part of the sort of political game that Mueller lost around the release of his findings was making it seem like it was complex or too difficult to explain to somebody on the back of an envelope.”
She added, “But it was pretty simple. They found definite, absolutely conclusive evidence that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump become president, that the Trump campaign was aware of it and expected to benefit from it, and that they took steps to obstruct the investigation into it.”
Mueller was named special counsel in May 2017, days after Trump dismissed Mueller’s successor James Comey, who had launched his own investigations into what was shared between Russia’s leadership and the 2016 Trump campaign.
Mueller attempted to interview Trump under oath, which was rejected by the president’s legal team. He opted against a grand-jury subpoena and sent Trump’s legal team written questions instead; the then-president ultimately refused to respond to nearly every query raised.
Mueller and his team wrote in the report, “While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” The report was not publicly shared for more than three weeks, during which Trump insisted he was “totally exonerated.”
“There were more than two dozen people who were charged with felonies,” Maddow continued. “They charged the Russians. They charged the Internet Research Agency. They charged multiple figures from the Russian government and intelligence services. They charged Trump’s campaign chairman. They charged Trump’s … deputy campaign chairman. They charged Trump’s national security advisor. They charged a number of people who were associated with the campaign.”
Trump later pardoned many of those, including Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, and Roger Stone, decisions that were perceived as slights against Mueller and his investigation.
“And those findings that Russia helped, that Trump knew Russia was helping him, and that Trump tried to make sure that the investigation into it didn’t proceed unimpeded, that should have been enough,” Maddow said. “And it really wasn’t. And there was an important element of the way that Mueller drew his conclusions, which is that he basically said, you know, under DOJ rules, we don’t charge sitting presidents. And if we can’t charge him, then I can’t really lay out the evidence against him either, because that would amount to an accusation that’s unfair to make because he’s not able to rebut it in court, because we’re not going to bring him into court.”
Watch the interview with Rachel Maddow in the video above.
