James Clapper Praises Robert Mueller As 'A National Hero'

Former director of national intelligence James Clapper heaped praise on Robert Mueller just hours after the special counsel submitted his Russia probe report Friday.

“Bob Mueller is truly a national hero and is to be commended for what he did and the manner in which he did it,” Clapper, a CNN national security analyst, told the network’s Don Lemon. “Despite all the constant assaults, he kept his mouth shut and ran a very tight operation.”

Earlier that day, Mueller delivered his findings to Attorney General William Barr, who is now determining whether to make them public amid bipartisan congressional calls for transparency.

Despite questions that have swirled around President Donald Trump’s election and his relationship with Russia, Clapper isn’t optimistic that the report will provide Americans with any kind of closure.

“I harbored what turned out to be a naive hope that when this all started that this would somehow remove the cloud over this country and over the presidency, and I don’t think the Mueller report is going to do that,” he said.

One thing for which Clapper still doesn’t have answers, he said, is “the strange and disturbing deferential behavior of the president towards [Russian President] Vladimir Putin” and his failure to condemn Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Congress will have to continue waiting to get its hands on Mueller’s report, as the Justice Department told lawmakers it wouldn’t happen by Saturday, according to Politico.

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.