White House: Trump ‘More Than Happy’ to See Full Mueller Report Released
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said Monday that President Trump would welcome the release of the full Mueller report because he believes it will fully exonerate him of the central charge that sparked the special counsel’s investigation: collusion with Russian operatives to sway the election in his favor.
“He’s more than happy for any of this stuff to come out because he knows exactly what did and what didn’t happen and now frankly the rest of America knows,” Sanders told NBC News. “They know there was no collusion, they know there was no obstruction, and it’s a complete and total exoneration of the president.”
Sanders, in a number of other cable-news appearances Monday morning, emphasized that the final decision regarding how much of the report to make public rests with Attorney General William Barr, and will be subject to relevant Department of Justice guidelines, one of which prohibits the naming of individuals who were investigated but never indicted.
On Sunday, Barr sent a letter to Congress explaining that Mueller’s report, which he received Friday, did not include evidence of coordination between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives who interfered in the election.
The Mueller report apparently left open the question of whether Trump obstructed justice, but Barr concluded that there was not sufficient evidence to bring that charge.
“While this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,” reads a section of the report pertaining to the obstruction issue, according to Barr.
Congressional Democrats have issued a unanimous call for the report to be made public in its entirety and have threatened to issue subpoenas to that effect if Barr tries to withhold parts of it. They have been joined by a number of House Republicans, who agree that the Department of Justice should prioritize transparency in determining how much of the report to be made public.
