President Donald Trump backed off his declaration that special counsel Robert Mueller should not be allowed to testify before Congress, saying Thursday he would leave the matter up to Attorney General Bill Barr.
“Well, I'm going to leave that up to our very great attorney general, and he'll make a decision on that,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
The president’s backpedaling comes days after he asserted that the special counsel should not appear before Congress, accusing Democrats of attempting to use Mueller's testimony as a “redo” after his investigation did not find a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Moscow and made no definitive ruling on whether the president obstructed justice.
Reminded by a reporter that Barr has repeatedly said he has no objection of Mueller testifying, Trump echoed those concerns but again said he would let Barr make the final call.
“I'm going to leave that up to the attorney general as to whether or not — to me, it looks like a redo,” he said, before launching into a tirade about the investigation and the access his White House gave Mueller during his investigation. The House Judiciary Committee has set a May 23 deadline for Mueller to appear before their panel, but his testimony could come as soon as next week.
“At the end of the testimony, no collusion, and essentially no obstruction,” he said.
Trump’s remarks came as his White House is in the midst of a pitched battle with Congress over the release of an unredacted version of Mueller’s findings. On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee voted to hold Barr in contempt of Congress for missing their deadline to release the report.
Hours earlier, Trump asserted executive privilege over the document in its entirety.But even while Trump continued to proclaim exoneration by Mueller, he railed against the special counsel, complaining about Mueller’s alleged conflicts of interests as he took questions from reporters at length for one of the first times since the report’s release.
“Listen to this. Your judge, call him a judge, has a business dispute with me,” Trump said of the special counsel, referring to Mueller's withdrawal from Trump National Golf Club in suburban Washington.
The president slammed Mueller's relationship with former FBI Director James Comey, whose firing was investigated as part of Mueller's probe. Trump also pointed out that Mueller was interviewed to be Comey's replacement at the top of the FBI days before being named special counsel.
“Your judge has a fantastic relationship with James Comey. Well, he's a part of this. He lied to congress. He's a liar, a leaker, and your judge wanted to become the FBI director. We chose Director [Christopher] Wray instead and told him I'm sorry. Those are tremendous conflicts," the president said.
Article originally published on POLITICO Magazine