Trump Says Unspecified Enemies ‘Certainly Will Be Looked At’
President Donald Trump suggested Monday he would support the public release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s full report on Russian interference in the 2016 election, but did not indicate whether he would order or ask such a release to occur.
In the days since Mueller turned his final report over to Attorney General William Barr, and Barr, in turn, sent a letter to senior lawmakers on Capitol Hill summarizing it, Trump has repeatedly claimed its contents are a “complete and total exoneration.”
Neither Congress nor the White House has received the full report, and Trump bases his claim on what Barr has reportedly told him. Democrats, meanwhile, say a four-page letter from Barr is hardly a comprehensive account of what Mueller uncovered and contend the president’s interpretation of what little is known about the report’s contents is unfounded.
According to the letter Barr forwarded to lawmakers on Sunday Mueller didn’t find that either Trump or his campaign conspired or coordinated with Russia to interfere in the election.
In remarks Monday alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he expressed relief Mueller’s investigation is over, saying both “It’s lasted a long time” and “I wish it could have gone a lot sooner, a lot quicker.”
Asked by reporters whether Mueller’s report should be released in full, Trump said it’s “up to the attorney general, but it wouldn’t bother me at all.”
But as he continued to answer questions, it was clear the investigation and others that have gone on in parallel to it still weighed on him and he lashed out at unnamed people he said lied during it.
“There are people out there who have done very bad things, I would say treasonous things against our country,” he said. “They lied to Congress. Many of them, you know who they are. They’ve done so many evil things.”
He then added, “hopefully, people that have done such harm to our country — we’ve gone through a period of really bad things happening — those people will certainly be looked at. I have been looking at them for a long time. And I’m saying, ‘Why haven’t they been looked at?’
“What they did, it was a false narrative,” the president continued. “It was a terrible thing. We can never let this happen to another President again. I can tell you that. I say it very strongly. Very few people I know could have handled it. We can never, ever let this happen to another President again.”
Asked if Mueller acted honorably throughout the investigation, Trump, who repeatedly called the probe “a witch hunt,” answered, “Yes, he did.”
He also said the outcome of the investigation is “100 percent the way it should have been.”
Asked by Bloomberg’s Jennifer Jacobs whether he was thinking about pardoning anyone, Trump said no. “Haven’t thought about it,” he said.
Trump is traveling to Grand Rapids, Michigan on Thursday, the first of a planned series of Make America Great Again campaign rallies at which he’s expected to comment on the end of the Mueller investigation at length.
He reportedly believes his purported exoneration will shore up his base and begin to broaden his appeal to establishment Republicans ahead of his 2020 re-election campaign.
