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Mueller: I did not clear Trump of obstruction of justice

WASHINGTON — Former special counsel Robert Mueller on Wednesday dismissed President Donald Trump’s claims that his investigation had exonerated the president of obstructing his probe into Russia’s efforts to help Trump win the 2016 election.

“The president was not exculpated for the acts that he allegedly committed,” Mueller declared at the opening of congressional hearings into his investigation.

He described the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in American politics as among the most serious challenges to democracy he had encountered in his decades-long career, which included steering the FBI after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The televised Capitol Hill appearance, Mueller’s first since wrapping his two-year Russia probe last spring, unfolded at a moment of deep divisions in Congress and the country, with many Americans hardened in their opinions about the success of Donald Trump’s presidency and whether impeachment proceedings are necessary. It was unclear whether hours of testimony will shape public opinion about Trump’s acts.

Democrats hoped his testimony would weaken Trump’s reelection prospects in ways that Mueller’s book-length report did not. They hope that even if his testimony doesn’t inspire impeachment demands — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has made clear she will not pursue impeachment, for now —Mueller could nonetheless unambiguously spell out questionable, norm-shattering actions by the president.

Republicans, by contrast, immediately defended Trump and criticized the Democrats for continuing to go after him. They highlighted Mueller’s conclusion of insufficient evidence to establish a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia.

“Those are the facts of the Mueller report. Russia meddled in the 2016 election,” said Rep. Doug Collins, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee. “The president did not conspire with Russians. Nothing we hear today will change those facts.”

Mueller frequently gave terse, one-word answers to lawmakers’ questions, and referred back to the wording in his report. He at times appeared stilted and halting, and several times asked for questions to be repeated.

Pressed as to why he hadn’t investigated a “dossier” of claims that the Republicans insist helped lead to the start of the probe, he said that was not his charge.

That was “outside my purview,” he said repeatedly.

Though Mueller declared at the outset that he would be limited in what he would say, the hearings nonetheless carry the extraordinary spectacle of a prosecutor discussing in public a criminal investigation he conducted into a sitting U.S. president.

Mueller, known for his taciturn nature, warned that he would not stray beyond what’s already been revealed in his report . And the Justice Department instructed Mueller to stay strictly within those parameters, giving him a formal directive to point to if he faces questions he does not want to answer.

On Tuesday, Democrats on the House judiciary and intelligence committees granted his request to have his top aide in the investigation, Aaron Zebley, sit at the table with him. Zebley is not expected to be sworn in for questioning by the judiciary panel. But he will be able to answer questions before the intelligence committee, where, a committee aide said, he will be sworn in. The aide was not authorized to discuss the hearing preparations publicly and requested anonymity.

Trump lashed out early Wednesday ahead of the hearing, saying on Twitter that “Democrats and others” are trying to fabricate a crime and pin it on “a very innocent President.”

“Why didn’t Robert Mueller investigate the investigators?” Trump said in his tweet.

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