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Brief
WASHINGTON — Sen. Thom Tillis isn’t troubled by the findings of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, he told Policy Watch on Wednesday.
The North Carolina Republican said he’s looking at “whether or not we should review the end-to-end investigation. But on its face, I’ve read it and I don’t have anything, I don’t have any particular concerns.”
Last month, the Justice Department released a 448-page redacted report detailing the findings of Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The thorough two-year probe concluded that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to show that “any member of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with representatives of the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 election.”
But Mueller declined to reach a conclusion about whether President Trump had obstructed justice. Mueller’s report says, “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”
The report also depicts Trump’s efforts to direct his staff to fire Mueller during the investigation. Then-White House counsel Don McGahn refused to carry out the order, “deciding that he would resign rather than trigger what he regarded as a potential Saturday Night Massacre,” the report says. Trump has disputed that finding.
Asked Wednesday whether he found anything about the president’s behavior disconcerting, Tillis told NC Policy Watch that he was heartened by the revelations in Mueller’s report.
“What I liked the most is about the smart people that he had advising him. Because that’s why at the end of the day they drew the conclusion there was no obstruction,” Tillis said.
Tillis, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was en route to a hearing with Attorney General William Barr. In the wake of news reports Wednesday that Mueller wrote a letter to Barr in late March complaining to Barr about his portrayal of Mueller’s findings, some Democrats are calling on Barr to resign.
Tillis called those demands “pure politics, no merit.”
After Barr released his initial summary of Mueller’s report in March, Tillis issued a statement lauding Mueller and his investigation. “In the end, the special counsel found there was no collusion and President Trump has been vindicated,” he said.
“Democrats in Congress now have a choice to make: accept the findings of the Mueller report and move on to advancing the business of the American people or instead pander to their fringe base by rejecting the Mueller report and launching politically-motivated and conspiracy-fueled investigations that will further divide our country.”
Robin Bravender is the Washington Bureau Chief for the Newsroom network, of which Policy Watch is a member.
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