Title: Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin On 'Tragedy' Of Mueller Investigation : NPR
Headings: Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin Explains The 'Tragedy' Of The Mueller Investigation
Politics
Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin Explains The 'Tragedy' Of The Mueller Investigation
National Security
Mueller Report Doesn't Find Russian Collusion But Can't 'Exonerate' On Obstruction
Interview Highlights
On why it was important to interview Trump face-to-face — which Mueller didn't do
On how Trump's team turned Mueller into a political opponent
On Mueller's efforts to stay apolitical
National Security
The Mueller Report Is Getting A Lot Of Attention. Here's How We Got Here
On how Mueller didn't investigate Trump's financial dealings with Russia
Politics
How Trump's Impeachment Unfolded, In The Words Of Those Who Administered It
On the dedication of the book to "my fellow journalists"
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Content: Saul Loeb, Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
Six months after the conclusion of President Trump's impeachment, CNN legal analyst and New Yorker staff writer Jeffrey Toobin says special counsel Robert Mueller 's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election was fundamentally flawed. "The tragedy of the Mueller investigation is they did this brilliant investigation proving that Donald Trump repeatedly obstructed justice — far worse than Richard Nixon did in Watergate, far worse than Bill Clinton did in the Lewinsky matter ," Toobin argues. " But then he doesn't finish the job and say what is obvious." Toobin says that Mueller's decision to conclude his report without explicitly stating that the president had obstructed of justice left the door open for Trump to claim he had done nothing wrong — despite evidence to the contrary. "When he told the FBI director not to investigate Michael Flynn, when he tried to get his White House counsel to fire Mueller, when he told his White House counsel to lie about whether he tried to get him to fire Mueller — all of that was egregious obstruction of justice," he says. Toobin's new book, True Crimes and Misdemeanors, looks at how Trump survived the Mueller investigation and impeachment. He says the conclusion of Mueller's report was driven by the Justice Department policy of not indicting a sitting president. National Security
Mueller Report Doesn't Find Russian Collusion But Can't 'Exonerate' On Obstruction
"It's all laid out in the Mueller report," Toobin says. " But then ... Mueller pulled this punch ultimately. And it gave the president a free pass effectively on the fact that he repeatedly committed obstruction of justice."