Leon Panetta: Congress should look into Mueller report

In his first ever press conference Wednesday, Special Counsel Robert Mueller gave new insight into his 400-page report released in April surrounding Russian election interference, whether the Trump campaign was involved and if the president tried to obstruct the investigation.

Former U.S. defense secretary and chairman of the Panetta Institute for Public Policy Leon Panetta spoke to KION on Wednesday to talk about his reaction to Mueller’s press conference earlier that day.

Panetta did not directly say President Trump should be impeached, but instead pointed to what Mueller said in his press conference as a clue into what Congress should do.

“If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so,” said Mueller. “We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime.”

It was those words that caught Panetta’s attention.

“If there was no evidence of a crime, they would’ve said so. That’s what Bob Mueller said. That indicates that there may be evidence of a crime,” said Panetta.

Panetta says the Mueller report outlines a number of instances that point to evidence of obstruction of justice. Congress is currently in a partisan fight over continuing where Mueller left off. Panetta says Congress has the power to dig deeper.

“Under our Constitution, there is a legislative process beyond the criminal judicial process for holding presidents accountable. And that process really now has to determine whether or not this president did in fact violate the law,” said Panetta.

He also defends Mueller’s controversial decision not to prosecute the president. He says Mueller was just following justice department rules.

“He was obligated under the justice department provision that you cannot indict a sitting president, so that he could not really bring any kind of criminal action against the president because of that limitation,” said Panetta.

The Mueller investigation did result in a number of criminal indictments against members of the Trump Administration, his 2016 campaign and Russian operatives. While it concluded Russia did in fact try to interfere in the 2016 election, it states that it could not prove evidence of collusion.

President Donald Trump tweeted out to defend himself after the Mueller press conference. It reads: “Nothing changes from the Mueller Report. There was insufficient evidence and therefore, in our Country, a person is innocent. The case is closed! Thank you.”