President Donald Trump said today that he is not worried about impeachment after special counsel Robert Mueller declined to accuse him of crimes in the Russia investigation.
“Not even a little bit,” Trump told reporters at the White House’s annual Easter Egg Roll when asked about the prospect of being impeached.
Top Democrats have refused to take impeachment off the table, despite warnings from leaders including Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) that the effort is likely to be unsuccessful and could divide the country.
While Mueller’s two-year investigation did not find the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 election, it detailed 10 cases of potential obstruction of justice but ultimately did not charge Trump with a crime.
Trump earlier Monday said he was confident because his actions did not meet the impeachment threshold of “high crimes and misdemeanors” laid out in the Constitution.
“Only high crimes and misdemeanors can lead to impeachment,” Trump tweeted. “There were no crimes by me (No Collusion, No Obstruction), so you can’t impeach. It was the Democrats that committed the crimes, not your Republican President! Tables are finally turning on the Witch Hunt!”
Still, Trump made it clear he is not happy with media coverage of the Mueller report.
The president shot down the notion his staff routinely subverts his directives, saying “nobody disobeys my orders.”
Mueller’s 448-page report revealed multiple instances in which Trump’s aides, sometimes to protect the president and sometimes to protect themselves, ignored his instructions to take actions designed to shut down the investigations that loomed over his presidency.
“The president’s efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the president declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests,” the special counsel wrote.
The president last week voiced frustration with former staff members who offered testimony to Mueller and, according to a source familiar with his thinking, was particularly angry with former White House counsel Don McGahn, who spoke for hours with investigators and handed over contemporaneous notes detailing incidents that proved damaging to Trump.
THE HILL
{Matzav.com}