WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump said Sunday that special counsel Robert Mueller should not testify before Congress, after previously saying that the decision is up to Attorney General William Barr.
"Bob Mueller should not testify," Trump said in an afternoon tweet. "No redos for the Dems!"
Trump also insisted that Mueller's nearly two-year investigation and 448-page report found "no collusion" with Russia and "no obstruction" of justice.
In the report, Mueller's team wrote that while the investigation established that the Trump campaign "expected it would benefit electorally from" information stolen in Russia-backed efforts, it "did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."
Mueller also found 10 "episodes" of potential obstruction of justice but ultimately concluded that it was not his decision to determine whether Trump broke the law.
A redacted version of the document has been released; congressional Democrats are battling with Barr to get the full report.
The House Judiciary Committee has been seeking to hear from Mueller amid disagreements about whether Barr mischaracterized the special counsel's report in his congressional testimony and statements.
Trump's Sunday tweet marks a shift from what he said Friday during an exchange with reporters in the Oval Office. Asked then whether Mueller should testify before Congress and whether he would like to see the special counsel do so, Trump replied: "I don't know. That's up to our attorney general, who I think has done a fantastic job."
Barr said at a news conference last month -- and reiterated during his testimony last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee -- that he has no objection to Mueller testifying.
Trump and House Democrats are locked in a battle over congressional oversight, with the president objecting to multiple Capitol Hill investigations seeking witnesses, documents and his tax returns. The president has vowed to "fight all the subpoenas" from Democrats, sued to block compliance by accounting firms and banks, and instructed aides to ignore the repeated requests from Congress.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said his panel will probably adopt a contempt citation against Barr unless he provides the full, unredacted Mueller report.
Democrats aren't alone in seeking Mueller's testimony. Early last month, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, Rep. Douglas Collins of Georgia, urged Nadler to invite Mueller to testify, writing in a letter to the chairman, "If you seek both transparency and for the American public to learn the full contours of the Special Counsel's investigation, public testimony from Special Counsel Mueller himself is undoubtedly the best way to accomplish this goal."
In an appearance on CBS' Face the Nation on Sunday, Collins mentioned the letter and said of Mueller, "He's the one that is the central figure here."
Trump's reversal on Mueller testifying came hours after a key member of the House Judiciary Committee said that the panel has proposed a date of May 15 for Mueller to testify but that no agreement has been reached yet.
Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., said Sunday morning during an appearance on Fox News Sunday that a "tentative date has been set" for Mueller's testimony. But he said in a later tweet that he had misspoken.
"Just to clarify: we are aiming to bring Mueller in on the 15th, but nothing has been agreed to yet," Cicilline said in the tweet. "That's the date the Committee has proposed, and we hope the Special Counsel will agree to it. Sorry for the confusion."
A spokesman for Mueller declined to comment.
Elsewhere on Sunday, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., sharply criticized Trump's response to Russian interference in U.S. elections, saying that the president "makes it worse by calling it a hoax."
On Friday, the president tweeted that he discussed the "Russian Hoax" with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Klobuchar said Sunday that Trump's wording gave the false impression that the entire issue was a fabrication.
"This was actually an invasion of our democracy, OK?" Klobuchar said on CNN's State of the Union.
She said there is "ample evidence" that Trump is not concerned about the possibility that Russia may try to interfere in the 2020 election, pointing to reports that acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney told then-Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen that her agency should pay more attention to immigration and border security than to Russian interference.
"That is wrong, and he then makes it worse by calling it a hoax. I think we need to protect our nation's security," Klobuchar said.
Information for this article was contributed by Devlin Barrett, Shane Harris and Josh Dawsey of The Washington Post.
A Section on 05/06/2019