Robert Mueller makes first public statement about Russia probe

Special counsel Robert Mueller will make his first public comments about his report on Russian interference in the 2016 election Wednesday morning, the Department of Justice announced.

Mueller is scheduled to make the statement at 11 a.m. and will not be taking questions afterward.

The special counsel has been in negotiations with House Democrats about testifying before a committee to discuss the findings in his 448-page report.

Democrats want Mueller to testify to clear up conclusions about collusion and obstruction of justice in the report he turned over to the Justice Department on March 22.

Two days later, Attorney General William Barr released a four-page summary of the report’s “principal conclusions” declaring Mueller’s prosecutors did not “establish” that either President Trump or his campaign associates “conspired or coordinated” with Russia.

But on the question of obstruction, Barr wrote that while Mueller did not conclude that the president committed a crime, “it also did not exonerate him.”

On April 18, Barr released a redacted version of the report.

Mueller then sent a letter to Barr saying the AG had failed to “fully capture the context, nature and substance” of his report’s findings.

“There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation. This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations,” the letter said.

Earlier this month, members of the House Judiciary Committee voted to hold Barr in contempt after he refused to prove Congress with a full, unredacted version of Mueller’s report.

The White House asserted executive privilege over the report and any underlying evidence that explains what led Mueller to make his conclusions.