RAW STORY — An explosive new book claims that special counsel Robert Mueller had drafted an obstruction of justice indictment against President Donald Trump during his probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
The Guardian reports that Michael Wolff’s upcoming book will claim that Mueller “drew up a three-count obstruction of justice indictment against Donald Trump before deciding to shelve it.”
Wolff claims that his knowledge of this supposed draft indictment is “based on internal documents given to me by sources close to the Office of the Special Counsel.”
According to Wolff, Mueller kept a copy of the indictment — which was purportedly titled, “United States of America against Donald J Trump, Defendant” — on his desk for a year. Wolff writes that the document shows Trump’s obstructive efforts “began on the seventh day of his administration,” starting with “national security adviser Michael Flynn’s lies to the FBI about his contacts with Russian representative[s], to the president’s efforts to have [former FBI director] James Comey protect Flynn, to Comey’s firing, to the president’s efforts to interfere with the special counsel’s investigation, to his attempt to cover up his son and son-in-law’s meeting with Russian governmental agents, to his moves to interfere with Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe’s testimony.”
However, Mueller spokesman Peter Carr tells the Guardian that the documents described in Wolff’s book “do not exist.”
In his final report on the Russia probe, Mueller famously declined to exonerate Trump of obstruction charges, even while declining to formally indict him. As part of his justification for not indicting Trump, Mueller cited Department of Justice policies that state a sitting president cannot be indicted.
However, Mueller’s report also outlined multiple instances in which the president may have obstructed justice, including his attempts to get Mueller fired, his effort to get White House counsel Don McGahn to lie about his orders to fire the special counsel, and his ploys to limit the scope of the special counsel’s investigation.
