5 Big Questions for Mueller the Trump-Russia Investigation
Could the president be charged later? What happened to the counterintelligence probe? The end of the special counsel’s work is just the beginning for some aspects of the saga.
Photo Illustration by Kelly Caminero/The Daily Beast/Getty
Special Counsel Robert Mueller is ready to testify before Congress. And there are still a lot of questions left about the Russia investigation. Mueller has previously swore off answering the most pressing one—whether President Trump broke the law. But there’s still a lot more we don’t know about the case, like who else is under investigation, and does Russia have leverage over Trump?
Is Trump fair game for future prosecutors? The gist of Mueller’s impromptu statement seemed like a punt to Congress: The special counsel’s office did its job, the rest is up to lawmakers. As Mueller said at the press conference and in the report, the special counsel’s office didn’t make a charging decision because standing policy in the Department of Justice is that a sitting president can’t be indicted.
Mueller made a pointed reference to the DOJ’s guidance that “a process other than the criminal justice system” was necessary to determine if the president is guilty of a crime, which sounded an awful lot like him saying it was up to Congress to charge or not charge Trump with attempting to obstruct justice.