Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller said in testimony to Congress on Wednesday that he didn’t subpoena President Trump due to the necessity of “expediting the end of the investigation.” Facing questioning from Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY), Mueller said: “The expectation was if we did subpoena the president, he would fight the subpoena, and we would be in the midst of the investigation for a substantial period of time.” Maloney then pressed Mueller on the decision to provide written questions for Trump. After asking what Mueller thought about Trump’s responses, Mueller replied: “Certainly not as useful as the interview would be.” Mueller said his team understood they could subpoena the president, but he had to “balance” the time it would take for the subpoena to go through the courts versus how much evidence his team had.

Mueller’s testimony supports claims made in his report. In the report’s second volume, Mueller wrote: “Ultimately, while we believed that we had the authority and the legal justification to issue a grand jury subpoena to obtain the president’s testimony, we chose not to do so. We made that decision in view of the substantial delay that such an investigative step would likely produce at a late stage of the investigation.”