The Mueller Report: 'This Is the End of My Presidency'

Jeff Sessions, Attorney GeneralThe Deputy Attorney General has appointed a special counsel to investigate Russian interference in the election. Robert Mueller. He's a former FBI Director. He's well-respected. The appointment is effective immediately.

Donald TrumpOh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked. How could this happen? I thought you were my Attorney General. You were supposed to protect me.

SessionsMr. President, I recused myself from the Russia investigation. I had no role in this decision. The Deputy Attorney General made the appointment independently.

TrumpYou should have never recused yourself. And if you were going to recuse yourself, you should have told me before I appointed you. I would have picked someone else. Everyone tells me I should fire Mueller. I should fire him. This is a witch hunt.

SessionsMr. President, I would advise against that. Firing the special counsel would be seen as obstruction. It would make the situation worse, not better.

Donald Trump, to Don McGahn, White House CounselCall Rod Rosenstein. Tell him that Mueller has conflicts of interest and can't serve as special counsel. Tell him to fire Mueller.

Don McGahnMr. President, I can't do that. That's not how this works. The special counsel regulations give the Attorney General, or in this case the Deputy Attorney General, the authority to remove the special counsel. The White House Counsel does not have that authority. And even if I did, I would not do it. Firing Mueller would be a catastrophic mistake.

TrumpI'm not asking you. I'm telling you. Call Rosenstein. Fire Mueller.

McGahnMr. President, I am not going to do that. And I want to be clear: if you direct me to do it, I will resign rather than carry out that order. I will not be part of firing the special counsel.

McGahn, in his interview with the special counsel's officeI decided to resign. I went back to my office, packed up my things, and told my chief of staff that I was leaving. I called Reince Priebus and told him I was resigning. I called Steve Bannon and told him the same. They both told me to stay. They said the President needed me. I stayed. But I was prepared to leave. I was not going to fire the special counsel.

Trump, to Corey Lewandowski, former campaign managerI want you to deliver a message to Jeff Sessions. Tell him to unrecuse himself from the Russia investigation. Tell him to limit the special counsel's investigation to future elections. Not the 2016 election. The 2016 election is over. There's nothing to investigate. Tell him to make a public statement saying that the investigation is limited to future elections.

Corey LewandowskiMr. President, I'm not a White House employee. I don't have a formal role. I can't deliver official messages to the Attorney General. But I'll try to get a meeting with him.

TrumpDictate the message to me. I want to make sure you get it right.

Lewandowski, in his interview with the special counsel's officeThe President dictated a message to me. I wrote it down. It said that the Attorney General should announce that the special counsel's investigation was limited to future elections, and that the 2016 election was not part of the investigation. I never delivered the message. I didn't think it was appropriate. I gave the note to Rick Dearborn, a White House official, and asked him to deliver it. He didn't deliver it either. The note was never delivered.

Mueller Report, Volume IThe investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities. The investigation identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign, but the evidence was not sufficient to charge any campaign official with a criminal conspiracy.

Mueller Report, Volume IIThe investigation examined ten episodes involving the President and evaluated whether they constituted obstruction of justice. The report does not conclude that the President committed a crime. It also does not exonerate him. If we had confidence that the President clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. We did not make a determination as to whether the President did commit a crime because the Office of Legal Counsel opinion that a sitting President cannot be indicted precluded us from doing so.

Robert Mueller, in his public statementIf we had confidence that the President clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. We did not make a determination as to whether the President did commit a crime. The Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting President of wrongdoing. That process is Congress.

William Barr, Attorney General, in his letter to CongressThe Special Counsel's investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The Special Counsel did not draw a conclusion as to whether the examined conduct constituted obstruction of justice. The Deputy Attorney General and I concluded that the evidence developed during the Special Counsel's investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction of justice offense.

Mueller, in a letter to BarrThe summary letter the Department sent to Congress and released to the public late in the afternoon of March 24 did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this office's work and conclusions. 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.

Donald Trump, on TwitterNo Collusion, No Obstruction, Complete and Total EXONERATION. KEEP AMERICA GREAT!