Mueller Report Prompts House Committee Chair To Threaten Russia With Punishing Legislation

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 20th April, 2019) Legislation that would punish Russia for interfering in the 2016 US election, plus a congressional investigation of President Donald Trump's efforts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, will be forthcoming from the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, the panel's Democratic Chairman Eliot Engel said in a press release on Friday.

"The heart of the [Special counsel Robert Mueller's] report paints a very real picture of Russia's wide-ranging attack on American democracy," Engel said. "I intend to advance legislation that would punish those responsible and help prevent future attempts to interfere with our elections."

Engel went on to say the Mueller report makes clear that Trump sought business with Russia that he tried to hide, an apparent reference to efforts by Trump's business empire to build a hotel in Moscow.

On Thursday, the Justice Department released a redacted version of Mueller's report of his investigation into allegations of Trump-Russia collusion and Russian interference in the US 2016 election. The investigation found no evidence of collusion, but said there were ten instances of Trump trying to obstruct justice.

US Attorney General William Bar said the Justice Department found the evidence in the report did not amount to an obstruction of justice offense.

Engel and the chairs of other powerful House of Representatives committees have announced plans to use the Muller report as a guide to continue investigating Trump and his administration for wrongdoing. After Democrats gained a majority in November 2018 midterm elections, Republican in the House of Representatives can do little to halt the investigative onslaught.

But on the other side of Capitol Hill, Republicans with a majority in the Senate have announced plans to investigate Democrats in the Obama administration's Justice Department and FBI, who ordered a counterintelligence probe of the Trump campaign.

The counterintelligence probe, based on a dubious dossier paid for by Trump's political opponent Hillary Clinton, featured electronic eavesdropping of Trump aides using US national security laws and eventually led to Mueller's appointment as special counsel.

Moscow denies that Russian officials attempted to sway US voters in the 2016 election, saying the allegations were made up to excuse the election loss of Trump's opponent as well as deflect public attention from actual instances of election fraud and corruption.