US Congress Needs To Determine If Trump Obstructed Justice During Mueller Probe - Schiff

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 19th April, 2019) Congress needs to step in and investigate whether President Donald Trump obstructed justice by attempting to interfere with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe into allegations of Trump-Russia collusion and Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential campaign, House of Representatives Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff told reporters.

Schiff was especially critical of a determination by US Attorney General William Barr that Trump had not obstructed justice, which Schiff said was at odds with the Muller report.

"The Attorney General's actions would make the President above the law, would make the president such that he cannot commit the crime of obstruction of justice," Schiff said on Thursday. "That was not the special council's view... He left that issue to the Congress of the United States and we will need to consider it."

Schiff also said that the Muller report raised the issue of a possible criminal conspiracy between Trump aides and Russian operatives during the 2016 campaign even though Muller concluded that no "collusion" had taken place.

"Each of the contacts is not only spelled out in this report, corroborated in this report, but additional contacts and acts are also itemized," Schiff said. "It gives us more information than the public knew about these illicit contacts between the Trump campaign and the Russians, whether they rise to the level of a criminal conspiracy or not."

Throughout the Mueller investigation, Russia has repeatedly and emphatically denied any efforts by Russian officials to influence the 2016 US election.

Having gained control of the House of Representatives in the November midterm elections, Democrats are in a position to continue investigating the US president for the remainder of the year and throughout the 2020 presidential campaign, despite Trump's claim that he had been exonerated by the Mueller report.