NY grand jury indicts former President Trump
(CNSNews.com) - The Trump administration has given Special Counsel Robert Mueller all the witnesses and documents he requested; Mueller understands that the investigation is a "great burden on the president"; and Mueller has even told President Trump's legal team that Trump is not a target of the investigation, Trump's former attorney John Dowd said Wednesday night.
Yet Mueller has not kept his word about wrapping up the Trump-Russia investigation, as he should have done by now, Dowd said.
"That's when I saw a stall going on, and I just lost complete faith in him because we had shaken hands," Dowd told Fox News's Sean Hannity. He said he now regrets taking Mueller at his word.
Dowd, who resigned from Trump's legal team in March, said it was Mueller's suggestion that his team "engage" and "work together" with the White House -- "and we said fine."
You ask for the document list, ask for your witnesses. And Ty Cobb and Jay (Sekulow) and I provided them. And he said he wouldn't let any grass grow. And every meeting and communication we had, we stressed how important it was and how his inquiry was a great burden on the president, and interfered with the president's ability to lead this country, particularly in foreign affairs.
And he said he took that very seriously. And on and on, he gave me his word he would do it. And we got to late last year and he had completed the 37 witnesses. And I asked him, did you have any problem with those witnesses? They were all well-represented, all well-prepared, and he said no. Did anyone lie to you? No.
Documents. We gave you 1.4 million but more importantly, we gave you the most intimate notes of the communications and deliberations by the president. No president in history has ever done anything like that. Are we missing anything, are there any missing documents? No. Are you satisfied with everything you've got? Yes.
I said, well, what's the president's exposure? Well, The president's exposure, he's a witness slash/subject. I said, so he's not a target, correct? Correct. That means he had no exposure. And at that point we said well, why don't you just decline?
He said well, we'd like to get back to you on that but we think we need to talk to the president…And we said, what do you not know that we have not given you -- that only the president knows? And he could never answer that question, Sean. And that's when I saw a stall going on, and I just lost complete faith in him because we had shaken hands.
He's the one who said, John, we'll engage. We said, we are not going to raise conflicts, we are not going to raise the legality of the order, we are not going to fool with all this nonsense, let's get the job done. This president wants the job done. And by the way the president gets the credit. He's the one that said, give it to him.
Do you now regret believing Mueller? Hannity asked.
“I regret relying on him because he didn't keep his word,” Dowd replied. “And I believed he would keep his word.
“But more importantly the way we did it completely protected the president. We've not waived executive privilege. We've not had four years of litigation. We’ve not had motions to quash grand jury subpoenas. We've not had anyone go in the grand jury, Sean.
“There is no case there, and that's what Bob Mueller ought to face up and do. So yeah, it's a very sad thing to see and then, you see the other cases -- I mean, you see the Flynn case and the other case and it's just -- it's more (of) this sorry abusive practice in the prosecutive ranks.