President Donald Trump's remark that he would let his attorney general decide whether Robert Mueller should testify before Congress comes after the president said the special counsel should not appear before lawmakers. White House Trump backs off statement that Mueller shouldn't testify

President Donald Trump backed off his declaration that special counsel Robert Mueller should not be allowed to testify before Congress, saying Thursday he would leave the matter up to Attorney General William Barr.

“Well, I'm going to leave that up to our very great attorney general, and he'll make a decision on that,” Trump told reporters at the White House.


The president’s backpedaling comes days after he asserted that the special counsel should not appear before Congress, accusing Democrats of attempting to use Mueller's testimony as a “redo” after the special counsel investigation did not find a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Moscow and made no definitive ruling on whether the president obstructed justice.

Reminded by a reporter that Barr has said repeatedly he has no objection to Mueller testifying, Trump echoed those concerns but again said he would let Barr make the call.

“I'm going to leave that up to the attorney general as to whether or not — to me, it looks like a redo,” he said, before launching into a tirade about the investigation and the access his White House gave Mueller during the investigation. The House Judiciary Committee has set a May 23 deadline for Mueller to appear before the panel, but his testimony could come as soon as next week.

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“At the end of the testimony: no collusion and essentially no obstruction,” Trump said.

Trump’s remarks came as his White House battles with Congress over the release of an unredacted version of Mueller’s findings. On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee voted to hold Barr in contempt of Congress for missing its deadline to turn over the unredacted Mueller report. Hours earlier, Trump asserted executive privilege over the document in its entirety.

But even while Trump continued to proclaim exoneration by Mueller, he railed against the special counsel, complaining about what he claimed were Mueller’s conflicts of interests as he took questions from reporters at length for one of the first times since the report’s release.

“Listen to this. Your judge, call him a judge, has a business dispute with me,” Trump said of the special counsel, referring to Mueller's withdrawal from Trump National Golf Club in Northern Virginia.

The president slammed Mueller's relationship with former FBI Director James Comey, whose firing was investigated as part of Mueller's probe. Trump also pointed out that Mueller was interviewed to be Comey's replacement as FBI chief days before being named special counsel.

“Your judge has a fantastic relationship with James Comey. Well, he's a part of this. He lied to congress. He's a liar, a leaker, and your judge wanted to become the FBI director. We chose Director [Christopher] Wray instead and told him: 'I'm sorry. Those are tremendous conflicts,'" the president said.