Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe came out swinging at former special counsel Robert Mueller, using his entire five minutes’ speaking time to attack Mueller for refusing to completely exonerate President Donald Trump for obstruction.

Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, Mueller largely stuck to the conclusions of his report, which stated that President Trump did not conspire with Russia to swing the 2016 US election. Democrats pressed Mueller on the second half of his report, which outlined ten instances of potential obstruction of justice, but which ultimately declined to make a prosecutorial decision.

To Texas Republican John Ratcliffe, Mueller had no legal basis to list potential crimes without bringing charges, and no right to say that Trump was not exonerated, as the former investigator told committee chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-New York) earlier.

.@RepRatcliffe is completely humiliating Robert Mueller and the Democrats on the question of presumption of innocence. The whole "did not exonerate" issue is complete garbage and Ratcliffe just blew it up. Disgrace that the House Judiciary Committee would even consider such trash — Joel B. Pollak (@joelpollak) July 24, 2019

Rep. Ratcliffe asks Mueller if DOJ has any policy at all that allows an official to say an American who is not charged is "not exonerated," and whether anyone other than Donald Trump has been so tarred. Mueller is unable to name a policy or think of such an example. — Mollie (@MZHemingway) July 24, 2019

“It’s not in special counsel regulations...it’s not in the principles of federal prosecution,” Ratcliffe said, “because, respectfully, it was not the special counsel’s job to conclusively determine Donald Trump’s innocence or exonerate him.”

“It clearly says ‘write a report about decisions reached.’ Nowhere in here does it say ‘write a report about decisions that weren’t reached,’” Ratcliffe thundered. “You wrote 180 pages about decisions that weren’t reached, about potential crimes that weren’t charged or decided!”

Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX): “Can you give me an example other than Donald Trump where the Justice Department determined that an investigated person was not exonerated because their innocence was not conclusively determined?”Robert Mueller: “I cannot” pic.twitter.com/MYl9omLRuE — Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) July 24, 2019

By doing so, Ratcliffe concluded “you managed to violate every principle and the most sacred of traditions about prosecutors not offering extra-prosecutorial analysis about potential crimes.”

In keeping with his reputation as a man of few words, Mueller remained mostly silent during Ratcliffe’s grilling.

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!