Andrew Weissmanm Responds to Mueller Pushback on His Book: There Are Areas ‘We Could Have Done Better’ On

Andrew Weissmann, one of the top officials who served on Robert Mueller’s team, has a new book out detailing what he claims are missed opportunities and failings of the special counsel investigation.

Today Mueller himself issued a rare statement standing by the investigation in an apparent response to Weissmann’s book:

It is not surprising that members of the Special Counsel’s Office did not always agree, but it is disappointing to hear criticism of our team based on incomplete information,” Mueller said.

Mueller said the team operated “knowing that our work would be scrutinized from all sides” and he sought to make clear that he was the office’s ultimate decider.

“When important decisions had to be made, I made them,” he said. “I did so as I have always done, without any interest in currying favor or fear of the consequences. I stand by those decisions and by the conclusions of our investigation.”

Weissmann did not comment to the Post, but during his appearance on MSNBC Tuesday afternoon, he addressed that rare pushback.

Nicolle Wallace noted to Weissmann how he wrote “we could have done more” before asking about Mueller’s statement.

Weissmann said he agrees with “most of” what Mueller had to say, explaining, “I too think that he operated completely out of integrity and I’m grateful to the colleagues I had there.”

But he continued:

“It could have been easy to write a book that said everything we did was right and everything we did responded to the onslaught coming from the White House or the attorney general. But I was trying to write something for the American public and frankly for the historical record and to try to be as candid as possible about what we did right and what we could have done better. And I tried to hold a mirror to my own conduct and that of our colleagues so that there would be someone from the inside recording what happened as opposed to people from the outside speculating. And I do have my own personal views as to decisions we made, whether it is the financial investigation that we didn’t do a complete investigation of, whether it’s subpoenaing the president which I think we set a precedent that I’m worried about for the next investigation, God forbid, of the president of the United States, that they look back and say see, you don’t need to do it. Or whether it is making a conclusion as to whether the president obstructed justice. Those are ones where I respectfully disagree and I set out the pros and cons and what happened during the investigation on those issues.”

You can watch above, via Fox News.