Rep. Ted Lieu on Mueller’s ‘Very Odd’ Trump Indictment Walk Back: ‘Don’t Know Who Got to Him’

Rep. Ted Lieu suggested that someone might have pressured Special Counsel Robert Mueller to walk back his statement to Lieu that he did not indict President Donald Trump because OLC guidelines said he can’t indict a sitting president. “I don’t know who got to him, I don’t know who talked to him, but that was very odd what he did,” said Lieu.

Lieu told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that Mueller had plenty of time to walk back that statement if he didn’t understand the question the way he said, but he did not do so until after the break.

“Mueller agreed that the OLC opinion prevented a sitting president from being indicted, then the Republican member after me asked him a series of questions to try to get him to walk it back and he did not do that,” said Lieu. “It wasn’t until there was a recess of the Intel Committee he started to walk some of that back.”

“Are you saying he only did that because of pressure from someone?” Blitzer asked.

“I don’t know, but he clearly answered the way he answered to me, then he had numerous times to walk that back by the next Republican member who asked him a series of questions on the exact same issue trying to get him to walk it back,” said Lieu. “I don’t really understand what happened but we all agree, Robert Mueller would agree, that there is an OLC Justice Department opinion that says the sitting president of the United States cannot be indicted.”

Early Wednesday morning, Lieu had asked Mueller, “The reason again that you did not indict Donald Trump is because of the OLC opinion stating that you cannot indict a sitting President, correct?” “That is correct,” Mueller answered.

After the recess when he began his testimony to the Intel Committee, Mueller said, “I want to add one correction to my testimony this morning, I want to go back to one thing that was said this morning by Mr. Lieu who said ‘You didn’t charge the president because of the OLC opinion.’ That is not the correct way to say it. As we say in the report, and as I said at the opening, we did not reach a determination as to whether the president committed a crime.”