Andrew Weissmann (Credit: The New York Times)
(…) Weissmann said that the special counsel was hampered by internal divisions and that Mueller’s integrity allowed Trump to escape accountability.
“There’s no question I was frustrated at the time,” he said in the interview. “There was more that could be done that we didn’t do.”
In his new book on the investigation, Where the Law Ends, he claims that the president’s ability and threats to shut down the special counsel also caused them to pull their punches.
For example, he said the special counsel shied away from subpoenaing Don Trump Jr. to testify about his notorious June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer offering dirt on Hillary Clinton, or subpoenaing Ivanka Trump.
“Had we given it our all — had we used all available tools to uncover the truth, undeterred by the onslaught of the president’s unique powers to undermine our efforts?” he wrote. “I know the hard answer to that simple question: We could have done more.”
He also argued that the team was hamstrung by Mueller’s decision not to look into Trump’s financial dealings with Russia that “might” have established a source of Russian leverage over Trump, and he argued that Trump’s pardon power kept them from being able to push uncooperative targets.
Weissmann blames one of Mueller’s other top deputies, a lawyer named Aaron Zebley, for the team’s timidity. But he said these were ultimately Mueller’s decisions and faulted Mueller’s aversions to having an explosive confrontation with the White House.” (Read more: Breitbart, 9/21/2020) (Archive)