As the Mueller Show returned to Capitol Hill Wednesday, top Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway fretted at the White House — over crumbling roads, faulty bridges and kids who can’t do their homework without broadband internet.
President Trump and his team were determined to show they consider the Mueller matter old news and they’re working as if it’s business as usual.
The president met with lawmakers about maritime shipping policy and kept tabs on trade negotiations with China — though he couldn’t resist lashing out just before Attorney General William P. Barr stepped to the witness table in the Senate Judiciary Committee to talk about special counsel Robert Mueller’s work.
“NO COLLUSION, NO OBSTRUCTION,” he tweeted. “Besides, how can you have Obstruction when not only was there No Collusion (by Trump), but the bad actions were done by the “other” side? The greatest con-job in the history of American Politics”!
Mrs. Conway said the 448-page report is out and the special counsel isn’t filing more charges, she said, so it’s time to move on.
“We’ve heard it all,” the White House counselor told reporters. “What else do you want to hear?”
She said the president deserves credit for his focus on infrastructure, the economy and global events, including unrest in Venezuela.
Administration officials also sent an emergency request to Congress Wednesday for $4.5 billion to deal with an influx of illegal immigrants at the southern border.
Yet the president was keenly aware of the hearing.
“Why didn’t President Obama do something about Russia in September (before November Election) when told by the FBI?” he said in another Twitter post. “He did NOTHING, and had no intention of doing anything!”
Mr. Trump’s 2020 campaign picked up the theme during a break in Mr. Barr’s testimony, blasting out a digital ad that accused the Obama administration of standing down in the face of 2016 Russian meddling.
“There is no doubt: On Russian interference in 2016, Obama dropped the ball,” the campaign said.
The two-minute ad stitched together news clips and testimony suggesting the former administration failed to prioritize Russian intrusion, which favored Mr. Trump and proved damaging to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Mr. Mueller found no underlying conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, and he left questions about obstruction of justice to others. Mr. Barr found no basis to charge the president.
Congressional Democrats cast the evidence in a different light, saying they saw signs the Trump administration tried to solicit cooperation from Russia and repeatedly tried to pervert the subsequent investigation, accusing him of trying to get a former White House counsel to lie and of attempting to intimidate Michael Cohen, the former Trump lawyer who turned state’s evidence and painted a damning portrait of the president to Congress.
The White House said Mr. Barr weathered the hearing perfectly.
“AG Bill Barr served President George H.W. Bush honorably as AG and has done the same for President Trump,” press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on Twitter. “Democrats only disgrace and humiliate themselves with their baseless attacks on such a fine public servant.”
Mrs. Conway wouldn’t say if, or where, Mr. Trump was watching as it all unfolded, noting he had bigger fish to fry.
“I’m not going to comment on that,” she said. “He’s also very concerned about the Venezuela situation.”
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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