- The Washington Times - Thursday, May 9, 2019

House Majority Whip James Clyburn said Thursday special counsel Robert Mueller’s report has outlined a crisis “bigger than Watergate” and claimed if President Trump weren’t president, then he would be indicted.

“It may not be as big as a lot of the crises that we have had as a nation, but this is bigger than Watergate was. All you’ve got to do is look at this report and you know, that but for his status as president of the United States, this president would have been indicted for obstruction of justice, and there are 10 or 12 instances in the Mueller report that indicate that,” Mr. Clyburn told MSNBC.

The Justice Department released a redacted version of Mr. Mueller’s report Thursday, with the special counsel concluding that Mr. Trump’s team did not collude with Russia to win the 2016 election but that the president’s attempts to obstruct the investigation could be seen as problematic.

Attorney General William P. Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said the evidence against obstruction of justice is not enough to pursue charges.

Despite this, House Democrats have escalated investigations into Mr. Trump, including holding Mr. Barr in contempt of Congress after he would not give the unredacted Mueller report and its underlying evidence to the House Judiciary Committee.

While Republicans have said Democrats are engaging in “abuse of power,” Mr. Clyburn said it is a “confrontational crisis.” 

“That’s exactly what it is. In a time when you have such divisions between the branches of government as we have between the executive and legislative, and looking for the judiciary to step in to moderate or help us navigate through this, that’s a crisis situation,” he said.

• Bailey Vogt can be reached at bvogt@washingtontimes.com.

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