Attempts to Fire Special Counsel Mueller and Obstruct the Russia Investigation (2017-2019)
Tier 3Investigated, Not Prosecuted2017-05-17 to 2019-04-18
Factual Summary
Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III was appointed on May 17, 2017, to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and any related matters, including potential obstruction of justice. Volume II of the Mueller Report, released by the Department of Justice on April 18, 2019, documented ten discrete episodes of potentially obstructive conduct by President Donald J. Trump. The report analyzed each episode using a three-part framework: (1) whether an obstructive act occurred, (2) whether it connected to an official proceeding, and (3) whether the actor had corrupt intent. The four most extensively documented episodes are summarized below.
### Episode 1: Order to Fire Special Counsel Mueller (June 2017)
In June 2017, Trump learned that he was personally under investigation for obstruction of justice following his firing of FBI Director James Comey on May 9, 2017. On or about June 17, 2017, Trump called White House Counsel Don McGahn at home on a weekend and directed him to contact Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein with instructions to remove Mueller, citing purported conflicts of interest. McGahn refused to carry out the order. According to Volume II of the Mueller Report, McGahn did not believe the asserted conflicts were real and concluded that following the directive would result in another "Saturday Night Massacre," referring to the Watergate-era firings of 1973. McGahn instead prepared to resign. Mueller's investigators found that Trump's direction satisfied the elements of an obstructive act and that Trump acted with corrupt intent, but declined to reach a traditional prosecutorial judgment due to the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel policy against indicting a sitting president.
### Episode 2: Direction to Create a False Record (January 2018)
In late January 2018, press reports revealed that Trump had directed McGahn to have Mueller removed. Trump subsequently directed McGahn to issue a public denial stating that Trump had never ordered Mueller's firing. McGahn refused, telling Trump's Chief of Staff John Kelly that the accounts were accurate and that he would not create a false record. When Trump summoned McGahn directly and pressed him to deny the reports, McGahn again declined. Mueller's report found that Trump's effort to have McGahn issue a false denial constituted an attempt to impede the investigation by creating an inaccurate account of an obstructive act already documented in McGahn's own contemporaneous notes.
### Episode 3: Efforts to Curtail the Investigation's Scope (June 2017)
On June 19, 2017, Trump met privately with former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and dictated a message for Lewandowski to deliver to Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The message called on Sessions to publicly announce that the investigation was "very unfair" to Trump and that it should be limited to future elections rather than conduct from the 2016 campaign. Lewandowski agreed to deliver the message but never did, delegating the task to senior White House official Rick Dearborn, who also chose not to deliver it. Mueller's report noted that Trump directed this conduct after Sessions had already recused himself from the Russia investigation, and found that Trump's effort to limit the investigation's scope through a private intermediary was an act designed to obstruct a proceeding he knew was ongoing.
### Episode 4: Dangling Pardons to Witnesses (2017-2018)
The Mueller Report documented multiple instances in which Trump, through his private attorneys, communicated that pardons were possible for witnesses facing criminal exposure from the investigation. These communications were directed at former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and former campaign chairman Paul Manafort. Flynn's attorneys informed Mueller's team that a Trump attorney had requested a "heads up" on information Flynn would provide to prosecutors before Flynn agreed to cooperate. After Flynn began cooperating with investigators, Trump publicly praised him as "brave" while attacking Flynn's successor as a "rat." For Manafort, Trump's lawyers exchanged messages with Manafort's attorneys during the period Manafort was under indictment, and Trump publicly stated that Manafort was being treated "very unfairly." Manafort did not cooperate with Mueller's team. Mueller's report concluded that the pardon discussions, taken in context, were evidence of potential witness tampering, though no direct statement of a conditioned pardon was documented.
### Mueller's Legal Analysis and Conclusions
Mueller's team applied its three-part framework to each episode and found that across multiple instances "the evidence we obtained supports more than one reasonable view" of whether obstruction occurred.
The report declined to reach a prosecutorial determination, explaining that the longstanding DOJ Office of Legal Counsel opinion holds that a sitting president may not be indicted. Mueller wrote that charging Trump would deny him a fair opportunity to clear his name before a jury, which fairness required the team to refrain from making a charging decision either way. The report stated: "while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him." The report further stated: "If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment."
The report also observed that Trump's obstruction efforts "were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests."
Mueller rejected two central defense arguments. On the question of whether an underlying crime is required for obstruction to occur, the report concluded that obstruction of justice can occur "regardless of whether a person committed an underlying wrong." On the constitutional immunity argument, the report stated: "The Constitution does not categorically and permanently immunize a President from accountability under the criminal law," and found that Congress has authority to prohibit the corrupt use of presidential power to protect the integrity of the justice system.
Primary Sources
1. Mueller Report, Volume II: Report on Obstruction of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice, April 2019 (official PDF): https://www.justice.gov/storage/report_volume2.pdf
2. Mueller Report, Volume I: Report on Russian Interference, U.S. Department of Justice, April 2019 (official PDF): https://www.justice.gov/storage/report_volume1.pdf
3. Mueller Report, Volume II, annotated full text, Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/politics/read-the-mueller-report/
4. Redacted Mueller Report, Volume II, via DocumentCloud: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5955290-Mueller-Report-Volume-II-Obstruction.html
Corroborating Sources
1. FactCheck.org: "What the Mueller Report Says About Obstruction," April 2019: https://www.factcheck.org/2019/04/what-the-mueller-report-says-about-obstruction/
2. Lawfare: "Obstruction of Justice in the Mueller Report: A Heat Map": https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/obstruction-justice-mueller-report-heat-map
3. American Constitution Society: "Key Findings of the Mueller Report": https://www.acslaw.org/projects/the-presidential-investigation-education-project/other-resources/key-findings-of-the-mueller-report/
4. House Judiciary Committee hearing, "Lessons from the Mueller Report: Presidential Obstruction and Other Crimes," 116th Congress (Government Publishing Office): https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-116hhrg38182/html/CHRG-116hhrg38182.htm
Counterarguments and Context
Trump characterized the report as "complete and total EXONERATION" and maintained a consistent public position of "No Collusion, No Obstruction." The no-collusion claim had a factual basis in Volume I's finding that a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia was not established. The claims of no obstruction and complete exoneration directly contradicted the explicit language of Volume II.
Trump's legal team, including personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, advanced the following principal arguments. First, they argued that obstruction cannot exist without an underlying crime, and that the absence of an established conspiracy therefore eliminated any basis for an obstruction finding. Mueller's report addressed and rejected this argument directly. Second, they argued that Trump's conduct fell within his constitutional authority as head of the executive branch, and that the president has full authority to direct or terminate any federal investigation. Mueller's report rejected this claim as well. Third, they argued that Trump's public statements about Manafort and Flynn were protected speech expressing frustration with an unfair investigation, and that no pardons were formally offered or conditioned on silence.
Attorney General William Barr released a four-page summary on March 24, 2019, before the full report's public release, characterizing the obstruction evidence as insufficient to support prosecution and independently concluding it did not establish an offense. Mueller wrote to Barr objecting that the summary "did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance" of Volume II's analysis. That letter became public in May 2019 after Barr initially declined to disclose it.
Author's Note
This entry is classified as Tier 3 because the factual record rests on primary documentation: the Mueller Report itself, which is a product of a federal grand jury investigation conducted under oath; McGahn's contemporaneous notes, which Mueller's team verified against witness accounts; Lewandowski's congressional testimony; and documented attorney communications. No court adjudicated the obstruction allegations against Trump as a defendant. The report's decision not to reach a charging conclusion was procedurally constrained by DOJ policy, not a factual finding of innocence, and the report's own language expressly states as much.