Mueller dismisses claims of exoneration by Trump

But ex-special counsel's lackluster testimony, halting answers buoy president, supporters

Former special counsel Robert Mueller on Wednesday dismissed President Donald Trump's claims of total exoneration in the federal probe of Russia's 2016 election interference, telling Congress that his report explicitly didn't clear the president of obstructing his investigation.

The former FBI agent also defended his two-year probe and rejected Trump's assertions that it was a "witch hunt" and hoax. Mueller provided no new information and no elaboration on his 448-page report.

Key moments of his testimony included Mueller saying his report didn't exonerate the president as Trump has claimed, and contending Trump could be charged after leaving office.

He first testified before the House Judiciary Committee, which focused on whether the president obstructed justice by attempting to seize control of Mueller's investigation.

The afternoon hearing before the House Intelligence Committee questioned ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. Both committees are controlled by Democrats.

The televised hearings marked the first time lawmakers publicly asked Mueller about his investigation.

Trump lashed out before the hearings and during them, saying on Twitter that "Democrats and others" are trying to fabricate a crime and pin it on "a very innocent President''.

Later, Trump and White House aides mounted a multipronged attack on Mueller before he finished testifying. In several tweets, they framed the hearings as a victory for the White House, mocking the former special counsel's findings and performance.

Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani called Mueller an "idiot," called Democrats "idiots," and called the special counsel investigation a "witch hunt, which is falling apart".

White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said at the midpoint of the hearings: "The last three hours have been an epic embarrassment for the Democrats. Expect more of the same in the second half."

The 74-year-old Mueller looked tired, and many of his responses to lawmakers' questions were halting and wobbly. He asked lawmakers to repeat themselves throughout the Judiciary Committee hearing, even when they spoke slowly. That continued at the Intelligence Committee in the afternoon.

"This is delicate to say, but Mueller, whom I deeply respect, has not publicly testified before Congress in at least six years," David Axelrod, a former adviser to president Barack Obama, wrote on Twitter. "And he does not appear as sharp as he was then."

Democrats on the Judiciary Committee sought to emphasize the most incendiary findings of Mueller's report, using key passages to paint a portrait of Trump obstructing justice.

Republicans sought to undercut the special counsel investigation and to cast Mueller and his prosecutors as politically motivated.

Republican Texas Representative Louie Gohmert told Mueller "you perpetuated injustice", and Congressman Guy Reschenthaler of Pennsylvania called the manner in which the inquiry was conducted "un-American".

Mueller defended the integrity of his report after Republican Representative Tom McClintock of California accused the special counsel's office of making a "political case".

"I don't think you have reviewed a report that is as thorough, as fair, as consistent, as the report that we have in front of us," Mueller said.

Mueller said his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election was "not a witch hunt''. Trump has repeatedly referred to the investigation as such, including on Wednesday morning, when he tweeted that the hearings were part of the "Greatest Witch Hunt in US history".

In his opening statement to the Judiciary Committee, Mueller said his report "is my testimony. And I will stay within that text."

In both hearings, his answers didn't divert from that. The Justice Department instructed Mueller to stay strictly within those parameters, giving him a formal directive to point to if he faced questions he did not want to answer.

The Judiciary Committee focused on Volume II of Mueller's report, which describes the investigation into obstruction of justice and associated materials.

For three hours and 15 minutes before the Judiciary Committee, Mueller frequently responded to questions with: "True", "Correct", "Yes", "I can't speak to that", "I'm not going to speak to that", "If it's in the report, it's correct".

NBC News said Mueller declined or deflected questions 198 times.

He flatly refused to address a range of topics or even read directly from his report, asking members to recite relevant passages themselves.

Mueller declined to discuss whether his report was a tacit recommendation of impeachment and wouldn't elaborate on the process behind key decisions that were made over the course of the investigation.

In the first few minutes of questioning Wednesday, Mueller reiterated that his investigation didn't exonerate Trump, who has repeatedly insisted that the report exonerated him and concluded that there was no obstruction of justice.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Representative Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat, asked Mueller about Trump's claims of vindication in the investigation.

"Did you actually totally exonerate the president?" Nadler asked.

"No," replied the former FBI director.

Mueller said: "Based on Justice Department policy and principles of fairness, we decided we would not make a determination as to whether the president committed a crime. That was our decision then and it remains our decision today.''

Mueller also said that he agreed with Representative Ted Lieu, a California Democrat, that he didn't indict Trump because of the Justice Department opinion that a sitting president can't be indicted.

Some TV analysts watching the hearing took that to suggest that Mueller would otherwise have recommended prosecution on the strength of the evidence. But when Mueller appeared later before the House Intelligence Committee, he walked back that statement, saying, "We did not reach a determination as to whether the president committed a crime." His team, he said, "never started the process" of evaluating whether to charge the president.

Mueller told the Intelligence Committee that the Russians expect to meddle in the 2020 election. "They're doing it as we sit here. And they expect to do it during the next campaign," he said.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this story.