Mueller Report: Trump wrote he had 'no recollection' of crucial events from his campaign more than two dozen times
Donald Trump was able to avoid a subpoena that would have forced him to testify, in spite of offering only written answers that the special counsel determined to be "inadequate," as Robert Mueller's office was wary of the "substantial delay" from a legal battle.
Mueller's decision to skip a court battle in order to press Trump's testimony may have just been one of the president's biggest victories during the investigation.
According to the report that was released on Thursday, the president wrote more than two dozen times in his response that he could not remember or recall crucial events that took place during and even after his presidential campaign.
"We made that decision in view of the substantial delay that such an investigative step would likely produce at a late stage in our investigation," the report said about not summoning Trump for a testimony.
The report continued: "We also assessed that based on the significant body of evidence we had already obtained of the president’s actions and his public and private statements describing or explaining those actions, we had sufficient evidence to understand relevant events and to make certain assessments without the president’s testimony."
All that also includes Trump saying he couldn't remember that he knew about the now-famous June 2016 meeting that took place at Trump Tower when top officials of his campaign met with a lawyer linked to the Kremlin in order to discuss any possible information on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Trump has explained in his written responses, that were included in the redacted version of the report: "This was one of many busy months during a fast-paced campaign."
The president's lack of any memories of these events is in direct contrast to his repeated assertions, in various other scenarios, that he has a great memory. He even said at a press conference in June 2018: "I have one of the great memories of all time."
He also said that his desk calendar indicated he met with Paul Manafort the same morning as the meeting with Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer.
The attendees at this meeting, which Trump couldn't remember, include Manafort, Donald Trump Jr., and Jared Kushner. Trump has also said that he couldn't recall anything about the hacking and release of emails that belonged to Democratic officials before they were publicly reported and even said that he didn't remember anyone associated with his presidential campaign being in contact with whistleblower site Wikileaks.
He said he couldn't remember that Roger Stone, his longtime adviser, was in contact with Wikileaks, or that anyone who was working for his campaign had discussions with entities in lieu of the timing or release of the hacked emails. Trump also couldn't remember having a talk during his campaign about offering a pardon to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
More frequently, however, Trump just claimed that he didn't recall being involved in certain events. MEA WorldWide (MEAWW) previously reported that Mueller and his team produced the final report to US Attorney General William Barr last month, marking an end to the two-year-long extensive investigation. The AG, in turn, released a four-page-long summary of the 400-pages report, emphasizing that the special counsel found no evidence of collusion.
Barr’s summary, however, left the Congress dissatisfied with the little information produced in it as they demanded a public release of the full document.