The House of Representatives is said to have launched an investigation to determine if Donald Trump made false statements in his testimony to special investigator Robert Mueller during the Russia affair. Several US media agree. Douglas Letters, attorney for the congress, had told an appeals court that it was being examined whether Trump knowingly said the untruth in the written answers to Mueller.
The House of Representatives therefore needed access to documents that Mueller had collected during his investigation. The documents have "direct influence" on whether Trump answered untrue and hindered the special investigator's investigation, Letters said.
The announcement follows the conviction of Trump's longtime confidant Roger Stone. The 67-year-old, who worked for Trump in 2015 during the presidential campaign, was convicted last Friday of false statements and disability in the Russia affair.
Statement from former employee
Mueller's team accused Stone of misrepresenting Congress for what he knew about the hacker attack on US Democratic email accounts during the election campaign and with whom he communicated about it. In addition, Stone should have urged another witness to make false statements. WikiLeaks had published in 2016 mails from the environment of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Win McNamee / AFP
Was found guilty last week: Roger Stone
In Stone's case, Trump's former colleague Rick Gates testified that both Stone and Trump had talked about information that could help Trump's campaign campaign. At the time, Stone was trying to get details of the WikiLeaks documents, Gates said. In a written statement to Mueller Trump wrote that he can not remember talking to Stone about WikiLeaks.
According to Gates, after a phone call from Stone in July 2016, Trump pointed out that "more information would come" - in an obvious reference to WikiLeaks. A possible contradiction to Trump's letter to Mueller.
Two-year investigation by Mueller
Mueller had been investigating for almost two years whether Trump's campaign camp was making collusion with Russian officials about Moscow's alleged involvement in the 2016 US election campaign and whether Trump was obstructing justice investigations. At the end of March, Mueller had completed his work and handed over a confidential report to Justice Secretary William Barr. On March 24, Barr first presented a four-page summary. In the middle of April he published a partially blackened version of the complete report.
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Mueller and his team had encountered numerous contacts between Trump's campaign camp and representatives of Russia during the investigation. However, they did not find evidence of a crime. On the question of whether Trump has obstructed the judiciary, Mueller made no decision, but provided evidence for and against. On this basis, Barr concluded that the President should not be accused of criminal charges on this point either.
Trump was relieved by the report of all allegations. The Democrats criticized the procedure. In a hearing before the US Congress, Mueller said he had not "completely relieved" the president.