Special counsel Robert Mueller did an "incredibly thorough investigation" into President Donald Trump and Russia, but only garnered a grade of "incomplete" when he drew no conclusions himself over whether obstruction charges were warranted, Ken Starr, the independent counsel in President Bill Clinton's Whitewater case, said Monday.
"He kicked that over to (Attorney General) Bill Barr,” Starr, now a Fox News contributor, told "Fox and Friends." “Bill, showing his wisdom, said, ‘Okay. Bob Mueller, you’ve been reporting to Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general who appointed you. The two of us are going to review your paper. We’re going to complete the paper for you.’”
They found, given what Barr released in his summary of the Mueller report, that "there was no obstruction of justice whatsoever," said Starr.
But Starr said it was up to Mueller to come to a decision.
"The way the report came to Bill Barr, our Attorney General, it’s difficult, he said. “There’s evidence here and there’s evidence there. As I said this is sort of Hamlet-like, I don’t know what to do, so I’m going to kick it to the fifth floor of the Justice Department.”
However, under DOJ guidelines, a sitting president can't be indicted, noted Starr, and when Barr got the report it was "difficult," said Starr.
Barr was also able to get his summary out quickly because he wasn't reading it alone, Starr added.
"This is not Bill Barr and [Deputy Attorney General] Rod Rosenstein all cloistered right into some library somewhere. They have great assistants, career prosecutors."