Both the Justice Department and special counsel's office insist there is no conflict between comments by Attorney General William Barr and Robert Mueller over the role guidelines about not indicting a sitting president in an obstruction inquiry, The Hill is reporting.
Representatives from the Justice Department and Mueller's office issued a joint statement Wednesday evening. It came after Mueller publicly discussed his final report.
"The Attorney General has previously stated that the special counsel repeatedly affirmed that he was not saying that, but for the (Office of Legal Counsel) opinion, he would have found the president obstructed justice," the statement said.
"The special counsel's report and his statement [Wednesday] made clear that the office concluded it would not reach a determination – one way or the other – about whether the president committed a crime. There is no conflict between these statements."
Mueller had said charging Trump with a crime was "not an option we could consider" because of the guidelines.
But he added: "If we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said that. We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime."
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