GOP Rep. Doug Collins Claims ‘No Obstruction’ in Mueller Report, Proving He Has Not Actually Read It

A congressional hearing on national television is a prime grandstanding opportunity for members of Congress. And Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA) certainly was not going to miss the opportunity on Tuesday morning.

Collins blasted the Democratic-majority House Judiciary Committee and its chairman, Jerry Nadler, for continuing to investigate President Trump over his actions in trying to stall the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. In doing so, he flat-out misled anyone listening that Robert Mueller’s final report had somehow found nothing to support the allegations that the president obstructed justice.

“He left out something from just now,” Collins thundered after Nadler had used his opening statement to read passages from the Mueller report. “He read McGahn’s testimony beautifully, but he left out what he doesn’t want to have to come back to and the frustrating thing that has brought us here again and again and again. That is the conclusions. There was no collusion. There was no obstruction charges.”

Collins accused Nadler of missing this bit of news because he has not read the Mueller report. But anyone who has read it knows that Volume II of the report recounts ten examples of the president taking steps to obstruct justice. He was not charged for any of these potential crimes either because the special counsel’s team concluded they did not have solid enough evidence to get a conviction, or because the office felt that due to longstanding Justice Department guidelines against indicting a president, the charging decision should be left up to either the Attorney General or Congress.

As for the collusion charge, the Mueller report reminded everyone that “collusion” is not actually a term with a legal definition, and Mueller did not see enough evidence for a conspiracy charge against Trump.

This is all well-known to Collins, of course. But just in case Trump was watching, he wanted to make sure the president saw his enthusiastic defense.

He tried again a second later: “The Mueller report concluded there was no collusion, no obstruction, because the report failed to provide damning information against the president. ”

The report provided plenty of damning information of obstruction of justice. This statement still isn’t true no matter how many times one repeats it.

Watch Collins’ statement up top, via CNN.