Donald Trump ‘could be charged with crime after stepping down as US president’

Donald Trump could be charged with criminal activity after stepping down as President of the United States, it was claimed.

The US’s former special counsel Robert Mueller highlighted the possibility of bringing charges against Trump during a question and answer session in Congress Tuesday.

Republican Representative Ken Buck asked the former investigator: ‘Could you charge the president with a crime after he left office?’ 

Mueller answered: ‘Yes.’ 

Buck then said: ‘You believe that he committed -you could charge the president of the United States with obstruction of justice after he left office?’.

Mueller answered ‘Yes.’

Earlier in the hearing, Mueller repeated the findings of his report into alleged Russian collusion.

While he cleared Trump of any collusion, he said it was impossible to exonerate him of possible obstruction of justice.

Those allegations relate to Trump’s repeated, noisy attempts to derail Mueller’s investigation.

It was set up to probe links between the Russian government and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, and saw key figures including ex Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort charged.

Mueller also told the House Judiciary Committee – set up to oversee matters of justice – that he felt unable to charge Trump with any crime because of his status as President of the United States.

The retired special counsel, who is also a former Director of the FBI explained: ‘At the outset we determined that when it came to the president’s culpability we needed to go forward only after taking into account the OLC (Office of Legal Counsel) opinion that a sitting president cannot be indicted.’

Trump has repeatedly claimed he has been cleared of both collusion and obstruction – and tweeted ‘NO COLLUSION, NO OBSTRUCTION!’ 35 minutes before Wednesday’s hearing began.

Source: Metro.co.uk