In the late 90s, another President was under Investigation, Bill Clinton. The genesis of the Mueller Report was the Starr Report. The Starr report was known as the Independent Counsel Report. Unlike the Special Counsel Report from Mueller, the Independent Counsel Report had much more latitude and fewer restrictions in their investigation.
In fact, it was thanks to this wide-ranging and lengthy (4 years) investigation that politicians decided to limit the scope of any future such investigations and the Independent Counsel Investigation turned into the Special Counsel Investigation.
The evidence from the Starr Report resulted in the President being summoned to provide Grand Jury testimony. It was in this testimony that I learned to appreciate the power of faulty “recollection“.
Perjury is a serious offense. President Clinton knew he needed to answer truthfully. He also knew he could not tell the whole truth. So what do you do? You summon recollection to aid you.
During the Grand Jury testimony, President Clinton peppered all answers pertaining to his sexual interactions with Ms. Lewinsky with either:
- I don’t recall…
- My recollection is…
- I don’t remember…
Those phrases were all throughout his testimony. Everyone knew President Clinton was not telling the truth, but charging him with perjury was difficult since he “didn’t remember” and therefore was not willfully making untruthful statements. In other words, in order to be charged with perjury, prosecutors need to prove you made false statements willfully. One way to do that is by bringing up proof. But when that happens, you can just say “I did not recall, but given this evidence it seems I was there…”.
President Trump paid close attention to this lesson by his predecessor. During the Mueller Investigation, the Special Counsel sent President Trump a questioner regarding their investigation (Mueller Report Volume 2, Appendix C). There were 5 subjects:
- The Trump Tower meeting
- Russian Hacking and WikiLeaks
- The Moscow Project
- Contacts with Russia during the campaign
- Contacts with Russia during the transition
In total there were 41 questions and Trump provided responses to all of them. Of the 41 responses, there were 37 times when Trump either:
- Didn’t remember…
- Had no recollection…
- Had no independent recollection…
- Didn’t recall…
And what happened when the Special Counsel provided proof that he should have recalled? He responded with: “I do not recall… In the process of preparing to respond these questions, I became aware…“
