Read the Mueller report; “USS John McCain needs to be out of sight”; Shanahan’s Asia trip; Iran’s anti-US ‘campaign’; And a bit more.

Hey, Congress and fellow Americans: Read the Mueller report. Seriously. Read it. (PDF) That was the central message from now-former Special Counsel Robert Mueller in his last public remarks Wednesday as an employee of the U.S. Department of Justice before he resigned to return to private life as an American citizen.

“There were multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our [2016] election,” Mueller said at FBI headquarters in Washington. “That allegation deserves the attention of every American.” Find a full transcript of his remarks at USA Today, or watch the video, via CBS News.

About those interference efforts: Mueller reiterated the contents of his report, reminding his audience, “Russian intelligence officers who were part of the Russian military launched a concerted attack on our political system. The indictment alleges that they used sophisticated cyber techniques to hack into computers and networks used by the Clinton campaign. They stole private information, and then released that information through fake online identities and through the organization WikiLeaks. The releases were designed and timed to interfere with our election and to damage a presidential candidate. And at the same time, as the grand jury alleged in a separate indictment, a private Russian entity engaged in a social media operation where Russian citizens posed as Americans in order to interfere in the election.”

He then reminded folks that his 448-page report has two parts: “The first volume of the report details numerous efforts emanating from Russia to influence the election. This volume includes a discussion of the Trump campaign’s response to this activity, as well as our conclusion that there was insufficient evidence to charge a broader conspiracy.” And the second volume, he said, “describes the results and analysis of our obstruction of justice investigation involving the President.”

But perhaps his most telling line concerned the report’s second volume: “Under longstanding Department [of Justice] policy, a President cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office. That is unconstitutional. Even if the charge is kept under seal and hidden from public view, that too is prohibited. The Special Counsel's Office is part of the Department of Justice and, by regulation, it was bound by that Department policy. Charging the President with a crime was therefore not an option we could consider.”

So did Trump himself commit a crime? Mueller: “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.” And for why that is, refer to the paragraph above, or to the Mueller report itself.

Various headlines from Wednesday’s presser:

• AP: “Mueller: No exoneration for Trump after Russia investigation” (
• Fox: “Mueller says charging Trump with a crime was 'not an option' in Russia probe, in first public remarks”
• Wall Street Journal: “Robert Mueller Shifts Questions About Trump to Congress”
• Reuters: Mueller says he could not charge Trump as Congress weighs impeachment
• New York Times: Mueller, in First Comments on Russia Inquiry, Declines to Clear Trump

For your ears only: Here are two podcasts recorded shortly after Mueller’s comments — the first from Lawfare, and the second from NPR’s Politics team.

Full disclosure: Your D Brief-ers have not read the full Mueller report just yet, but we certainly plan to do so in its entirety. What about you? Have you read it yet? Let us know your thoughts by sending us a line here.

From Defense One

Shanahan Heads to Asia as White House Beats Drums on Iran // Katie Bo Williams: The acting defense secretary is expected to detail how the Pentagon is implementing a strategic shift away from counterterrorism.

Top US Officer: Iran's Threats Look Like a 'Campaign' // Patrick Tucker: The Joint Chiefs chairman says he saw 'multiple threat streams that were all, perhaps coming together, in time."

Lockheed: We Could Easily Sell Turkey's F-35s to Other Customers // Marcus Weisgerber: CEO: We'll be fine if Ankara buys a Russian air-defense system instead of our jets.

US Seeks Technology to Help Allies Avoid Bombing Civilians // Aaron Boyd: Pentagon officials are looking for tools and methods that can be declassified and shared with international partners.

Mueller: Russia Interfered, Trump Obstructed. Now It's Up to Congress. // David Frum: Read our report, says the special counsel: the evidence does not exonerate the president.

Welcome to this Thursday edition of The D Brief by Ben Watson. Thanks for reading! Subscribe here. On this day in 1982, Spain became the first country since 1955 to join NATO — raising its total membership at the time to 16 nations. It would be another 17 years before the alliance’s ranks grew with the addition of the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland in 1999.

“USS John McCain needs to be out of sight.” The Wall Street Journal, reported one helluva of a story Wednesday evening, and now public affairs officers at the Pentagon and the U.S. Navy are scrambling to figure out what really happened this past weekend during one of President Trump’s visits with U.S. troops in Japan, and who was responsible.  
The quick summary: “In a May 15 email to U.S. Navy and Air Force officials, a U.S. Indo-Pacific Command official outlined plans for the president’s arrival that he said had resulted from conversations between the White House Military Office and the Seventh Fleet of the U.S. Navy,” the Journal’s Rebecca Ballhaus and Gordon Lubold reported. “In addition to instructions for the proper landing areas for helicopters and preparation for the USS Wasp—where the president was scheduled to speak—the official issued a third directive: ‘USS John McCain needs to be out of sight.’”
In addition, “A tarp was hung over the ship’s name ahead of the president’s trip," the Journal writes, "and sailors were directed to remove any coverings from the ship that bore its name. After the tarp was taken down, a barge was moved closer to the ship, obscuring its name. Sailors on the ship, who typically wear caps bearing its name, were given the day off during Mr. Trump’s visit."
How high up did the alleged order go? According to a nameless U.S. official, “Acting Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan was aware of the concern about the presence of the USS John McCain in Japan and approved measures to ensure it didn’t interfere with the president’s visit,” the Journal wrote.
However: “What I read this morning was the first I heard about it,” Shanahan said this morning when asked about it during his Asia-Pacific swing for the upcoming Shangri-La defense summit in Singapore this weekend. More from Shanahan, via Defense One’s Katie Bo Williams, who is traveling with the secretary: “I never authorized...any action around the movement or activity regarding that ship. Furthermore, I would never dishonor the memory of a great American patriot like Sen. McCain. I would never disrespect the young men and women that crew that ship.”
To quash any official ambiguity about Shanahan’s alleged involvement, the acting defense secretary’s spox, U.S. Army Lt. Col. Joe Buccino, released a statement just after midnight saying, “Secretary Shanahan was not aware of the directive to move the USS John S McCain nor was he aware of the concern precipitating the directive.”
With Shanahan’s remarks today, “The White House deserves the hot lamps” on this one, writes Defense One Executive Editor Kevin Baron.
President Trump tweeted his obliviousness to the alleged instruction: “I was not informed about anything having to do with the Navy Ship USS John S. McCain during my recent visit to Japan. Nevertheless, @FLOTUS and I loved being with our great Military Men and Women - what a spectacular job they do!”  
The Navy’s Public Affairs chief, Rear Adm. Charles Brown, echoed that in his own tweet Wednesday evening: “The name of USS John S. McCain was not obscured during the POTUS visit to Yokosuka on Memorial Day. The Navy is proud of that ship, its crew, its namesake and its heritage.”
BTW: That Navy Public Affairs account hadn’t tweeted in more than five years before the USS John S. McCain story broke on Wednesday. The last time the U.S. Navy’s Chief of Information tweeted, Chuck Hagel was defense secretary.
Other Navy PAOs told the Washington Post that some of what the Journal alleges had ended by the time Trump arrived on Monday. They denied, for example, that the tarp and barge had obscured McCain’s name during Trump’s remarks. “All ships remained in normal configuration during the President’s visit,” said Navy spox Cmdr. Nate Christensen.\
But a nameless senior WH official confirmed to the Post “that they did not want the destroyer with the McCain name seen in photographs. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said the president was not involved in the planning, but the request was made to keep Trump from being upset during the visit.”
And if true, that’s an unsettling thought with an uncomfortable echo in history, wrote political analyst Jeff Greenfield on Twitter: “What's really troubling about the White House decision to hide the John McCain was not that Trump ordered it—he likely didn’t—but that his people feared his reaction to seeing the ship. It's the kind of story that used to come out of the Kremlin in Stalin's day.”
So will Shanahan launch an investigation? “I need to find out a little bit more” before making that decision, he told reporters traveling with him this morning. That’s why he’s tasked his chief of staff to look into the incident, according to Katie Bo Williams. Follow Williams on Twitter for the latest with Shanahan en route to Singapore, here.

The Pentagon just sent a report on rare-earth elements to Congress, a Defense Department spokesman told Reuters on Wednesday. Reminder: “Rare earths are a group of elements with unique properties that are used in cell phones, hybrid cars and cancer treatment,” NPR reported Wednesday, extending the story from Reuters — but with an updated angle from Chinese state media. “They also play an important role in U.S. defense, from computers to aircraft engines.”
About that Chinese state media angle: "China has plenty of cards to play," according to a commentary published Wednesday in the Communist newspaper People's Daily. "Waging a trade war against China, the United States risks losing the supply of materials that are vital to sustaining its technological strength," read the opening line. But some analysts aren’t so sure Beijing actually has quite so many rare earth cards to play in the U.S.-China trade war. Read on at NPR, here.
Some background, in the form of a November oped at Defense One: “China Is Beating the US in the Rare-Earths Game.”

And finally today: Take a step inside the largest Hezbollah cross-border attack tunnel on the Israeli-Lebanese border via a Twitter thread photo/video tour from the Jerusalem Post's Anna Ahronheim.