Special Counsel Robert Mueller III, making his first public remarks on his two-year investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, said Wednesday that charging a sitting president with a criminal violation was “not an option we could consider.”

“It would be unfair to potentially accuse somebody of a crime when there could be no court resolution of the actual charge,” Mueller said, speaking alone at a podium at Main Justice in Washington. “That was Justice Department policy. Those were the principles under which we operated. We would not reach a determination one way or the other whether the president committed a crime.”