Trump sees report as a victory
WASHINGTON: For nearly two years, President Donald Trump and his allies sought to undermine special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe, attacking investigators’ credibility and playing down their findings. As a redacted version of Mueller’s report was finally released yesterday, Trump resorted to bluster, broadsides and falsehoods to try, once more, to frame the moment as a political victory.
It began even before the public glimpsed the two volumes covering 448 pages. The report included an account of how the president attempted to seize control of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US election and force out Mueller from leading the inquiry.
The report’s bottom line largely tracked the findings revealed in Attorneygeneral William Barr’s fourpage memo released a month ago — no collusion with Russia but no clear verdict on obstruction — but it added new layers of detail about Trump’s efforts to thwart the investigation, including discouraging witnesses from cooperating with prosecutors and prodding aides to mislead the public on his behalf.
The Justice Department released its redacted version of the report about 90 minutes after Barr offered his own final assessment of the findings at a testy news conference. The nation consumed it voraciously — online, via a compact disc delivered to legislators and in binders distributed to reporters.
Mueller laid out multiple episodes in which Trump directed others to influence or curtail the Russia investigation after the special counsel’s appointment in May 2017.
Those efforts ‘‘were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests’’, Mueller wrote.
But that did not stop Trump from taking a public victory lap, declaring at a White House event that he was having ‘‘a good day’’.
Twelve times Trump took to Twitter in the hours before Barr outlined the findings of the report. The president proclaimed his innocence and insisted the investigation was politically motivated. An hour before Mueller’s report was released, Trump tweeted a taunt over an image inspired by the HBO show Game of Thrones.
‘‘No Collusion. No Obstruction,’’ it said. ‘‘For the haters and the radical left Democrats — Game Over.’’
But the report does recount how Trump repeatedly sought to intervene in a probe that has hovered over the first two years of his presidency. And it says Trump had been agitated by the investigation from the start, reporting that Trump reacted to Mueller’s appointment by saying it was the ‘‘end of his presidency’’.
After the report’s release, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said it was time to move on from Democrats’ effort to ‘‘vilify a political opponent’’. He said the report failed to deliver the ‘‘imaginary evidence’’ incriminating Trump that Democrats had sought.
Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale said Republicans should ‘‘investigate the liars who instigated this sham investigation’’.
A further statement from Rudi Giuliani and Trump’s lawyers said ‘‘the report itself is nothing more than an attempt to rehash old allegations’’ and insisted that ‘‘the results of the investigation are a total victory for the president’’.
But Democrats cried foul over Barr’s preemptive press conference and said the report revealed troubling details about Trump’s conduct in the White House.
In a joint statement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer wrote that ‘‘one thing is clear: Attorneygeneral Barr presented a conclusion that the president did not obstruct justice while Mueller’s report appears to undercut that finding’’.
Trump, who normally talks to reporters on his way out of the White House, declined to speak as he left to spend the Easter weekend in Florida. But from Air Force One, he tweeted: ‘‘I had the right to end the whole Witch Hunt if I wanted. I could have fired everyone, including Mueller, if I wanted. I chose not to. I had the RIGHT to use Executive Privilege. I didn’t!’’.
❛ I could have fired everyone, including Mueller, if I wanted. I chose not to.