KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THE REPORT
Trump tried to influence Russia probe
Mueller details several occasions. Some occurred in public. Others behind closed doors. Trump ordered his White House counsel to try to have Mueller removed. He directed his former campaign manager to deliver a message to then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to make a public statement calling the investigation “very unfair.” He also wanted Sessions to announce that Trump had done “nothing wrong” and to say that the investigation’s scope had been limited.
But people around Trump either refused or quietly allowed the matters to drop.
“The president’s efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the president declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests,” the special counsel wrote.
No collusion, but no exoneration
Attorney General William Barr was generally right weeks ago when he released Mueller’s key findings.
The special counsel did not find a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. He did not recommend charging any Trump associates as agents of the Russian government or with campaign finance violations.
But on the question of obstruction, Mueller said there was evidence on both sides of the question. He said some of Trump’s actions related to potential “garden variety” obstruction.
“If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment,” Mueller wrote.
Is the report good or bad for Trump?
It depends on who you ask. Trump’s legal team claimed “complete vindication” by the report, and Barr emphasized at his news conference that there was no evidence of collusion.
Trump even tweeted out a “Game of Thrones”-themed meme, saying “For the haters and the radical left Democrats — Game Over.”
But the report describes in detail a president driven to interfere in the probe out of fear that it would “call into question the legitimacy of his election” and his own uncertainty that his family or associates may have violated the law.
Mueller wrote that on multiple occasions, Trump did things that were “capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations.” Some of that was in private, one-on-one encounters that witnesses relayed to the special counsel.
But the president’s public acts also raised questions that they could have led witnesses to feel intimidated or alter their testimony, moves that Mueller said were equally threatening to the “justice system’s integrity.”
Ignorance of the law was a defense
That was the case for Donald Trump Jr. and a Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer. In June 2016, Trump Jr. agreed to take the meeting despite it being described in emails as part of a Russian government effort to help his father. Trump Jr. was looking for dirt that could be used against Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
The meeting raised questions about whether Trump Jr. and others violated the federal ban on foreign contributions to American political campaigns.
But Mueller, who interviewed many of the participants in the meeting, said he didn’t find that he could bring a case.
The special counsel wrote that it was unlikely the government could prove that Trump Jr. and others in the meeting “had general knowledge that their conduct was unlawful.”
Mueller felt he couldn’t charge Trump — even in secret
The report reveals some of Mueller’s reasoning behind why he didn’t reach a conclusion on the question of obstruction.
He says that he would have exonerated Trump if he could have, but he wasn’t able to given the evidence he uncovered. Still, Mueller said that the Justice Department’s opinion that a sitting president couldn’t be indicted meant he also couldn’t recommend Trump be criminally charged, even if he made the recommendation in secret.
That’s because Trump could not defend himself during a public trial while in office.
In announcing the release of the redacted report, Barr said he asked Mueller during a meeting in early March about the matter. Mueller replied that he didn’t recommend charges against Trump solely because a sitting president can’t be indicted, Barr said.
Trump was terrified
At the moment two years ago when Trump learned a special counsel had been appointed to investigate his campaign and Russia, the president responded with profane fury — and something resembling panic.
He feared his presidency, then only a few months old, was over. He berated aides for not protecting him. His cocky assurance was nowhere in sight.
The Oval Office scene that day is vividly reconstructed in Mueller’s report.
On May 17, 2017, Trump was in the Oval Office with Sessions, Sessions’ chief of staff Jody Hunt and White House lawyer Don McGahn, conducting interviews for a new FBI director to replace James Comey, whom Trump had fired eight days earlier. Sessions left the room to take a call from his deputy, Rod Rosenstein, and returned to tell the president that Rosenstein had informed him of the special counsel appointment.
“The president slumped back in his chair,” Mueller wrote in his report, “and said, ‘Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my presidency. I’m f---ed. This is the worst thing that ever happened to me.’”
“The president became angry and lambasted the attorney general for his decision to recuse from the investigation, stating, ‘How could you let this happen, Jeff ?’”
The reconstruction was based primarily on accounts from Hunt, with Sessions also supplying details. Sessions said Trump asked for his resignation, but when he brought him a letter of resignation the next day, the president had changed his mind.
Trump adviser Hope Hicks, describing the aftermath of that meeting to Mueller’s team, said she had only seen Trump that upset once before — when the “Access Hollywood” tape came out in the campaign, revealing Trump’s coarse comments about imposing himself on women.
Sessions had stepped away from Russia matters because his work on the Trump campaign raised questions of conflict of interest. He withstood heat from Trump over that move until he was finally forced out late last year.
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election identified 10 instances of possible obstruction of justice by President Donald Trump. Mueller said in his report that he could not conclusively determine that Trump had committed a crime or that he hadn’t. A look at the 10 instances:
Pressure on Comey to end Flynn probe
This includes the president’s statement to then-FBI Director James Comey regarding the investigation of then-national security adviser Michael Flynn. Trump told Comey: “I hope you can see your way to letting this go.”
Trump’s reaction to the continuing investigation
Among the evidence is the president telling then-White House counsel Don McGahn to stop Attorney General Jeff Sessions from recusing himself from the Russia investigation and Trump’s subsequent anger at Sessions. Trump also contacted Comey and other intelligence agency leaders to ask them to push back publicly on the suggestion that Trump had any connection to the Russian electioninterference effort.
Firing of Comey and aftermath
Mueller’s report says “substantial evidence” indicates Trump’s decision to fire Comey in May 2017 was the result of the FBI director’s unwillingness to say publicly that Trump was not personally under investigation. On the day after Trump fired Comey, the president told Russian officials that he had “faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”
Mueller’s appointment and efforts to remove him
Trump reacted to news of Mueller’s appointment by telling advisers that it was “the end of his presidency.” The president told aides that Mueller had conflicts of interest and should have to step aside. His aides told Trump the asserted conflicts were meritless. Following media reports that Mueller’s team was investigating whether the president had obstructed justice, Trump called McGahn at home and directed him to have Mueller removed. McGahn refused.
Further efforts to curtail Mueller’s probe
Trump instructed former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski to have Sessions publicly announce that, notwithstanding his recusal from the Russia investigation, the investigation was “very unfair” to the president, the president had done nothing wrong, and Sessions planned to meet with Mueller to limit him to “investigating election meddling for future elections.” The message was never delivered.
Efforts to prevent public disclosure of evidence
In summer of 2017, Trump learned that the news media planned to report on the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower between senior campaign officials and Russians offering derogatory information about Hillary Clinton. The president directed aides not to publicly disclose the emails setting up the meeting. Before the emails became public, the president also edited a press statement for Donald Trump Jr. by deleting a line that acknowledged that the meeting was “with an individual who (Trump Jr.) was told might have information helpful to the campaign.”
Efforts to have Sessions take control of probe
At several points in between July 2017 and December 2017, Trump tried to get Sessions to declare that he was no longer recused from the Russia investigation and would assert control over it. The report says there’s evidence that one purpose of asking Sessions to step in was so that the attorney general would restrict the investigation’s scope.
Prez orders counsel to deny Trump tried to fire Mueller
In an Oval Office meeting in February 2018, Trump told McGahn to “correct” a New York Times story that reported Trump had earlier instructed McGahn to fire Mueller. Trump also asked why McGahn had told Mueller’s investigators about the directive to remove Mueller. McGahn told Trump he had to tell the investigators the truth.
Actions toward Flynn, Manafort, potential witnesses
Mueller looked at whether Trump’s sympathetic messages to Flynn, former campaign manager Paul Manafort and others were intended to limit their cooperation with Mueller’s investigation. When Flynn began cooperating with prosecutors, Trump passed word through his lawyer that he still had warm feeling for Flynn and asked for a “heads up” if Flynn knew of information implicating Trump. Trump praised Manafort during and after his criminal convictions, and refused to rule out a pardon for his former campaign chairman.
Trump’s actions toward Cohen
Mueller noted that Trump’s conduct toward Michael Cohen, a former Trump Organization executive, changed from praise to castigation after Cohen began cooperating with prosecutors. The evidence could “support an inference that the president used inducements in the form of positive messages in an effort to get Cohen not to cooperate, and then turned to attacks and intimidation to deter” cooperation and undermine Cohen’s credibility, Mueller wrote.