Mueller found no proof Trump campaign conspired with Russia
WASHINGTON — Special Counsel Robert Mueller has concluded in his investigation that US President Donald Trump should not be charged with obstruction of justice or having conspired or coordinated with Russia to interfere in the 2016 elections, according to a letter by Attorney General Robert Barr to congressional leaders.
“The Special Counsel’s investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 US presidential election,” Barr said in his letter on Sunday.
“The Special Counsel states that ‘while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him’,” Barr added.
Mueller concluded his investigation and sent a final report to Barr on Friday.
The special counsel did not reach a conclusion about whether Trump obstructed justice during the investigation but Barr’s letter reached a finding that, without evidence of an underlying conspiracy, the legal threshold for obstruction would not be met.
“The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities,” Mueller’s report stated, according to Barr.
Further, Mueller “did not find that the Trump campaign, or anyone associated with it, conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in these efforts, despite multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Russian campaign”.
Barr said he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein “concluded that the evidence developed during the Special Counsel’s investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense”.
The lack of a finding of obstruction was based on the recognition that “the evidence does not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference”, the letter said.
By manufacturing a legal conclusion there was no obstruction, Barr’s letter appeared to give Trump what he wanted politically, even though the underlying report said the president was not exonerated.
“The most interesting thing in the letter is that Barr decided to make a decision on obstruction after 48 hours, when Mueller decided after two years, not to do that. I find that somewhat suspicious in that, it’s not the way the department works,” Matt Miller, a former Justice Department spokesman in the Obama administration, said.
“You don’t leave decisions to the attorney general. You make recommendations,” he added.
“Mueller didn’t make a recommendation. I assume it’s because their reading of the law is that he couldn’t indict a president and so there is no point in making that decision and that decision is left to Congress. It’s very odd then, that the attorney general put his finger on the scale when an independent prosecutor who investigated for two years decided not to reach a conclusion.”
Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer called for the release of Mueller’s report and cast doubt on the attorney general’s handling of the matter.
“The fact that Special Counsel Mueller’s report does not exonerate the president on a charge as serious as obstruction of justice demonstrates how urgent it is that the full report and underlying documentation be made public without further delay,” Pelosi and Schumer said in a joint statement responding to Barr’s letter.
“Given Mr Barr’s public record of bias against the special counsel’s inquiry, he is not a neutral observer and is not in a position to make objective determinations about the report,” they said.
Mueller’s investigation included 19 lawyers and a team of 40 FBI agents, intelligence analysts, forensic accountants and professional staff. The team interviewed 500 witnesses, executed more than 500 search warrants, 13 requests to foreign governments, issued 2,800 subpoenas and 50 wiretaps in the investigation, according to Barr.