US anxiously awaits Russia probe findings
The US public and Washington’s deeply divided political class on Sunday faced another day of anxiously waiting to learn if the key findings of the Russian meddling probe would implicate President Donald Trump in serious wrongdoing.
Special counsel Robert Mueller submitted the confidential final report on his 22month investigation on Friday and attorney-general Bill Barr has been studying the document, which he must summarise for Congress.
The justice department had told legislators that Barr would not be sending an outline of its “principal conclusions” – expected over the weekend – on Saturday, US media reported.
That left the American public still in the dark over what the Mueller investigation uncovered about the president’s ties to Russia and alleged acts of obstruction of justice.
Chronic tweeter Trump, who was spending the weekend at his Palm Beach, Florida Mar-a-Lago residence, remained silent after spending two years repeatedly labelling Mueller’s investigation an illegal witch hunt.
After the president spent the morning golfing, White House spokesperson Hogan Gidley confirmed that they still had not seen the report or been briefed on its findings.
Asked how the president felt, Gidley replied: “He’s good.”
Meanwhile, Democrats in Congress, many of whom are hoping for evidence to support a presidential impeachment, pressed hard to ensure the report’s full contents were made public, and not just a summary prepared by the Trump-appointed Barr.
Neal Katyal, the former justice department official who drafted the rules for special counsels, said Barr had no excuse for keeping Mueller’s report secret.
“Absolutely nothing in the law or the regulations prevents the report from becoming public,” Katyal said in a Washington Post opinion piece.
The secret report was handed to Barr on Friday with the announcement that no new indictments were forthcoming.
That produced sighs of relief from the White House, where members of Trump’s family – Don jnr and son-in-law Jared Kushner in particular – had been feared possible targets of the probe.
For Trump himself, Mueller was prevented by longstanding justice department policy from indicting the president.
But his report could still outline criminal behaviour by Trump that could be the basis for an impeachment effort.
Mueller, a 74-year-old veteran criminal prosecutor and former FBI chief, investigated whether members of Trump’s campaign colluded with Russians to skew the 2016 election.
In addition, he studied whether actions by Trump amounted to criminal obstruction of justice. –