No evidence Trump conspired with Russia, says Mueller report
● But long-awaited summary unlikely to end criticism of business dealings
The US Justice Department has said special counsel Robert Mueller did not find any evidence that President Donald Trump’s campaign “conspired or coordinated” with Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election.
Mueller also investigated whether Trump obstructed justice but did not come to a definitive answer, Attorney General William Barr said in a letter to Congress summarising Mueller’s report.
The special counsel“does not exonerate” Trump of obstructing justice, Barr said, and his report “sets out evidence on both sides of the question”.
After consulting with other Justice Department officials, Barr said he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein determined the evidence “is not sufficient to establish that the president committed an obstruction of justice offence”.
Barr released a four-page summary of Mueller’s report Sunday afternoon. Mueller wrapped up his investigation on Friday with no new indictments, bringing to a close aan investigation that has dogged Trump for nearly two years.
Barr’s chief of staff called White House counsel Emmet Flood at 3pm yesterday to brief him on the report to Congress.
Mueller’s investigation ensnared nearly three dozen people, senior Trump campaign operatives among them. The investigation illuminated Russia’s assault on the American political system, painted the Trump campaign as eager to exploit the release of hacked Democratic emails to hurt Democrat Hillary Clinton and exposed lies by Trump aides aimed at covering up their Russia-related contacts.
Trump was lying low at his Florida estate yesterday as he awaited the findings of the investigation, heeding the
advice of his lawyers, who warned him against tweeting about the investigation before details were released.
He spent the weekend golfing and relaxing with his family, and was said to be relieved that Mueller’s investigation had ended without any new indictments , according to people close to the White House.
Most notably Trump dialled back his high-octane Twitter account over the weekend. His only public messages came
yesterday morning, when he wrote “Good Morning, Have A Great Day!” and “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
The relative silence stood in contrast with the previous weekend, when Trump unleashed more than 50 tweets, many scathing attacks on the investigations that have shadowed his presidency.
The president has railed against Mueller for months, calling the investigation a politically motivated “witch hunt.” Just last weekend Trump tweeted that the Mueller investigation was the “biggest scandal in the history of the country”. That came after he re-ignited his feud with the Senator John Mccain, despite the decorated veteran now being deceased, called adviser Kellyanne Conway’s husband a “loser husband from hell,” branded former FBI director James Comey a “dirty cop” and former vice-president Joe Biden as a “low IQ individual.”
The report is unlikely to end criticism of Trump and his business dealings however, and immediately after the summary was released, Democrat Jerry Nadler said Mueller “clearly and explicitly is not exonerating the president” and said they would need to see “all the underlying evidence for the American people to know all the facts”.
In contrast, Republican Lindsey Graham said “the cloud hanging over President Trump has been removed” by Mueller’s report, and called it “a bad day” for those hoping the investigation would “take President Trump down”.