Trump claims victory as Mueller report finds no Russia conspiracy
● President tried to fire Mueller ● No evidence to charge campaign
Public at last, special counsel Robert Mueller’s report revealed to a waiting nation that Donald Trump had tried to seize control of the Russia probe and force Mr Mueller’s removal to stop him from investigating potential obstruction of justice by the US president.
The report said that in June 2017, Mr Trump directed White House Counsel Don Mcgahn to call the acting attorney general and say Mr Mueller must be ousted because he had conflicts of interest.
Mr Mcgahn refused, deciding he would rather resign than trigger what he regarded as a potential “Saturday Night Massacre” of Watergate firings fame. For all of that, Mr Mueller said in his report he could not conclusively deter2016 mine Mr Trump had committed criminal obstruction of justice.
The Justice Department posted a redacted version of the report online yesterday. The two-volume, 448page report recounts how Mr Trump repeatedly sought to take control of the Russia probe.
Mr Mueller evaluated ten episodes for possible obstruction of justice, including Mr Trump’s firing of FBI director James Comey, the president’s directive to subordinates to have Mr Mueller fired and efforts to encourage witnesses not to co-operate.
The president’s lawyers have said Mr Trump’s conduct fell within his constitutional powers, but Mr Mueller’s team deemed the episodes deserving of criminal scrutiny.
Mr Mueller reported Mr Trump had been agitated at the special counsel probe from its earliest days, reacting to the special counsel’s appointment by saying it was the “end of his presidency”. As for the question of whether the Trump campaign had colluded with Russia during the
presidential campaign, Mr Mueller wrote: “While the investigation identified numerous links between individuals with ties to the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign, the evidence was not sufficient to support criminal charges.”
Mr Mueller also said there was not sufficient evidence to charge any campaign officials with working as an unregistered foreign agent of Russia.
The report included an appendix that contained 12
pages of Mr Trump’s written responses to the special counsel.
They included no questions about obstruction of justice, as was part of an agreement with Mr Trump’s legal team.
Mr Trump told Mr Mueller he had “no recollection” of learning in advance about the much-scrutinised Trump Tower meeting between campaign officials and a Russian lawyer. He also said he had no recollection of knowledge about emails setting up the meeting that promised “dirt” on Hillary Clinton’s campaign. The US president broadly denied knowing of any foreign government trying to help his campaign.
He said he was aware of some reports that Russian president Vladimir Putin had made “complimentary statements” about him.
Mr Trump said his comment during a 2016 political rally asking Russian hackers to help find emails scrubbed from Ms Clinton’s private server was made “in jest and sarcastically” and that he did not recall being told during the campaign of any Russian effort to infiltrate or hack computer systems.
Mr Trump’s legal team called the results “a total victory for the president”.
The president posted a meme saying it was “game over” for the “haters and the radical left democrats”.
The Mueller report appears to be most heavily redacted in its first section, which covers Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election and examines contacts between Russian representatives and the Trump campaign.