Energized by Barr, Trump confronting Mueller report

WASHINGTON — The case was closed for President Donald Trump on March 24, the day Attorney General William Barr delivered to Congress his fourpage summary of the special counsel’s 300-plus page report.

“No Collusion, No Obstruction, Complete and Total EXONERATION,” Trump wrote on Twitter that day. And in the weeks that followed, the president’s message of vindication and revenge on his political antagonists has only intensified, as he has expressed no interest in reading the full report and leveled charges of treason against Democratic lawmakers.

Barr’s letter effectively emboldened Trump, aides said, even as they prepare for new details to emerge from a redacted version of the report — expected this week — that could renew questions about the president’s fitness for office.

But Trump’s mood has been lighter since the report was filed, people close to him said, even though neither he nor his White House lawyers have seen the full document, or at this point plan to do so before it is released to Congress and the public.

People close to Trump said they have noticed an increase in his confidence after he spent months feeling weighed down by a loss of control.

“When they began to go after people he knew personally, who had worked for him for years, I think it gnawed at him, and I think he felt helpless,” said Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker and a confidant of Trump’s.

Now, as Barr prepares to submit a redacted version of the report, Trump’s plan of attack, aides said, is to act as if the report itself is extraneous to Barr’s brief letter.

“The bottom line: The result is no collusion, no obstruction, and that’s the way it is,” the president told reporters Thursday. He said that Democrats “know it’s all a big scam, a big hoax” and that he believed what they were doing was “actually treason.” Days earlier, en route to Texas, Trump told reporters: “I don’t care about the Mueller report. I’ve been totally exonerated.”