Trump tiptoed on edge of obstruction
WASHINGTON – Robert Mueller’s voluminous examination of Russian election interference portrays a Trump campaign and White House whose operations came dangerously close to breaking the law. ❚ The special counsel’s report released Thursday is all but certain to shadow President Donald Trump as he seeks reelection. ❚ The 22-month investigation, which altered the course of Trump’s presidency during the prosecution of six former top aides, yields a trove of details that cast the president and his associates as embracing the Kremlin’s assistance in the 2016
election and thwarting the inquiries that followed. After Mueller’s appointment, Trump declared his fear that the inquiry would be “the end of my presidency.”
Mueller’s team did not find evidence that Trump or his associates conspired with Russian efforts to sway the 2016 election in his favor, nor could it sustain accusations that Trump sought to illegally obstruct the special counsel’s investigation. Yet the two-volume document delivered Thursday, which revealed the existence of 12 secret inquiries spun off by the special counsel, provides a damning account of the president and aides who often struggled to save Trump from himself.
“The president’s efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the president declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests,” the report concludes.
The report details steps the president took to quash the investigation, all falling short because Attorney General Jeff Sessions, White House counsel Don McGahn and White House adviser Corey Lewandowski refused to carry out his orders, including separate directives to curb the investigation and dismiss Mueller.
Mueller’s office did not conclude that Trump’s actions were illegal but refused to clear him of wrongdoing, saying, “If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state.”
Investigators found that a number of campaign aides and advisers engaged in contacts with people linked to the Russian regime even as the Kremlin carried out a wideranging effort to intervene in the election.
“The president took no act that deprived the special counsel of the documents and witnesses necessary to complete his investigation.” Attorney General William Barr
Vindicated or implicated?
“Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, 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 concludes.
Trump, in a “Game of Thrones”-themed tweet, declared the report a vindication, saying: “No collusion. No Obstruction. For the haters and the Radical Left Democrats – Game Over.” His legal team, including Rudy Giuliani, characterized the report’s conclusions as a “total victory” for Trump.
Attorney General William Barr, who briefed reporters before the report’s release, joined in a full-throated defense of the president, underscoring the report’s conclusion that no one associated with the Trump campaign “conspired or coordinated with the Russian government.”
Democrats seized on the document’s more troubling findings, including its detailed accounting of multiple occasions on which Trump attempted to derail the investigation.
“Even in its incomplete form, the Mueller report outlines disturbing evidence that President Trump engaged in obstruction of justice and other misconduct,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said, adding that it would be up to “Congress to hold the president accountable for his actions.”
Although Democrats have stepped back from pursuing impeachment proceedings against the president, Nadler said it remained a “possibility.”
Mueller’s investigation yielded evidence that Trump campaign operatives expressed interest in pursuing questionable contacts with Russians amid the heated 2016 election against Democrat Hillary Clinton. Those same associates apparently failed to recognize that a deft intelligence operation directly tied to the Kremlin was manipulating the American electorate.
Those suspicious interactions included contacts that involved national security adviser Michael Flynn, foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos and campaign chairman Paul Manafort, all of whom have been prosecuted by Mueller’s office.
Some of Trump’s aides lied to the special counsel and Congress about their interactions. “Those lies materially impaired the investigation of Russian election interference,” the report says.
The campaign showed interest in WikiLeaks’ release of damaging documents about Clinton, the report says.
For all of the information prosecutors gathered, the report casts doubt on whether they obtained “a complete picture” of activities during the Trump campaign, saying some campaign associates offered inadmissible information and deleted “relevant communications.” Some witnesses, the report says, communicated using phone applications that don’t retain data.
In written responses to questions from prosecutors, the president said more than 30 times that he did not “recall” or “remember” or have an “independent recollection” of events. Other answers, Mueller said, were “incomplete or imprecise.”
Mueller expressed frustration with the president’s answers and considered whether to subpoena Trump but decided he had enough evidence from other sources to determine the credibility of Trump’s responses.
“We viewed the written answers to be inadequate,” the report says. “But at that point our investigation had made significant progress and had produced substantial evidence for our report ... we determined that the substantial quantity of information we had obtained from other sources allowed us to draw relevant factual conclusions on intent and credibility.”
Mueller concluded there was insufficient evidence to support a conspiracy, yet the report details such a range of interactions between Trump associates and Russia that even the special counsel’s exoneration may not be enough to dissolve suspicion.
“In sum, the investigation established multiple links between Trump campaign officials and individuals tied to the Russian government,” according to the report. “Those links included Russian offers of assistance to the campaign. In some instances, the campaign was receptive to the offer, while in other instances the campaign officials shied away. Ultimately, the investigation did not establish that the campaign coordinated or conspired with the Russian government in its election-interference activities.”
‘The end of my presidency’
Among the events Mueller’s team examined for possible obstruction was Trump’s angry reaction to Mueller’s appointment to lead the investigation and Trump’s efforts to pressure then-Attorney General Sessions to resign or reverse his decision to recuse himself from managing the inquiry.
“Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my presidency. I’m f - - - ed,” Trump said when he learned that Mueller had been appointed to investigate his campaign, according to notes kept by Sessions’ chief of staff, Jody Hunt.
The confrontation prompted Sessions to offer his resignation, which Trump did not accept.
Trump moved on to encourage then-White House counsel McGahn to remove Mueller. Trump, according to the report, called McGahn at home June 17, 2017, asserting that Mueller should be dismissed.
McGahn did not carry out the direction, saying he would resign rather than trigger what he regarded as a potential “Saturday Night Massacre,” a reference to President Richard Nixon ordering his attorney general to fire the special investigator looking into the Watergate scandal.
‘Unprecedented situation’
In the Trump administration, the president may have no more important ally than Barr, who succeeded Sessions after his ouster in November.
On the question of obstruction, Barr said Trump’s actions stemmed from frustration with an investigation he thought constrained his presidency.
“The president took no act that deprived the special counsel of the documents and witnesses necessary to complete his investigation,” Barr said.
Investigators examined several instances of possible obstruction by the president and whether they constituted criminal conduct. Barr said he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein “disagreed” with some legal theories advanced by Mueller but didn’t elaborate.
The attorney general said Trump faced “an unprecedented situation.”
Barr acknowledged that the Justice Department gave Trump’s lawyers an advance look at Mueller’s report so the White House could decide whether to assert executive privilege. He said the president decided not to do so.
Before the report’s release, political tensions boiled over. Some Democratic leaders called for Barr to put off his public briefing, asserting that he was providing political cover for the president before more damaging findings of the report were made public.
Trump began Thursday morning with a pair of tweets denouncing the investigation as a hoax perpetrated by Democrats and other critics. “PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT!” Trump said.