Vindication for Trump? Key takeaways from Mueller’s Russia report

WASHINGTON — Special counsel Robert Mueller spent 22 months examining whether Donald Trump’s campaign conspired with Russia to sway the 2016 election.

His conclusion? No collusion.

Some key takeaways from Mueller’s findings:

There was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Mueller made that clear.

Barr quotes Mueller’s confidential report as saying the investigation “did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”

That finding was a win for Trump, who has turned “no collusion” into a daily refrain.

Barr says he will have to consult with Mueller and other Justice Department officials before he can release more of Mueller’s confidential report or any other information he gathered during the investigation.

Mueller also made no finding that Trump obstructed justice.

According to Barr, Mueller left unresolved what he viewed as the “‘difficult issues’ of law and fact concerning whether the President’s actions and intent could be viewed as obstruction.”

Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who initiated the Russia probe,

agreed that there was no evidence that the president obstructed justice.

That conclusion was based

on Mueller’s investigation, Barr said. Barr said he determined that none of Trump’s actions amounted to obstruction and that there was not sufficient evidence to show he acted with a “corrupt intent.”

He also noted there wasn’t an underlying crime involving Trump.

The letter sheds some light on how Mueller approached the collusion question.

In assessing whether Americans committed crimes related to Russia’s election interference, Mueller was looking for a specific agreement “tacit or express” between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.

After 22 months, investigators never found one.

Grand jury witnesses have shown that Mueller scruti-

nized a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower involving a Russian lawyer. Court papers also show that Mueller uncovered that a Maltese professor told a Trump campaign foreign policy adviser that the Russians had dirt on Clinton in the form of emails— a message passed along weeks before it became public that Democratic groups had been hacked. Trump was also trying to make a real estate deal in Russia.

But according to Mueller, Trump and all of his associates acted within the law.