Special Counsel Robert Mueller found no collusion between President Trump’s campaign and Russia — and he didn’t uncover enough evidence to justify charging Trump with obstruction of justice, according to a letter Sunday from Attorney General William Barr.
Barr’s hotly anticipated letter to Congress summarized the key findings of the report that Mueller submitted Friday upon wrapping up his 22-month probe.
Barr’s revelations dashed the dreams of Democrats who boldly predicted the Mueller probe would doom Trump’s presidency and lead to criminal charges against him — and prompted the commander-in-chief to declare he’d been vindicated following “an illegal takedown that failed.”
“The Special Counsel’s investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election,” Barr wrote.
In a footnote, Barr said Mueller “defined ‘coordination’ as ‘an agreement — tacit or express — between the Trump campaign and the Russian government on election interference.’ ”
Barr also said he and Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein decided that Mueller’s report doesn’t contain evidence “sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense” in connection with the probe, which Trump repeatedly branded a politically motivated “witch hunt.”
“Our determination was made without regard to, and is not based on, the constitutional considerations that surround the indictment and criminal prosecution of a sitting president,” Barr wrote.
DOJ policy bars pursuing charges against a sitting president, based on a 2000 opinion from its Office of Legal Counsel.
In addition to recommending no new indictments, Mueller’s report also says he didn’t “obtain any sealed indictments that have yet to be made public,” Barr wrote.
Trump called the revelations “a complete and total exoneration” and blasted Mueller’s investigation as “an illegal takedown that failed.”
“So, after a long look, after a long investigation, after so many people have been so badly hurt, after not looking at the other side where a lot of bad things happened, a lot of horrible things happened, a lot of very bad things happened for our country — it was just announced there was no collusion with Russia. The most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” he told reporters after leaving his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida to return to the White House.
“There was no obstruction, and — none whatsoever. And it was a complete and total exoneration.”
Trump added: “It’s a shame that our country had to go through this. To be honest, it’s a shame that your president has had to go through this for — before I even got elected, it began.”
“And it began illegally. And hopefully, somebody is going to look at the other side. This was an illegal takedown that failed. And hopefully, somebody is going to be looking at the other side.
Trump’s remarks came shortly after he tweeted, “No Collusion, No Obstruction, Complete and Total EXONERATION. KEEP AMERICA GREAT!”
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted that Sunday marked a “great day for America and for President @realDonaldTrump.”
“After two years of wild anti-Trump hysteria, the President and his millions of supporters have been completely vindicated,” she added.
Trump’s 2020 campaign manager, Brad Parscale, issued a statement saying that Mueller’s findings had exposed “the Russia collusion conspiracy theory for the sham that it always was” and caught Trump’s Democratic opponents “in an elaborate web of lies and deceit.”
Many Democrats had been hoping for blockbuster allegations against the president in Mueller’s report, especially in the wake of last year’s election results that saw Republicans lose control of the House of Representatives.
Barr sent his letter to the chairmen and ranking members of the Senate and House Judiciary Committees around 4 p.m. after working both days of the weekend at “Main Justice” headquarters in Washington, DC.
Barr noted the intense “public interest in this matter” and repeated his intention to “release as much of the Special Counsel’s report as I can consistent with applicable law, regulations, and Departmental policies.”
But he said Mueller’s report apparently contains information related to secret grand jury proceedings that is generally prohibited from being made public, as well as “information that could impact other ongoing matters, including those that the Special Counsel has referred to other offices.”
Barr said he would need to identify all that material before deciding “what can be released.”
Earlier Sunday, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) told ABC’s “This Week” that he wanted the entire report and vowed to subpoena it and ”prosecute in court as necessary to get this information.”
In his letter, Barr said Mueller’s report identifies “two main Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election,” with one involving online disinformation and social-media manipulation by the Internet Research Association.
But Mueller — who secured indictments against the IRA and 13 Russians — “did not find that any US person or Trump campaign official or associate conspired or knowingly coordinated with the IRA in its efforts,” Barr wrote.
The second aspect of Russian meddling involved hacking the emails of key figures in Hillary Clinton’s campaign and Democratic organizations, which led Mueller to file charges against 12 Russian intelligence officers.
But while there were “multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign,” Mueller did not find that anyone from the campaign “conspired or coordinated with the Russian government” with regard to the hacked emails, Barr wrote.
Barr’s letter doesn’t specify any of those Russian outreach efforts, but President Trump’s son, Donald Jr., released emails last year — ahead of a planned New York Times expose — that show him arranging a meeting in Trump Tower with a “Russian government attorney” to get damaging information on Clinton.
Muller’s probe of potential obstruction charges against Trump included a “thorough factual investigation,” but Muller opted against making “a traditional prosecutorial judgment” and he “did not draw a conclusion — one way or the other — as to whether the examined conduct constituted obstruction,” Barr wrote.
Instead, Mueller “sets out evidence on both sides of the question and leaves unresolved what the Special Counsel views as ‘difficult issues’ of law and fact,” Barr wrote.
“The Special Counsel states that ‘while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,’” Barr wrote.
In his letter, Barr says that Mueller “recognized that ‘the evidence does not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference,’” which “bears upon the President’s intent with regard to obstruction.”
“In cataloguing the President’s actions, many of which took place in public view, the report identifies no actions that, in our judgment, constitute obstructive conduct, had a nexus to a pending or contemplated proceeding, and were done with corrupt intent,” Barr wrote.