Winners and losers from the Mueller report
Attorney General William Barr says special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation did not find evidence that President Donald Trump's campaign 'conspired or coordinated' with Russia; reaction from Jehmu Greene, former Hillary Clinton adviser and Fox News contributor, and Buck Sexton, former CIA analyst and host of 'The Buck Sexton Show.'
The key finding of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone – except liberals and most journalists, who believe President Trump is guilty until proven innocent of accusations made against him.
Attorney General William Barr reported Sunday in a letter to members of Congress that a report by Mueller concluded that “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 U.S. presidential election.”
In other words, as President Trump has said time and time again, “there was no collusion.”
READ THE MUELLER REPORT FINDINGS: BARR’S LETTER TO CONGRESS
Barr’s letter confirmed that Mueller did not recommend any further indictments growing out of his investigation and that there are no sealed indictments that have not yet been made public.
Even the most ardent Trump-haters can’t argue that Mueller failed to conduct a thorough investigation. In fact, the special counsel employed 19 lawyers and an additional staff of 40 FBI agents, intelligence analysts, forensic accountants and other professional staff in his probe.
Mueller issued “more than 2,800 subpoenas, executed nearly 500 search warrants, obtained more than 230 orders for communication records, issued almost 50 orders authorizing use of pen registers, made 13 requests to foreign governments for evidence, and interviewed approximately 500 witnesses” according to Barr’s letter to members of Congress. And the Mueller investigation lasted almost two years.
Now Mueller’s long and extremely thorough investigation finally removes a cloud that has been hanging over the president – the question of whether he or his campaign worked with the Russians.
As we already knew from the prior indictments of Russian agents, the Russians tried to interfere in our 2016 election in two ways.
First, a Russian organization called the Internet Research Agency conducted “disinformation and social media operations in the United States designed to sow social discord, eventually with the aim of interfering in the election,” Barr reported in his summary of the Mueller report.
Although Barr did not say so, this type of disinformation campaign is nothing new. Similar campaigns were carried out by the Soviet Union throughout the entire Cold War. The only change today has been the use by the Russian government of something that didn’t exist back then – social media platforms.
The Russians also conducted computer hacking operations to “gather and disseminate information to influence the election” and did so successfully against the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, Barr wrote.
The information the Russians stole was then distributed “through various intermediaries, including WikiLeaks,” and Mueller indicted a number of Russian military officers for these actions, Barr wrote.
Most importantly, according to Barr, was that in both cases the special counsel “did not find that any U.S. person or Trump campaign official or associate conspired or knowingly coordinated with” the Russians. And this was despite “multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign.”
The second part of Mueller’s report is about his investigation of the president for possible obstruction of justice, Barr said. Mueller did not “draw a conclusion – one way or another – as to whether the examined conduct constituted obstruction,” according to Barr.
Instead, Mueller’s report sets out “the 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 Mueller report “does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,” Barr reported. That left it to the attorney general to determine whether the facts described constitute a crime.
After consulting with senior Justice Department officials and “applying the principles of federal prosecution that guide” the department’s charging decisions, Barr concluded that the evidence developed by Mueller “is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense,” he wrote.
Barr said he came to that conclusion without even considering “the constitutional considerations that surround the indictment and criminal prosecution of a sitting president.”
Barr noted in his letter that Mueller recognized that “the evidence does not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference.” While not determinative, “the absence of such evidence bears upon the President’s intent with respect to obstruction.”
In other words, it is difficult to charge an individual with obstruction of justice if there is no crime to obstruct.
While Barr’s letter to Congress is a four-page summary, parts of the actual Mueller report may still be released.
But some material in the report can’t be made public. For example, grand jury information and proceedings are secret under Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and can only be disclosed under certain limited circumstances.
The Justice Department is going to have to carefully review Mueller’s report and redact any information covered by the grand jury secrecy requirement. Barr may also withhold information on other “ongoing matters” that have been referred by the special counsel to other Justice Department offices.
So did the Russians try to influence the 2016 election through a disinformation campaign that used social media and disseminated stolen information? Yes, they did. But our intelligence agencies reported this before Mueller even began his investigation.
Now Mueller’s long and extremely thorough investigation finally removes a cloud that has been hanging over the president – the question of whether he or his campaign worked with the Russians.
To the surprise and disappointment of those who oppose President Trump, the Mueller report cleared him of the collusion charge.
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And did the president obstruct the investigation? According to Attorney General Barr, the president did not.
After almost two long years, the Mueller report is a complete vindication for the president and a victory against his detractors.
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