WASHINGTON – Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation did not find evidence that President Donald Trump or members of his campaign conspired with Russia’s…
WASHINGTON – Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation did not find evidence that President Donald Trump or members of his campaign conspired with Russia’s efforts to sway the 2016 election, delivering a boost to the president in a case that has shadowed his administration since its first days.
But the special counsel’s report leaves “unresolved whether the president’s actions and intent could be viewed as obstruction,” Attorney General William Barr said in a letter to Congress delivered Sunday.
“While this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him” on whether he obstructed justice, Mueller said in the report, according to Barr’s four-page summary.
Because the special counsel did not reach a conclusion on obstruction, Barr wrote that the ultimate decision was left to him, adding that he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein determined that Trump’s conduct did not constitute a crime.
Trump immediately declared the findings a “complete and total exoneration” of him.
“It’s a shame that our country had to go through this. To be honest, it’s a shame that your president had to go through this,” Trump told reporters Sunday before returning to Washington from Florida, where he had stayed all weekend.
Barr told lawmakers that Mueller’s report described two efforts by Russia to interfere in the presidential election that put Trump in office. One was a hacking operation that targeted Democratic political organizations; the other was a “disinformation and social media” effort to sow discord.
Mueller’s investigation also concluded that Trump’s campaign received “multiple offers” of assistance from people linked to Russia.
The central question of Mueller’s investigation was to answer whether Trump or anyone in his campaign collaborated in those efforts.
Barr said that Mueller concluded that neither Trump nor other Americans had joined those Russian conspiracies. The evidence Mueller’s team gathered “does not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference,” Barr’s letter says.
Read: Mueller report: Read AG William Barr’s summary of the Russia investigation
More: Trump claims vindication from Mueller summary despite lack of answers on obstruction
That determination was part of Barr’s decision that the president could not be prosecuted for obstruction of justice. A Justice official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said that Barr did not consult with Mueller while preparing the summary letter.
Barr indicated that his determination that Trump’s conduct did not constitute obstruction was made without regard to the constitutional considerations of whether a sitting president can be prosecuted. Long-standing Justice Department guidelines state that a president cannot be charged while in office.
The attorney general’s obstruction conclusions are likely to cast a new spotlight on Barr, who had written a memo critical of Mueller’s obstruction inquiry before he was nominated by Trump to succeed Jeff Sessions at the Justice Department.
