President Trump’s campaign didn’t conspire with Russia in the 2016 election, as per the a summary of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report submitted to Congress on Sunday.
The report summary didn’t draw a conclusion on whether or not Mr Trump illegally obstructed justice – not exonerating the president.
The report was summarised for Congress by the attorney general, William Barr.
President Trump tweeted in response: “No Collusion, No Obstruction.”
President Trump’s campaign didn’t conspire with Russia throughout the 2016 election, according to a summary of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report submitted to Congress on Sunday.
The report summary didn’t draw a conclusion on whether or not Mr Trump illicitly obstructed justice – not exonerating the president.
The report was summarised for Congress by the attorney general, William Barr.
President Trump tweeted in response: “No Collusion, No Obstruction.”
What is in the report summary?
The summary letter by Mr Barr outlines the inquiry’s findings regarding Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election.
Mr Barr concluded: “The special counsel didn’t realize that any US person or Trump campaign official conspired or wittingly co-ordinated with Russia.”

The second part of the letter addresses the issue of obstruction of justice. Mr Barr’s summary says the special counsel report “ultimately determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment”.

“The Special Counsel therefore did not draw a conclusion – one way or the other – as to whether the examined conduct constituted obstruction,” the letter read.

Short Summary of the Report?

The summary letter by Mr Barr outlines the inquiry’s findings relating to Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election.

Mr Barr concluded: “The special counsel did not find that any US person or Trump campaign official conspired or knowingly co-ordinated with Russia.”

The second part of the letter addresses the issue of obstruction of justice. Mr Barr’s summary says the special counsel report “ultimately determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment”.

“The Special Counsel therefore did not draw a conclusion – one way or the other – as to whether the examined conduct constituted obstruction,” the letter read.

Reaction of US politicians?

Congressman Jerry Nadler, the Democratic Chair of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, emphasised that the attorney general did not rule out that Mr Trump may have obstructed justice.

“Barr says that the president may have acted to obstruct justice, but that for an obstruction conviction, ‘the government would need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a person, acting with corrupt intent, engaged in obstructive conduct’.”

Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, a member of the Senate’s Judiciary Committee, said that while there was a lack of evidence to support “a prosecutable criminal conspiracy”, questions remained over whether Mr Trump had been compromised.

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said in a joint statement that Mr Barr’s letter “raises as many questions as it answers” and called for access to the full report.

“For the president to say he is completely exonerated directly contradicts the words of Mr Mueller and is not to be taken with any degree of credibility,” the statement said.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders described the findings of the report as “a total and complete exoneration of the president”.

Mr Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, said the report was “better than I expected”. Republican Senator Mitt Romney welcomed the “good news”, tweeting that it was now “time for the country to move forward”.

What happens next?

The release of the report’s key findings on Sunday could mark the start of a lengthy battle to see the entire Mueller report made public.

A number of senior Democrats have called for the full report to be released along with all of the special counsel’s investigative files.

Mr Barr has said he will release more, but indicated it would take some time to determine what materials could be shared.

He did not give a specific time frame, but whenever further details are handed to Congress Democrats may mount legal challenges if it is anything less than the entire report.

As Congress awaits further details, Mr Barr may be called to testify in front of the House Judiciary Committee.

The committee’s Democratic chairman, Jerry Nadler, said on Twitter that he will ask Mr Barr to testify “in the near future” over what Mr Nadler said were “very concerning discrepancies and final decision making at the Justice Department”.

Meanwhile, as Mr Trump claimed “total exoneration” on Sunday, about a dozen other investigations were continuing to examine his activities.

They include a federal investigation in New York that is looking into possible election-law violations by the Trump campaign and his businesses and possible misconduct by the Trump inaugural committee.

Congress is also continuing its own inquiries, mostly in the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives.

Mueller report: Investigators did not find aany trump’s Link with Russia:

What was that film called? As Good As It Gets? That’s how Donald Trump must feel now that the attorney general has published his four-page summary of the Mueller report.

It is impossible to over-emphasise the significance of what has been said.

If the Democrats want to remove this president from the White House, it’s going to have to be via the ballot box in November 2020, and not before.

The cloud that has been over the president for 22 months has gone, the weight that has sat on his shoulders has been lifted.

This is without doubt the best day that Donald Trump has had since his inauguration in January 2017. So let’s go through it.

The Mueller investigation came in two parts – firstly, the question of whether there had been collusion between his campaign and the Russians.

On that there is 100% exoneration. Special Counsel Robert Mueller found that his campaign did not conspire or coordinate with Russia. That issue is put to bed.

On the question of obstruction of justice there is a bit of ambiguity.

Mr Mueller has a very interesting sentence: “While the report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

But that has been looked at by the attorney general and William Barr reaches this conclusion: “Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein and I have concluded that the evidence developed during the Special Counsel’s investigation is not sufficient to establish that the president committed an obstruction of justice offence.”

That area of ambiguity is what the Democrats are going to focus upon. And here again, I am going to try to break this down into two parts. The first legal, the second political.

Legally, the House Judiciary Committee will want to get its hands on the full Mueller report.

They will want to see why Robert Mueller felt he couldn’t exonerate the president on obstruction of justice.

And remember, obstruction of justice is one of the so-called “high crimes and misdemeanours” that can lead to impeachment.

There will be an endless back and forth over that. And I wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised if the subpoenas start to fly.

Committees have the right to call people and papers. They are bound to flex their muscles as much as they can. They want to play this long. They want to damage the president.

To prosecute the president for obstruction of justice there would have needed to be evidence of intent to obstruct. So even though the president fired former FBI chief James Comey and unleashed regular torrents of abuse on Twitter about the investigation, if his only motivation for those acts was to vent his spleen rather than break the law, then he’s done nothing wrong legally.

There is, of course, separately, a series of other criminal investigations going on into different aspects of the Trump Organization – the foundation, the inauguration committee, even the way the Trump Organization might have inflated or deflated insurance values on how much properties are worth.

They will run their course. But make no mistake the greatest single piece of jeopardy came from the verdict of the Mueller report, and the interpretation that it amounts to a “not guilty” is an enormous fillip to Donald Trump.

It seems to me that while it is totally understandable that the Democrats are going to plug away – and in some ways it would be an abdication for an opposition party not to, and they may well do the president further damage – the risk associated with this course of action is bigger than any opportunity it presents.

Public opinion is going to watch the network news bulletins tonight, look at the news websites after this exhausting 22 month process, and think “OK, that’s it. Move on.”

How many ordinary people (a phrase I hate, but forgive me) would read the entire Mueller report with its endless appendices, even if it was released in total?

I suspect not that many. And we all have busy lives and limited attention spans.

The most successful politicians acknowledge that. A significant part of the voting population is just going to think “Thank goodness that’s over.”

The danger for Democrats is exactly the same as Republicans faced over the impeachment of Bill Clinton.

Despite his perjury and lies, President Clinton left office in 2000 with incredibly high approval ratings.

Why? Well, partly the economy was soaring. But also Democrats were repulsed by what they saw as political game playing by Republicans who were perceived to be putting their own political interests ahead of the country.

And the feeling was – to use a word that Donald Trump is fond of – that the Republican Party was conducting a witch-hunt.

Senior Democrats in Congress have always been aware of going down the impeachment route. But now they need to consider the risks of giving the appearance of being more interested and focused on bringing down the president than in the issues of ordinary people – health, work, salaries, college fees, schooling, the opioid epidemic etc.

Donald Trump is, as I write this, aboard Air Force One on his way back to Washington.

If he wasn’t teetotal, I feel sure he would be uncorking the champagne. Maybe he’ll have a celebratory Diet Coke with an extra cube of ice.

He always said it was a hoax and a witch-hunt. And not surprisingly he says he has been totally vindicated.

Shifting that narrative, much as the Democrats will try, is going to be immensely difficult.