Special counsel Robert Mueller reached an unambiguous conclusion in the final report on his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election: Neither President Donald Trump nor any member of his campaign colluded with Russia.
The Justice Department released the special counsel’s report to Congress and the public on April 18, marking a definitive conclusion to the expansive probe of the president and his associates.
“Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome and that the campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government,” Mueller’s final report states.
Attorney General William Barr already summarized Mueller’s top-line findings in a letter on March 24. In a press conference shortly before the release of the report, Barr told reporters that Trump declined to assert executive privilege to redact any portion of the report. As a result, all of the redactions in the final document were determined by a small group from the Justice Department, Mueller’s office, and the intelligence community.
The special counsel identified two primary efforts by the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 election. Extensive details on each effort have already been made public in indictments Mueller filed against the Internet Research Agency (IRA) and a group of Russian military intelligence officials with the GRU. While the IRA coordinated an illegal campaign to influence U.S. voters via social media, the GRU hacked Democratic targets and published the stolen emails online, the report alleges.
In both cases, Mueller did not find evidence to suggest that any American knowingly conspired with Russia.
“Put another way, the special counsel found no collusion by any Americans in the IRA’s illegal activity,” Barr said, adding “there was no evidence of Trump campaign ‘collusion’ with the Russian government’s hacking.”
Trump, who has been a fierce critic of the investigation, celebrated the news with a series of Twitter messages.
“As I have been saying all along, NO COLLUSION – NO OBSTRUCTION!” Trump wrote.
In brief remarks on the matter at an unrelated White House event, the president also suggested that steps should be taken to prevent a similar investigation from ensnaring future presidents.
“This should never happen to another president again,” Trump said. “This hoax should never happen to another president again.”
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel in May 2017 to take over an investigation the FBI started on July 31, 2016. Rosenstein’s memo directed Mueller to investigate “any links and/or coordination between the Russia government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump,” “matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation,” and matters related to obstruction of justice.
In addition to the initial appointment order, Rosenstein issued two “scope” memos outlining the boundaries of Mueller’s probe. The content of the memos was secret, but is revealed, at least in part, in the final report. Rosenstein issued the first memo on Aug. 2, 2017, authorizing investigations of former Trump-campaign associates Carter Page, Paul Manafort, and George Papadopoulos. The final report revealed that Rosenstein also permitted Mueller to look into “allegations that Papadopoulos committed a crime or crimes by acting as an unregistered agent of the Israeli government” and “four sets of allegations involving Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser to President Trump.”
In the second memo, Rosenstein authorized Mueller to investigate Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal attorney; Richard Gates, business partner to Manafort; Roger Stone, a political lobbyist and Trump ally; and two other persons, whose names have been redacted since they were not ultimately charged in the investigation.
The memo also describes an FBI investigation, opened prior to the special counsel’s appointment, into allegations that Attorney General Jeff Sessions “made false statements to the United States Senate.” The memo “confirmed the special counsel’s authority to investigate that matter.”
The final report notes that Mueller identified several potential crimes outside the scope of the investigation and referred the leads to other components of the Justice Department and the FBI. Of the 14 referrals, only two are not blacked out from the final report: the Cohen case and the alleged Foreign Agents Registration Act violation by former White House counsel Greg Craig. The information on the 12 other referrals is redacted to protect ongoing investigations.
I hope all of the democrat’s childish behavior comes back to haunt them. What goes around, comes around.
Investigate these investigators since 2016, karma, revive probes onto them, NO exceptions, Hillary & DNC
“Show me the man, and I’ll find you the crime.”— Lavrentiy Beria, in charge of Stalin’s secret police. The “progressive” left do know their communist history. The Dems and the Main Street Media are so invested in their pursuit of President Trump that they find it impossible to let it go. The ONLY way to stop them will be to vote the Dems out of office. In the mean time we need to endure at least another 18 or so months of nonsense. Perhaps the Senate can help by initiating investigations on the Deep State members who orchestrated the collusion investigation. Though I believe there are numerous guilty parties, the one to keep an eye on is John Brennan. Do some background research on him…you may find yourself shocked that such a partisan leftist could rise to such levels of power. It’s telling that Robert Gates, a man I much admire, wrote in his book “Duty” some disparaging remarks about Brennan. What we need to be focusing on is preventing Russia’s continued intrusion into our elections. As usual though, the Dems and the MSM have a more urgent agenda. God help us all!
Now the real problem emerges. If there was real evidence of anything they should have easily convinced 16 establishment Republicans just as they should have and will continue trying to convince the voters to give them the necessary “railroad” Senate in 2020. What they are also propagating is that there is a difference between establishment Republicans and establishment Democrats. That is something that anyone who is paying attention knows is not true. This Easter and everyday between then and Thanksgiving they should be uplifting prayers for the presence of Donald J Trump turning the discourse away from the Congress’ unwillingness to legislate the problems they are creating.
This news will not stop the liberals. We can only hope that AG Barr will go after Hillary and her cohorts.
Of course there was no collusion. Those who pursued this farce the hardest knew this all along. This is why they needed to fabricate the lying document that got them an illegal foot in the door to spy on the Trump campaign and later, the Trump administration.
They were hoping to find something, anything on anyone that they could leverage into blackmailing someone to lie about Trump and bring him down. After over 2 years and millions of dollars wasted. It didn’t work.
But not to worry. The left has been working on several other plans just as illegal and devious since they’ve know for quite some time that the Mueller investigation was a bust. They just needed to drag the investigation out long enough to come up with other tactics.
Lame Mueller left enough ambiguous stuff to feed those bottom feeders to snap on to make them try to allow get Trump out. Waste of time and our money. Democrats have done nothing to address important issues in two years.
We the American people don’t need to keep up this farce, wasting our hard earned tax dollars!!! Our debt continues to grow and the government continues its creep and intrusion into the lives of us the citizens! Continue to vote the swamp out of office and learn self reliance so we can someday turn this BLOB of a government back to its cave where it belongs!!!
I don’t about anyone else but as a 70 y/o retired American that served his Country brought up a family and paid all the taxes that was required, I’m sick of all this crap going on in my Country….the media are terrorists that are aiding a socialist attempted coup of America. It seems the coup is being bankrolled by rich leftists that want to rule and are preying on the weak minded..This thing with the left will never stop until it is confronted and a end put to it. I’m not sure if we are going to continue as America or become Ameriker hopefully America
You know, the sad thing here is that our national and some local news outlets are embarrassing themselves at our expense. They are mostly dishonest and don’t seem to have an original thought considering they all say the same thing almost word for word. The DNC’ommunist Party Putinistas are going to change this report until it sounds like they want it to and then they are all defeated in the next election and charged with treason. The Left in congress are corrupt. It is time to clip their wings, permanently!
Payback for Benghazi?
There is a RAT in the wood pile aka Rod Rosenstein. He holds the key to this whole rotten mess.
Maybe, an extended stay in Cuba would help get the truth out of him.
If you haven’t noticed the Dems have moved the goal posts again. This sad saga will not end until
the dems are soundly beaten in the 2020 elections.
Now it’s time to investigate collusion between Hillary & Russia.
So much tax money was wasted on Trump/Russia….why not double it on Hillary/Russia?
Reminder…..BHO said (in August, 2016) there was no collusion…..He actually was correct….for once!!!!!!
This whole thing has been a crock from day one. We still don’t know for sure that the “Russians” were the ones to hack into the DNC computer – the DNC refused to allow the FBI access to their computer. They had their own ciber security firm look at it. Can WE trust that firm to tell the truth or are they saying what the DNC wants them to say. IF the FBI and the alphabet soup of intelligence agencies knew that the Russians were trying to interfere (still no evidence that they actually did) in the 2016 election, WHY didn’t the Obama administration do something about it? Oh, yes, I almost forgot; Barack told Putin to, “cut it out”. Problem solved. Folks, somebody needs to go to jail for this, or at least be indicted and brought to trial. If not, it will happen again.
Can’t believe Hillary and Bill are out speaking…….a shame they don’t realize how stupid and shallow they are
It`s been shown, after an investigation that seemed to go on forever, and cost untold taxpayer dollars, that the President did nothing wrong, but still demon-crats wish to impeach this President. Liberals continue to show how mentally unstable they are, and their delusion is absolutely breathtaking. What kind of anti-America kook votes these idiots into office?
Doesn’t matter – the “unbiased” media is spinning this to infer that Trump is in big trouble and that Pence is somehow indirectly involved, and that is what at least the people around me will believe (you should hear what my co-workers are saying).
Why would Putin want Trump in office? He knew if Hillary were elected he could bribe her and her administration because he already did. She got $145 m + $500,00 for her crooked group to steal 20% of our uranium. Btw – her crooked group included Mueller who flew to Russia on tax payers money to give Putin the uranium sample – for which I am sure he was also paid off well. Putin knew he would not be able to roll-over Trump or bribe him and Trump has put more sanctions on Russia than ever before.
you have to know Muller wanted to destroy President Trump in the worst way so you have to know that there is absolutely nothing to the collusion that the Demorats wanted and everyone knew how Trump did not trust Muller so what’s the story here even media wants to destroy the president like one reporter said he is bothered by one paragraph in the report yeah one paragraph out of 400 pages. the media and the dembos are not finished more to follow