Washington: Robert Mueller’s investigation did not find sufficient evidence to establish that US President Donald Trump or any of his aides coordinated with Russia’s efforts to influence the 2016 election, Attorney General William Barr has said as he summarised the key findings from the special counsel’s historic probe that has cast a dark shadow over the presidency for nearly two years.
In a four-page letter to top lawmakers Sunday, Barr highlighted two sections of Mueller’s report — Russia’s efforts to affect the 2016 presidential election and whether the president obstructed justice.
The long-awaited report was submitted Friday to Barr, who pored over the document before handing a summary to Congress.
Trump’s firing of former FBI Director James Comey and other actions throughout the probe raised concerns about the president trying to end the investigation.
Mueller, who spent nearly two years investigating Moscow’s determined effort to sabotage the last presidential election, found no conspiracy “despite multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign,” Barr wrote in the letter to lawmakers.
Mueller’s team drew no conclusions about whether Trump illegally obstructed justice, Barr said, so he made his own decision. The attorney general and his deputy, Rod J Rosenstein, determined that the special counsel’s investigators had insufficient evidence to establish that the president committed that offense.
Barr cautioned that “while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him” on the obstruction of justice issue.
The investigation had cast a shadow over the Trump presidency for nearly two years with the Democratic leadership alleging that Russian interference helped him in the 2016 polls.
Barr said that Mueller found no proof of such a conspiracy “despite multiple offers from Russia-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign”.
“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 US presidential election,” the attorney general said.
“For each of the relevant actions investigated, the report sets out evidence on both sides of the question and leaves unresolved what the special counsel views as ‘difficult issues’ of law and fact concerning whether the president’s actions and intent could be viewed as obstruction,” Barr said, adding Mueller “ultimately determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment”.
The release of the findings was a significant political victory for Trump who described it as a “complete and total exoneration”.
PTI
