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Mueller Report 'Summary' Delivered to US Congress (cnn.com)
America's recently-appointed Attorney General William Barr has submitted to Congress his summary of the main conclusions from special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, CNN reports.
"While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him," special counsel Robert Mueller says, as quoted in Barr's summary.
It does, however, reiterate that there was clear Russian interference in America's 2016 election: The Special Counsel's investigation determined that there were two main Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election. The first involved attempts by a Russian organization, the Internet Research Agency, to conduct disinformation and social media operations in the United States designed to sow social discord, eventually with the aim of interfering with the election.... The second element involved the Russian government's efforts to conduct computer hacking operations designed to gather and disseminate information to influence the election. The Special Counsel found that Russian government actors successfully hacked into computers and obtained emails from persons affiliated with the Clinton campaign and Democratic Party organizations, and publicly disseminated those materials through various intermediaries, including WikiLeaks.
Based on these activities, the Special Counsel brought criminal charges against a number of Russian military officers for conspiring to hack into computers in the United States for purposes of influencing the election.
Barr also writes that the report leaves it to him to determine whether president Trump is guilty of obstructing justice, then adds "I have concluded that the evidence...is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense."
CNN has the complete text of the four-page summary. Barr's letter concludes by saying he's still "determining what can be released."
"While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him," special counsel Robert Mueller says, as quoted in Barr's summary.
It does, however, reiterate that there was clear Russian interference in America's 2016 election: The Special Counsel's investigation determined that there were two main Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election. The first involved attempts by a Russian organization, the Internet Research Agency, to conduct disinformation and social media operations in the United States designed to sow social discord, eventually with the aim of interfering with the election.... The second element involved the Russian government's efforts to conduct computer hacking operations designed to gather and disseminate information to influence the election. The Special Counsel found that Russian government actors successfully hacked into computers and obtained emails from persons affiliated with the Clinton campaign and Democratic Party organizations, and publicly disseminated those materials through various intermediaries, including WikiLeaks.
Based on these activities, the Special Counsel brought criminal charges against a number of Russian military officers for conspiring to hack into computers in the United States for purposes of influencing the election.
Barr also writes that the report leaves it to him to determine whether president Trump is guilty of obstructing justice, then adds "I have concluded that the evidence...is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense."
CNN has the complete text of the four-page summary. Barr's letter concludes by saying he's still "determining what can be released."
The real question is why did our president just have a Twitter fight with a dead man?
Because it's only now that they're intellectual equals?
Listen, he spends his weekend obsessing over great men because he knows it, and I know it, and all of you know it: he will never be a great man [...] My father was his kryptonite in life, he was his kryptonite in death. On a personal level, I agree with you, all of us have love and families, and when my father was alive, up until adulthood, we would spend our time together cooking, hiking, fishing, really celebrating life, and I think it's because he almost died [...] And I just thought, 'your life is spent on the weekend not with your family, not with your friends, but you're obsessing, obsessing over great men you could never live up to.' That tells you everything you need to know about his pathetic life right now. -- Meghan McCain
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Sigh, I'm so sick of whataboutism and fake controversies from the trumpkins. At least they've stopped saying nuclear material was physically transported from Canada/US to Russia. That's progress I guess. Like, a 'getting your kid to stop eating the boogers but not the public nose picking itself" level of progress.
Someone had to do it.
There was a more specific classified order that outlined what in particular Muller was supposed to investigate that was released in partially redacted form during Manafort's trial, here: The Scope of Investigation and Definition of Authority
Mueller was ordered to handle particular investigations in that classified memo, including the Manafort business, and could ask to expand his probe in request to the acting AG Rosenstein.
Barr's report said that there was never a case where the DoJ overruled the special counsel on prosecutorial orders, so presumably Mueller and Rosenstein (and perhaps subsequently Whitaker and Barr as well) agreed to the scope of the investigation and investigations and prosecutions on unrelated matters were handed off to other authorities.
Which is the point I'm trying to make that you seem to have trouble with: Mueller was only investigating a limited set of matters, and if he expanded his scope at all it was also in a limited manner made in consultation with DoJ. The other stuff, like Cohen's financial chicanery and the campaign finance crimes and whatever else were handed off to other authorities.
Despite the picture that Trump was painting as this being an open ended witch hunt looking at anything and everything to bring him down, it very much was not. Which is both good and bad for him, good since he has nothing more to worry about from Mueller prosecuting him or more of his associates and only has to worry about what he has already collected and put in his report, bad in that any other issues that were outside Mueller's scope are distinctly unresolved by the closure of the special counsel's investigation as well as any potential political fallout that occurs when more details are released.