Special Counsel Robert Mueller has completed his investigation into President Trump. His investigation covered two aspects: (1) did the President collude with Russia to interfere in the American election in 2016 and (2) did the President obstruct justice by firing James Comey. A summary of his investigation has been presented to Congress in the form of a letter by Attorney General William Barr.
On the first, Mueller found that the Russians did interfere in the American election. They sought to and successfully did sow discord among Americans related to the election. They sought to and successfully did hack email accounts of Democrats. Notably, there is no evidence that the Russians were able to hack voting machines or steal votes. Notably, there is no evidence the Russians were able to persuade Americans to vote for President Trump. Their goal was not to elect a particular candidate, but to have Americans distracted by fighting each other politically. Importantly, the Mueller investigators found that no one associated with the Trump campaign collaborated with the Russians and, in fact, they specifically turned down help.
On the second, Mueller did not exonerate the President. Democrats are hanging their hat on this. Mueller left it to the Department of Justice to decide what to do, having laid out all the facts, both for and against obstruction. We do not know what those were, but we can speculate. President Trump had been critical of James Comey and said he wanted to fire the FBI Director before and after the election. After firing James Comey, he told NBC’s Lester Holt it was because of Russia.
But, again, the President had consistently said he wanted to fire Comey; the President can fire the FBI Director at will for cause and without cause; and the underlying matter, i.e. the FBI investigating the President for colluding with Russia, turned out to be a nothing burger.
It is hard to charge the President with obstructing justice when there was no underlying crime being committed.
Democrats will now call for the full report to be made public. However, as the Attorney General noted, certain aspects of the report come from Grand Jury testimony and federal law prohibits Grand Jury testimony from being made public. Undoubtedly the report will be released, but for now the bottom line is that the President got really good news and the White House says the President has been vindicated.
