No evidence of Trump collusion with Russia – Mueller

Special counsel Robert Mueller found that neither President Donald Trump nor any of his aides colluded with Russia during the 2016 election, according to a letter delivered to Congress yesterday by the US Attorney-General. The letter from William Barr also revealed Mueller was unable to draw a conclusion ‘one way or the other’ on whether Trump or anyone in the White House obstructed justice during the investigation, notes a report in The Guardian. Barr quoted directly from Mueller’s report which states, with regards to obstruction: ‘While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.’ Mueller has filed no further indictments following an almost two year-long investigation that has seen some of Trump’s closest advisers criminally prosecuted and convicted. As Mueller was unable to draw a conclusion on whether Trump obstructed justice, it was left to Barr and deputy Attorney-General Rod Rosenstein, both appointed by Trump, to decide not to pursue charges. Barr described the evidence for obstruction as ‘not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offence’. Trump described the probe as an ‘illegal takedown’, while suggesting Democrats should now be investigated, according to a report in The Independent. He also claimed the report represented a ’total exoneration’. ‘It’s a shame that our country had to go through this. ‘This was an illegal takedown that failed. And hopefully, somebody’s going to be looking at the other side.’ Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, said Mueller’s report was more positive than he had anticipated. ‘It’s better than I expected,’ Giuliani is quoted as saying. Echoing the President, Giuliani and others on Trump’s outside legal team said in a statement: ‘This is a complete and total vindication of the President.’

Full Premium Times report

Full report in The Independent

Federal and state prosecutors are pursuing about a dozen other investigations that largely grew out of Mueller’s work, all but ensuring that a legal threat will continue to loom over the Trump presidency. A report in The New York Times says most of the investigations focus on Trump or his family business or a cadre of his advisers and associates, according to court records and interviews with people briefed on the investigations. They are being conducted by officials from Los Angeles to Brooklyn, with about half of them being run by the US Attorney’s Office in Manhattan. Unlike Mueller, whose mandate was largely focused on any links between the Trump campaign and the Russian government’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, the federal prosecutors in Manhattan take an expansive view of their jurisdiction. That authority has enabled them, along with FBI agents, to scrutinise a broader orbit around the President, including his family business. Trump told The New York Times in 2017 that any examination of his family’s finances, beyond any relationship to Russia, would cross a red line, and last year he privately asked the former acting Attorney-General, Matthew G Whitaker, if someone he viewed as loyal could be put in charge of the investigations at the Manhattan office. Some of those federal investigations in the Manhattan office, known as the Southern District of New York, grew out of its case against Michael D Cohen, the President’s former lawyer and fixer. The inquiry into Cohen was turned over to the Manhattan federal prosecutors early last year after Mueller’s office spent months investigating him, court records unsealed last week show.

Full report in The New York Times