REVIEW - Mueller Report Confirms No Trump-Russia Collusion, Leaves Obstruction Question Open

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 19th April, 2019) The long-awaited Mueller report has finally seen the light of day and concluded that neither US President Donald Trump nor his campaign conspired with Russia during the 2016 presidential election, although it failed to provide a definitive answer on whether the president obstructed justice.

US Attorney General William Barr during a press conference on Thursday morning, ahead of the report's release, outlined the Primary conclusions of the probe.

"As the special counsel report makes clear, the Russian government sought to interfere in our election process. But thanks to the special counsel's thorough investigation, we now know that the Russian operatives who perpetrated these schemes did not have the cooperation of President Trump or the Trump campaign, or the knowing assistance of any other American for that matter," Barr said.

A redacted version of Mueller's report immediately after the press conference was handed to lawmakers and posted online for public consumption.

While the report did not find any evidence of collusion, Mueller's investigation identified numerous links between individuals with ties to the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump campaign.

But none of the evidence was sufficient enough to support criminal charges against the president, the report said.

In his report, Mueller highlighted contacts between campaign officials and former Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak in 2016. The report described these meetings as public and non-substantive.

"The investigation established that interactions between Russian Ambassador Kislyak and Trump Campaign officials both at the candidate's April 2016 foreign policy speech in Washington, DC, and during the week of the Republican National Convention were brief, public, and non-substantive," the report said.

The report also said that a meeting between Kislyak and former US Attorney General Jeff Sessions in September 2016 did not include any more than a brief mentioning of the presidential campaign.

Sessions had recused himself from overseeing the Russia probe due to this rather routine interaction.

Former US National Security Advisor Michael Flynn had spoken with Kislyak to urge Moscow not to get into a "tit-for-tat" response to US sanctions imposed by the outgoing Obama administration, the report also revealed.

Flynn could face five years in prison for lying to the Mueller team about his personal ties to Turkey. In other words, matters totally unrelated to Trump, Russia or election-meddling.

Mueller's team, citing the president's former personal attorney Michael Cohen, said that the then-candidate considered traveling to Russia during the 2016 campaign to discuss the construction of a Trump Tower in Moscow.

In addition, the report said Trump received and declined an invitation to attend the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. The invitation was from then-Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Prikhodko.

Trump did not recall discussing the events of the trip, according to the appendix to the report.

Even though Mueller could not uncover a smoking gun that links Trump directly to Russian operatives, the special council unequivocally concluded that Moscow in fact interfered in the 2016 US presidential election through social media and computer hacks.

"The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion," the report said.

First, the report claimed, a Russian entity carried out a social media campaign that favored Trump while Russian intelligence services conducted computer-intrusion operations against Hillary Clinton's campaign.

The report also indicated that the Trump campaign showed interest in WikiLeaks' release of stolen documents from the Democratic National Committee and Hilary Clinton's presidential campaign in 2016.

Members of the Trump campaign, including Donald Trump Jr., had direct contact with WikiLeaks during the campaign, the report noted.

Moreover, the president's son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner in November of 2016 asked Kislyak about using secure facilities of the Russian Embassy for communications with Moscow, the redacted version of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report revealed.

Russia has repeatedly refuted claims of interfering in the US political system, saying the allegations were made up to excuse the election loss of a presidential candidate as well as to deflect public attention from actual instances of election fraud and corruption.

On the question of whether President Trump obstructed justice, the special council left the door open for speculation.

Mueller's investigation failed to prove that Trump obstructed justice, but it also did not exonerate him from any wrongdoing.

Earlier in the day, Barr said that Mueller's findings were not sufficient to charge the president with a crime.

"After carefully reviewing the facts and legal theories outlined in the report, and in consultation with the Office of Legal Counsel and other Department lawyers, the Deputy Attorney General and I concluded that the evidence developed by the Special Counsel is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense," Barr said.

To make matters even more complicated, Mueller laid out 10 episodes in his report that could be considered obstruction of justice but none of them provided enough evidence to suggest the president committed a crime.

As the media and Democrats poured over every non-redacted word in Mueller's report, Trump relished in its findings, which he previously described as a total vindication.

"I'm having a good day, too, it's called no collusion, no obstruction," Trump said. "There never was, by the way, and there never will be. We do have to get to the bottom of these things."

Trump, who in the past referred to Mueller's 22-month investigation as a "witch hunt," posted several videos and images on Twitter throughout day, all of them with the caption: "No collusion - no obstruction"

Vice President Mike Pence has already alluded to the next chapter in this saga. In a statement, the vice president called for a probe into whether the special counsel's investigation was lawful.

"Now that the special counsel investigation is completed, the American people have a right to know whether the initial investigation was in keeping with longstanding Justice Department standards - or even lawful at all," Pence stated. "We must never allow our justice system to be exploited in pursuit of a political agenda."

Thursday evening, Trump put an exclamation point on the day in a tweet blaming then-President Barack Obama for not doing anything to stop foreign meddling.

"Anything the Russians did concerning the 2016 Election was done while Obama was President. He was told about it and did nothing! Most importantly, the vote was not affected," Trump said.

DEMOCRATS SPLIT OVER IMPEACHMENT

According to the US Constitution the House, currently controlled by the Democrats, has sole power of impeachment - which is analogous to an indictment. The process would begin with articles of impeachment emanating from the House judiciary committee. However, if the House Democrats impeach Trump, which would require a simple majority vote, the Republican-controlled Senate would be responsible for trying, convicting and removing the president from office.

Many top Democrats have said that based on the Mueller findings trying to impeachment Trump may not be worth the effort. However, there are many lawmakers especially in the House who have rejected Mueller's conclusions on both issues: collusion and obstruction.

With Trump claiming victory, Democrats are planning their next move. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler stated the he disagrees with Barr's assessment of Mueller's findings and said the report showed Trump obstructed justice.

"Even in its incomplete form, the Mueller report outlines disturbing evidence that President Trump engaged in obstruction of justice and other misconduct," Nadler said in the release.

The congressman from New York said that Congress must hold Trump accountable for his actions. Nadler also vowed to issue a subpoena for the full unredacted report and its underlying evidence.

In addition, the judiciary committee issued a statement in which it called Mueller to appear on Capitol Hill by May 23 to provide testimony regarding his investigation.

Barr, who is technically Mueller's boss, said he has no objections to the special counsel testifying before Congress.

US House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff told reporters that collusion regardless of Mueller's findings is still on the table and is a matter for Congress to decide.

"Each of the contacts is not only spelled out in this report, corroborated in this report, but additional contacts and acts are also itemized," Schiff said. "It gives us more information than the public knew about these illicit contacts between the Trump campaign and the Russians, whether they rise to the level of a criminal conspiracy or not."

Congressman Brad Sherman blatantly threatened Trump with impeachment, claiming the Mueller report will help the process. Sherman filed articles of impeachment against Trump in 2017 and again earlier this year.

"The Mueller report provides substantial evidence that President Trump violated felony criminal statutes regarding Obstruction of Justice - and the redactions seem to hide even more evidence of obstruction," Sherman said in a press release. "The legal case against President Trump was strong in July of 2017. It is much stronger today."

Russia, for its part, will study Mueller's report on the alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential campaign, a source in the Russian Foreign Ministry told Sputnik on Thursday, adding that Moscow had never interfered in US politics.

Several analysts and former US government officials told Sputnik on Thursday that despite the Mueller Report's findings that there was no collusion, there are no prospects for improved bilateral ties with Russia.

"Mr. Trump is surrounded by neoconservatives who are also cheered by the elite in both parties. I do not see a constructive foreign policy evolving until after the 2020 elections at the earliest," Eurasia Center Vice President Earl Rasmussen told Sputnik.

Former adviser to Senate Republican leaders Jim Jatras told Sputnik that the Democrats in league with the mainstream media will actually redouble efforts to discredit Trump ahead of the 2020 vote.

"The battle cry is three-fold: first, even if Trump didn't wittingly collude, the report makes it clear the Russians favored him in 2016 and took steps to help defeat Hillary [Clinton]," Jatras said on Thursday. "Second, Mueller didn't exonerate Trump of obstruction; and third, the report is not an end but a starting point for Congress to do its job."

Having gained control of the House of Representatives in the November midterm elections, Democrats are in a position to continue investigating the US president for the remainder of the year and throughout the 2020 presidential campaign, despite Trump's claim that he had been exonerated by the Mueller report.