No collusion, no obstruction, complete and total exoneration: Trump on Mueller’s report
March 25, 2019
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said Sunday night the Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election "was a complete and total exoneration".
Trump was speaking in Florida following the release of Attorney General William Barr's letter to the US Congress. Mueller’s report earlier today did not find that Trump committed a crime but also does not exonerate him, according to a summary of his findings released on Sunday.
However, the US president seemed to be taking a stubborn stance on the matter, calling the claims of collusion to be "the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard".
"It was a complete and total exoneration. It's a shame that our country had to go through this. To be honest, it's a shame that your president has had to go through this … before I even got elected, it began, and it began illegally.
"Hopefully, somebody is gonna look at the other side. This was an illegal takedown that failed … and hopefully, somebody is gonna be looking at the other side. So it's a complete exoneration, no collusion, no obstruction," he said.
Around the same time, Trump tweeted about it too.
"No Collusion, No Obstruction, Complete and Total EXONERATION. KEEP AMERICA GREAT," he wrote.
Mueller, who spent nearly two years investigating allegations that Russia meddled in the 2016 election to help Trump defeat his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, also found no evidence that any member of Trump’s election campaign conspired with Russia during the election.
“While this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,” AG Barr quoted Mueller as writing in his report on the issue of possible obstruction of justice.
Mueller said he would leave it to the attorney general to decide whether a crime was committed.
Barr’s summary said Mueller found no evidence that the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia, despite multiple offers from individuals associated with Russia.
The release of the summary is likely to ignite a new political fight in Washington as Democrats push for Barr to release the full report, and Trump seizes on the findings as vindication of his near-daily assertion that he was a victim of a “witch hunt” that has cast a long shadow over his presidency.
Trump has always denied collaborating with Moscow or obstructing justice. Russia says it did not interfere in the election, although US intelligence agencies concluded that it did.
Barr said the investigation also found insufficient evidence that Trump had attempted to obstruct justice. Many of his opponents accused him of obstructing the Russia probe when he fired former FBI director James Comey.
The Department of Justice announced on Friday that Mueller had ended his investigation after bringing charges against 34 people, including Russian agents and former key allies of Trump, such as his campaign chairman Paul Manafort, former national security adviser Mike Flynn and his personal lawyer Michael Cohen.
None of those charges, however, directly related to whether Trump’s campaign worked with Moscow.
