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Trump declares ‘complete exoneration’ after Mueller finds no collusion
WASHINGTON, March 25, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – US President Donald Trump declared
Sunday that he had been completely exonerated after his campaign was cleared
of colluding with Russia in the 2016 election, in a major boost for his re-
election hopes.
The long-awaited final report of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe
into Moscow’s election meddling concluded that no member or associate of the
campaign conspired or coordinated with Russia in its plot to boost Trump in
the vote more than two years ago.
While not completely absolving the president, Attorney General Bill Barr’s
letter to Congress summarizing the still-secret Mueller report cleared a dark
cloud that had hung over the Trump’s legitimacy since he took office in
January 2017.
“There was no collusion with Russia. There was no obstruction. It was a
complete and total exoneration,” Trump said of Mueller’s conclusions.
“It’s a shame that the country had to go through this,” he added. “This was
an illegal takedown that failed.”
Deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley said Trump was “in a really good mood”
and “very happy with how it all turned out.”
Gidley said the president watched television, talked to staff and made
calls during his flight home from Florida.
– No collusion with Russians –
Summarizing Mueller’s findings, Barr said no Trump campaign official was
involved in Russian conspiracies in 2016 to hack Democratic computers and
flood social media with disinformation to harm Trump’s Democratic election
rival Hillary Clinton.
He also said there were no new surprises coming from the Mueller team,
which is disbanding — no further indictments being referred, and no sealed
indictments outstanding.
On the other hand, according to Barr’s letter, Mueller clearly had some
evidence to support an obstruction case, but was uncertain whether it was
enough to support criminal charges.
“While this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime,
it also does not exonerate him,” Barr cited Mueller as saying.
Democrats in Congress are now certain to demand Mueller’s underlying
evidence and push to investigate further.
“It is unacceptable that, after Special Counsel Mueller spent 22 months
meticulously uncovering this evidence, Attorney General Barr made a decision
not to charge the President in under 48 hours,” the Democratic chairs of the
House Judiciary, Intelligence and Oversight committees said in a joint
statement.
“His unsolicited, open memorandum to the Department of Justice, suggesting
that the obstruction investigation was ‘fatally misconceived,’ calls into
question his objectivity on this point in particular.”
– Door opened for strong 2020 bid –
A major barrier for Trump’s re-election in 2020 lifted just as a strong
field of potential Democratic candidates was forming to select who would take
him on.
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Trump for two years has labeled the investigation a “witch hunt,” even as
Mueller’s team issued charges ranging from conspiracy to lying to
investigators against 34 individuals.
Six of those were former insiders in Trump’s circle, and five have been
convicted, including Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen, his
national security advisor Michael Flynn and his campaign chairman Paul
Manafort.
Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison for crimes including, at
Trump’s alleged instruction, using campaign funds for hush payments to an
adult film star who allegedly had an affair with Trump.
And Manafort was imprisoned for 7.5 years, though mostly for crimes
unrelated to the campaign.
The unending probe saw Trump frequently angrily attacking Mueller — one of
the most respected members of Washington’s judicial and prosecutorial elite –
– and at times appeared to throw his policy momentum off course.
For months, the White House worried that Mueller was honing in on Trump’s
family, including son Don Jr and son-in-law Jared Kushner, as well as the
president himself.
And it also left questions in the minds of many of Trump’s supporters, who
will now likely unite around his declaration of “complete exoneration.”
White House advisor Kellyanne Conway tweeted “congratulations” to her boss.
“Today you won the 2016 election all over again. And got a gift for the
2020 election,” she tweeted.
“They’ll never get you because they’ll never ‘get’ you.”
– Investigations move to Congress –
But the end of Mueller’s operation did not leave Trump’s White House in the
clear.
Democrats in Congress are already conducting some 17 investigations of the
administration, spreading their net far more broadly than Mueller’s
relatively narrow mandate.
They want the full Mueller report and they are demanding the underlying
evidence supporting his conclusions.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said
Barr’s summary of the Mueller findings “raises as many questions as it
answers.”
“The fact that Special Counsel Mueller’s report does not exonerate the
president on a charge as serious as obstruction of justice demonstrates how
urgent it is that the full report and underlying documentation be made public
without any further delay,” they said.
Democrat Jerry Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, announced
that he would be calling Barr to testify in the near future ” for the
American people to know all the facts.”
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