No Trump-Russia conspiracy found

Mueller's report likely to have an effect on the 2020 US presidential campaign

US Special Counsel Robert Mueller did not find any collusion between US President Donald Trump and Russia during the 2016 presidential election campaign, according to a summary of the report released by US Attorney General William Barr on Sunday.

The special counsel, however, did not draw any conclusions on whether Trump obstructed justice.

For Trump and his supporters, it was an exhilarating sigh of relief at the end of a nearly two-year-long probe.

For his political opponents, there wasn't the "gotcha" some were looking for, but there were calls for further investigation.

"It's a shame that our country had to go through this, ... hopefully someone is going to look at the other side," Trump said on Sunday while preparing to fly back from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida to the White House. "This was an illegal takedown that failed."

Earlier on Sunday, Trump tweeted: "No Collusion, No Obstruction, Complete and Total EXONERATION. KEEP AMERICA GREAT!"

In his terse summary, Barr wrote that "the report does not recommend any further indictments".

"The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities," Barr wrote, quoting the report.

Barr wrote that the special counsel stated that "while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him".

The decision whether to pursue any charges of obstruction rested with Barr, who was confirmed as attorney general by the Senate in February.

Mueller was appointed on May 16, 2017, by US Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who made the appointment after then-attorney general Jeff Sessions had recused himself from the probe.

US public divided

The probe produced 34 indictments, including Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who was recently sentenced to seven-plus years in prison, and former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who has been cooperating with investigators.

The matter also generally divided the US public into two vociferous camps, with the side backing Trump seeing it as an attempt to nullify his election, while his opponents convinced themselves that the Russians allegedly affected the 2016 election results.

The special counsel's findings, which were delivered by Mueller on Friday, likely will have an effect not only on how Congress proceeds politically but also on the 2020 presidential campaign.

The Democrat-controlled House had shown some signs that it was leaning toward building an impeachment case against Trump, and a damning Mueller report probably would have added fuel to that effort.

Most of the early reaction hewed to partisan lines.

"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. Given Mr Barr's public record of bias against the Special Counsel's inquiry, he is not a neutral observer and is not in a position to make objective determinations about the report," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, and Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, said in a joint statement.

"Good day for the rule of law," tweeted Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and one of four members of Congress to whom Barr addressed his letter. "The cloud hanging over President Trump has been removed by this report. Bad day for those hoping the Mueller investigation would take President Trump down."

Four Democratic senators running for president - Cory Booker of New Jersey, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Kamala Harris of California and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York - all called for the report's release to the public.

Mueller's team did not conclude that the Trump campaign worked with the Russian government, "despite multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign".

The Russian government had denied such claims.

williamhennelly@chinadailyusa.com

(China Daily 03/26/2019 page12)