Trump’s Russia Investigation Repeats
In his first extended interview since the completion of the special counsel probe, President Donald Trump repeated several false and misleading claims regarding the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
The FBI investigation began in late July 2016, and Robert S. Mueller III was appointed special counsel to oversee the inquiry on May 17, 2017. On March 24, Attorney General William P. Barr released a four-page memo summarizing the principal conclusions of a confidential report from Mueller on the investigation.
Barr wrote that “despite multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign,” the Mueller report concluded: “'[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.’”
Three days later, the president strayed from the facts on various aspects of the yearslong probe in a lengthy phone interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News.
Mueller Report Didn’t Say ‘No Obstruction’
Trump said: “[N]ow that they see the Mueller report, where you look at their finding — I mean, the finding was very, very strong. No collusion, no obstruction, no Russia, no nothing.”
The facts: According to Barr’s memo, the Mueller report “did not draw a conclusion — one way or the other — as to whether the examined conduct [by Trump] constituted obstruction.” Barr wrote: “The Special Counsel states that ‘while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.’”
Instead, “for each of the relevant actions investigated, the report sets out evidence on both sides of the question and leaves unresolved what the Special Counsel views as ‘difficult issues’ of law and fact concerning whethersaid he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein made the determination that the evidence is “not sufficient” to establish that Trump committed obstruction of justice.
