THE main findings from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election could be released today.
Attorney General William Barr spent yesterday reviewing the confidential report on the Trump-Russia investigation but a senior Justice Department official said his “principal conclusions” summary for Congress would not be released immediately.
Barr has said he expected to send his version to the US judiciary committee by today after determining what should be made public.
Barr arrived at the Department of Justice early yesterday morning in Washington a day after Mueller wrapped up the probe that has cast a dark shadow over Donald Trump’s presidency.
The report was delivered late on Friday to deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein and it was then passed to Barr.
Word of the delivery triggered reactions across Washington, with Democrats demanding that it be quickly released and Republicans saying that it ended two years of wasted time and money.
The White House sought to keep some distance, saying it had not seen or been briefed on the report. Trump, surrounded by advisers and political supporters at his resort in Florida, stayed unusually quiet on Twitter.
Mueller’s report sought to answer two core questions: did Trump’s campaign collude with the Kremlin to sway the 2016 presidential election in favour of the celebrity businessman? Also, did Trump take steps later, including by firing his FBI director, to obstruct the probe?
A Justice Department official
confirmed that Mueller was not recommending any further indictments, and described the document as “comprehensive”. That was good news for a handful of the president’s associates and family members dogged by
speculation of possible wrongdoing.
They include Donald Trump Jr, who had a role in arranging a Trump Tower meeting at the height of the 2016 campaign with a Kremlin-linked lawyer, and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who was interviewed at least twice by Mueller’s prosecutors.
It was not immediately clear whether Mueller might have referred additional investigations to the Justice Department.
During the investigation, Mueller charged 34 people, including the president’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, his first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and three Russian companies.
Twenty-five Russians were indicted on charges related to election interference, accused either of hacking Democratic emails or of orchestrating a social media campaign that spread
disinformation online.
Five Trump aides pleaded guilty and agreed to co-operate with Mueller and a sixth, long-time confidant Roger Stone, is awaiting trial on charges that he lied to Congress and engaged in witness tampering.
The conclusion of the investigation does not remove legal peril for the president.
Trump faces a separate Justice Department investigation in New York into hush money payments during the campaign to two women who say they had sex with him years before the election.
He has also been implicated in a potential campaign finance violation by his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, who says Trump asked him to arrange the transactions.
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