- themystic
- 03-22-2019, 04:17 PM
Its official. Trump Guilty as Fuck
- grean
- 03-22-2019, 04:26 PM
Don't be too hasty. Let's wait for it to be madelivered public.
- winn dixie
- 03-22-2019, 04:28 PM
As we've been saying all along. Its going to be a big nothing burger! Witch hunt will be proved!
- themystic
- 03-22-2019, 04:34 PM
- oeb11
- 03-22-2019, 04:38 PM
Mueller sends report on Trump investigation to AG Barr
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...Xiu?li=BBnb7Kz
Special counsel Robert Mueller on Friday wrapped up his nearly two-year investigation into Donald Trump and Russia and sent his report to Attorney General Barr.
No details of Mueller's findings have been released, but Barr said he may be able to brief congressional leaders on the report as soon as this weekend.
"I am reviewing this report and anticipate that I may be in a position to advise you of the Special Counsel's principal conclusions as soon as this weekend," Barr wrote in a letter on Friday to a group of lawmakers on the House and Senate judiciary committees.
The transmission of the report to Barr concludes an investigation that has resulted in the indictments of 34 people, infuriated the president and thrown the administration into turmoil.
The long-awaited end to the probe comes almost two years after Mueller was appointed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to investigate "any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump" and "any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation."
To date, 34 people and three companies have been criminally charged in the sprawling probe, including Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn; former campaign chairman Paul Manafort; former political adviser Roger Stone; former personal lawyer Michael Cohen; and numerous Russian nationals. There have been a number of guilty pleas and convictions — but none of the charges have directly accused anyone in Trump's orbit of conspiring with the Russian intelligence operation to help Trump get elected in 2016.
It's unclear how detailed Mueller's report is, or when his conclusions may become public. According to Justice Department guidelines, his confidential report to the attorney general is supposed to explain "the prosecution or declination decisions reached by the special counsel."
The attorney general is required to report Mueller's findings to Congress "with an outline of the actions and the reasons for them," the guidelines say, but it's unclear how long that may take.
As the Mueller investigation picked up steam and various Trump associates were charged, the president increasingly went on the offensive, blasting it as a "witch hunt" and "a hoax," calling Mueller's investigators "angry Democrats" and singling out some who'd worked on the case. He labeled Cohen "a rat" for cooperating with investigators.
Trump refused to sit for an interview with Mueller — his lawyers said they were concerned about a "perjury trap" — but he did submit written responses to Mueller's questions in November.
Mueller was appointed special counsel on May 17, 2017 — eight days after Trump fired James Comey as FBI director. Comey had been leading the investigation into Russian meddling and any possible Trump campaign involvement. The president initially said he'd canned Comey at the urging of Rosenstein and then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, but later told NBC "Nightly News" anchor Lester Holt it was his decision, and cited his frustration with the Russia probe.
"And in fact when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story. It's an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won," Trump told Holt.
That fueled law-enforcement concerns that Trump was trying to obstruct the investigation — worries that were heightened a day after the firing, when he hosted two Russian diplomats in the Oval Office.
"I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job," Trump told them, according to The New York Times. "I faced great pressure because of Russia. That's taken off."
Those and other actions taken by the president since the probe began led Mueller to investigate whether Trump was trying to obstruct justice in the case, sources have told NBC News.
The FBI probe into the campaign's alleged Russia ties started in July 2016 after a little-known Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos, told an Australian diplomat that the Russians had obtained thousands of emails that would embarrass Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. The Australian government passed that information on to the FBI after hacked Democratic National Committee emails were posted online.
That wouldn't be the only hack. Russian cybercriminals targeted Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta's emails, U.S. intelligence officials found. They were released online just hours after the "Access Hollywood" scandal threatened to sink Trump's campaign.
Adding to investigators' suspicions was Trump's often-abrasive deference to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who he repeatedly praised as "tough" and "strong." He was also dismissive of U.S. findings that Russia was behind the cybercrimes, noting, "It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, OK?"
Trump initially denied that he and his campaign had anything to do with any Russians — claims that have since fallen apart.
Flynn had sat with Putin at a dinner in Moscow in 2015, and would be fired from his job as national security adviser for misleading Vice President Mike Pence about the content of his conversations with a Russian diplomat. Cohen and Trump associate Felix Sater were in talks during the campaign to develop a Trump Tower in Moscow, which would reportedly come complete with a multimillion-dollar apartment for Putin. The president's son Donald Trump Jr. set up a meeting at Trump Tower with a Russian entourage after they offered unspecified "dirt" on Clinton's campaign courtesy of the Kremlin.
"If it's what you say I love it," Trump Jr. said in accepting the meeting, which would include Manafort and Trump's son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner.
The Mueller report is released to AG Barr - per the legal regulations.
Only Mueller's team and AG Barr know it's content at this time.
The report does not adjudge any person innocent or guilty. It makes recommendations to the AG regarding indictment and prosecution.
The thought that the report confers Guilt upon Trump indicates a very poor understanding of the legal process of the Special Prosecutor's office and function.
Despite the outline of the legal process of Mueller's office having been reported on this forum many times- Some are oblivious to legal facts.
AG Barr will read and report the results after redaction in his office. Per the Law and regulations.
Those impatient DPST's must be patient for an unclear period of time until Barr releases his report to Congress, Administration, and the public.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...Xiu?li=BBnb7Kz
Special counsel Robert Mueller on Friday wrapped up his nearly two-year investigation into Donald Trump and Russia and sent his report to Attorney General Barr.
No details of Mueller's findings have been released, but Barr said he may be able to brief congressional leaders on the report as soon as this weekend.
"I am reviewing this report and anticipate that I may be in a position to advise you of the Special Counsel's principal conclusions as soon as this weekend," Barr wrote in a letter on Friday to a group of lawmakers on the House and Senate judiciary committees.
The transmission of the report to Barr concludes an investigation that has resulted in the indictments of 34 people, infuriated the president and thrown the administration into turmoil.
The long-awaited end to the probe comes almost two years after Mueller was appointed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to investigate "any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump" and "any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation."
To date, 34 people and three companies have been criminally charged in the sprawling probe, including Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn; former campaign chairman Paul Manafort; former political adviser Roger Stone; former personal lawyer Michael Cohen; and numerous Russian nationals. There have been a number of guilty pleas and convictions — but none of the charges have directly accused anyone in Trump's orbit of conspiring with the Russian intelligence operation to help Trump get elected in 2016.
It's unclear how detailed Mueller's report is, or when his conclusions may become public. According to Justice Department guidelines, his confidential report to the attorney general is supposed to explain "the prosecution or declination decisions reached by the special counsel."
The attorney general is required to report Mueller's findings to Congress "with an outline of the actions and the reasons for them," the guidelines say, but it's unclear how long that may take.
As the Mueller investigation picked up steam and various Trump associates were charged, the president increasingly went on the offensive, blasting it as a "witch hunt" and "a hoax," calling Mueller's investigators "angry Democrats" and singling out some who'd worked on the case. He labeled Cohen "a rat" for cooperating with investigators.
Trump refused to sit for an interview with Mueller — his lawyers said they were concerned about a "perjury trap" — but he did submit written responses to Mueller's questions in November.
Mueller was appointed special counsel on May 17, 2017 — eight days after Trump fired James Comey as FBI director. Comey had been leading the investigation into Russian meddling and any possible Trump campaign involvement. The president initially said he'd canned Comey at the urging of Rosenstein and then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, but later told NBC "Nightly News" anchor Lester Holt it was his decision, and cited his frustration with the Russia probe.
"And in fact when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story. It's an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won," Trump told Holt.
That fueled law-enforcement concerns that Trump was trying to obstruct the investigation — worries that were heightened a day after the firing, when he hosted two Russian diplomats in the Oval Office.
"I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job," Trump told them, according to The New York Times. "I faced great pressure because of Russia. That's taken off."
Those and other actions taken by the president since the probe began led Mueller to investigate whether Trump was trying to obstruct justice in the case, sources have told NBC News.
The FBI probe into the campaign's alleged Russia ties started in July 2016 after a little-known Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos, told an Australian diplomat that the Russians had obtained thousands of emails that would embarrass Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. The Australian government passed that information on to the FBI after hacked Democratic National Committee emails were posted online.
That wouldn't be the only hack. Russian cybercriminals targeted Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta's emails, U.S. intelligence officials found. They were released online just hours after the "Access Hollywood" scandal threatened to sink Trump's campaign.
Adding to investigators' suspicions was Trump's often-abrasive deference to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who he repeatedly praised as "tough" and "strong." He was also dismissive of U.S. findings that Russia was behind the cybercrimes, noting, "It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, OK?"
Trump initially denied that he and his campaign had anything to do with any Russians — claims that have since fallen apart.
Flynn had sat with Putin at a dinner in Moscow in 2015, and would be fired from his job as national security adviser for misleading Vice President Mike Pence about the content of his conversations with a Russian diplomat. Cohen and Trump associate Felix Sater were in talks during the campaign to develop a Trump Tower in Moscow, which would reportedly come complete with a multimillion-dollar apartment for Putin. The president's son Donald Trump Jr. set up a meeting at Trump Tower with a Russian entourage after they offered unspecified "dirt" on Clinton's campaign courtesy of the Kremlin.
"If it's what you say I love it," Trump Jr. said in accepting the meeting, which would include Manafort and Trump's son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner.
The Mueller report is released to AG Barr - per the legal regulations.
Only Mueller's team and AG Barr know it's content at this time.
The report does not adjudge any person innocent or guilty. It makes recommendations to the AG regarding indictment and prosecution.
The thought that the report confers Guilt upon Trump indicates a very poor understanding of the legal process of the Special Prosecutor's office and function.
Despite the outline of the legal process of Mueller's office having been reported on this forum many times- Some are oblivious to legal facts.
AG Barr will read and report the results after redaction in his office. Per the Law and regulations.
Those impatient DPST's must be patient for an unclear period of time until Barr releases his report to Congress, Administration, and the public.
- lustylad
- 03-22-2019, 04:46 PM
- lustylad
- 03-22-2019, 04:51 PM
- winn dixie
- 03-22-2019, 04:51 PM
Just reported. NO MORE INDICTMENTS TO BE HANDED DOWN!
Witch hunt confirmed!!!!!
How do you libs like your nothing burgers! bahahahahahahahahahaha
Witch hunt confirmed!!!!!
How do you libs like your nothing burgers! bahahahahahahahahahaha
- lustylad
- 03-22-2019, 04:53 PM
The Mueller report is released to AG Barr - per the legal regulations.Oh dear! Methinks you just bitch-slapped the OP!
Only Mueller's team and AG Barr know its content at this time.
The report does not adjudge any person innocent or guilty. It makes recommendations to the AG regarding indictment and prosecution.
The thought that the report confers Guilt upon Trump indicates a very poor understanding of the legal process of the Special Prosecutor's office and function.
Despite the outline of the legal process of Mueller's office having been reported on this forum many times - Some are oblivious to legal facts. Originally Posted by oeb11
- themystic
- 03-22-2019, 04:58 PM
- lustylad
- 03-22-2019, 05:05 PM
You can't defend yourself in your own thread? Sad. Still waiting for your reply to my post #6.
Btw collusion has two "l"s in it.
Btw collusion has two "l"s in it.
- LexusLover
- 03-22-2019, 05:08 PM
Don't be too hasty. Let's wait for it to be madelivered public. Originally Posted by grean2+ years is not "hasty"! It's thoughtful and thorough.
Leave no stone unturned or twig inspected!
It appears this "investigation" aka witch hunt was more exhaustive than than the ones over the killing of JFK ... and clearly MLK ...
... but let the DimWits dig a deeper hole for the next 1 1/2 years.
- LexusLover
- 03-22-2019, 05:10 PM
- The_Waco_Kid
- 03-22-2019, 05:12 PM
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/m...210406710.html
"But the delivery of the report does mean the investigation has concluded without any public charges of a criminal conspiracy between the campaign and Russia, or of obstruction by the president."
two words ..
NothingBurger!
BAQHHAHHAAHHAAAAAAAA
"But the delivery of the report does mean the investigation has concluded without any public charges of a criminal conspiracy between the campaign and Russia, or of obstruction by the president."
two words ..
NothingBurger!
BAQHHAHHAAHHAAAAAAAA
- oeb11
- 03-22-2019, 05:14 PM
LL - I clearly contradicted SomeOne - OP , and with verifiable reason.
I do not think "bitch-slapped" is a proper characterization of my post.
SomeOne may at anytime take mouse in hand, move cursor to red triangle, and click on that icon.
Then enter the offending post and reason for complaint into the pop-up screen.
Review , then click "Send".
I do enjoy being an educator.
Now - On topic - a further report as to the handling of the Mueller report.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...69H?li=BBnb7Kz
Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has submitted a confidential report to Attorney General William P. Barr, marking the end of his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible obstruction of justice by President Trump, a Justice Department spokeswoman said.
The Justice Department notified Congress late Friday that it had received Mueller’s report but did not describe its contents. Barr is expected to summarize the findings for lawmakers in coming days.
In a letter to the leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary committees, Barr wrote that Mueller “has concluded his investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and related matters.”
The submission of Mueller’s report marks the culmination of his closely held inquiry, a case that has engulfed the Trump administration since its inception and led to multiple guilty pleas from former advisers to the president. With the closing of his investigation, Congress and the newly empowered Democratic House majority will soon assess his findings — and determine what steps to take next.
Barr wrote that Mueller submitted a report to him explaining his prosecution decisions. The attorney general told lawmakers he was “reviewing the report and anticipate that I may be in a position to advise you of the Special Counsel’s principal conclusions as soon as this weekend.”
The attorney general wrote he would consult with Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein and Mueller “to determine what other information from the report can be released to Congress and the public consistent with the law, including the Special Counsel regulations, and the Department’s long-standing practices and policies.”
Barr said there were no instances in the course of the investigation in which any of Mueller’s decisions were vetoed by his superiors at the Justice Department.
“I remain committed to as much transparency as possible, and I will keep you informed as to the status of my review,” Barr wrote.
After a week of growing expectation that Mueller’s long-awaited report would soon arrive, a security officer from Mueller’s office delivered it Friday afternoon to Rosenstein’s office at Justice Department headquarters, according to spokeswoman Kerri Kupec. Within minutes of that delivery, the report was transmitted upstairs to Barr.
Around 4:35, White House lawyer Emmet Flood was notified that the Justice Department had received the report. About a half-hour after that notification, a senior department official delivered Barr’s letter to the relevant House and Senate committees and senior congressional leaders, officials said.
One official described the report as “comprehensive,” but added that very few people have seen it.
Even with the report’s filing, Mueller is expected to retain his role as special counsel for a wind-down period, though it is unclear how long that may last, officials said. A small number of his staff will remain in the office to help shut down the operations.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said the next steps “are up to Attorney General Barr, and we look forward to the process taking its course. The White House has not received or been briefed on the Special Counsel’s report.”
Two of the president’s lawyers, Rudolph Giuliani and Jay Sekulow, said in a joint statement: “We’re pleased that the Office of Special Counsel has delivered its report to the Attorney General pursuant to the regulations. Attorney General Barr will determine the appropriate next steps.”
Well before its completion, Mueller’s report was a hotly debated issue. Lawmakers sought to wrest guarantees from the Justice Department that the special counsel would give a complete public accounting of what he found in the two-year inquiry.
According to Justice Department regulations, the special counsel’s report should explain Mueller’s decisions — who was charged, who was investigated but not charged, and why.
Mueller’s work has consumed Washington and at times the country, as the special counsel and his team investigated whether any Trump associates conspired with Russian officials to interfere in the election.
It is unclear how much of what Mueller found will be disclosed in Barr’s summary for Congress. Congressional Democrats, anticipating an incomplete accounting, have already sent extensive requests to the Justice Department for documents that would spell out what Mueller discovered.
Mueller’s work has led to criminal charges against 34 people, including six former Trump associates and advisers.
Five people close to the president have pleaded guilty: Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort; former deputy campaign manager Rick Gates; former national security adviser Michael Flynn; former personal attorney Michael Cohen; and former campaign adviser George Papadopoulos.
A sixth, Trump’s longtime friend Roger Stone, was indicted in January and accused of lying to Congress. He has pleaded not guilty.
More than two dozen of the people charged by Mueller are Russians, and because the United States does not have an extradition treaty with Russia, they are unlikely ever to see the inside of a U.S. courtroom.
None of the Americans charged by Mueller is accused of conspiring with Russia to interfere in the election — the central question of Mueller’s work. Instead, they pleaded guilty to various crimes including lying to the FBI.
The special counsel’s investigation was launched May 17, 2017, in a moment of crisis for the FBI, the Justice Department and the country.
Days earlier, President Trump had fired FBI Director James B. Comey. The purported reason was Comey’s handling of the 2016 investigation of former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, but Trump said in an interview with NBC News shortly after the firing that he was thinking about the Russia inquiry when he decided to remove Comey.
Because FBI directors are appointed to 10-year terms to ensure their political independence, the Comey firing rattled Washington. It set off alarms in the Justice Department and in Congress, where lawmakers feared the president was determined to end the Russia investigation before it was completed.
After then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation, Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein chose Mueller as special counsel in part to quell the burgeoning political crisis.
Mueller, a Vietnam War veteran, prosecutor and former FBI director, was highly regarded. Politicians on both sides of the aisle — as well as federal law enforcement and intelligence veterans — had long admired and trusted Mueller, a Republican.
The special counsel’s takeover of the Russia investigation left many of the president’s biggest critics more confident that Trump would not be able to stop the inquiry before Mueller obtained answers.
While it had been publicly known since the summer of 2016 that the FBI was investigating Russian attempts to interfere with the presidential campaign, officials had largely kept quiet that there was also an investigation, starting that July, to see if Trump campaign advisers might be conspiring with the Russians.
After Trump won the election, that investigation exploded into public view.
By late 2016 and early 2017, the FBI was investigating whether anyone close to Trump had helped Russia in those efforts, even as Trump was sworn into office and began filling senior government positions.
Just days into the new administration, FBI agents interviewed Flynn at the White House, questioning him about his conversations during the transition with Sergey Kislyak, then Russia’s ambassador to the United States. Flynn would be forced out of the job a month later amid accusations he had misled senior administration officials about those conversations.
The Mueller investigation pursued a number of investigative tracks, including whether the president’s behavior leading up to and after the firing of Comey amounted to an attempt to obstruct justice.
Throughout 2017, Mueller’s team, working out of an office building in Washington, pursued Manafort over his finances. That case also was inherited from work done previously by the Justice Department and the FBI, but under Mueller it gained new life. In October 2017, Manafort and Gates, his right-hand man, were charged with a host of financial crimes.
Two months later, Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.
Republican political opposition to his work also grew, encouraged in part by the president’s repeated declarations that the investigation was a “witch hunt.”
Within a day of Flynn’s plea, The Washington Post reported that the former lead FBI agent on Mueller’s team, Peter Strzok, had been removed from that position over anti-Trump text messages he had exchanged with a senior FBI lawyer, Lisa Page. Both had worked on the Clinton investigation, and their texts to each other during the campaign revealed disdain for Trump.
The texts, Justice Department officials insisted, had not compromised the Russia investigation, but they fueled a political counterattack by Republicans loyal to the president who charged the FBI’s handling of the Clinton and Trump matters showed the agency’s leadership was letting a political agenda influence the inquiry.
While those fights raged on, Mueller said virtually nothing. In part because of this silence, political factions tended to say almost anything they wanted about his work. Republicans in the House Freedom Caucus called it a money-wasting farce; Democrats touted every new investigative step as further evidence that the probe was so serious that Trump’s days as president could be numbered.
© J. Scott Applewhite/AP Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. As the investigation pushed into its second year, it took direct aim at Moscow. In February 2018, 13 Russians were charged as part of an online “troll farm” accused of sowing political division and distrust among Americans via social media. Five months later, Mueller’s office indicted a dozen Russian military intelligence officials, saying they conspired to hack into Democrats’ computer accounts and publicize the stolen files.
Last year saw Mueller’s time and energy focused on the question of obstruction. Whether Trump or his senior advisers had sought to stop or cripple the Russia inquiry was a key reason that Mueller’s job as special counsel existed in the first place. Mueller questioned those closest to Trump about the president’s private statements concerning the inquiry, about his tweets attacking law enforcement officials, and about internal White House documents that might shed light on his behavior.
Proving a suspect’s intent is an important element of any obstruction case, and there was one witness Mueller was never able to get in a room: Trump. After negotiating for months, the president’s lawyers agreed to submit written answers to questions from the special counsel. Ultimately, Mueller and the Justice Department did not serve the president with a subpoena, which could have led to a fight at the Supreme Court.
In August, Mueller’s team won a conviction of Manafort in a Virginia courthouse at the same time Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and self-described fixer, was pleading guilty as part of a deal with federal prosecutors in New York. Cohen would ultimately plead guilty twice, and at his sentencing, he angrily blamed Trump for his downfall.
In January, Mueller’s team accused Stone of obstructing the special counsel’s efforts and lying to Congress about his efforts in 2016 to learn when potentially damaging emails from Clinton’s presidential campaign would be released by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks.
Mueller’s final public indictment was emblematic of much of his investigation — a person close to the president had been arrested and charged with crimes, but not for conspiring with the Kremlin.
devlin.barrett@washpost.com
WAPO is hardly a Right wing newspaper. It seems an even handed report of results so far and the way the report will be handled.
I do hope the DPSY's on this Forum read the post - we will see what Barr releases and the Results -regarding IF criminal collusion with Russians to influence the 2016 election by Trump is established.
Does not mean that Cummings, Schiff, Pelosi, and Schumer won't cry about truly getting to the "True Facts" if nothing in the report incriminates Trump .
They will continue their harassment investigations regardless - because they Can, and are motivated by True hate.
I do not think "bitch-slapped" is a proper characterization of my post.
SomeOne may at anytime take mouse in hand, move cursor to red triangle, and click on that icon.
Then enter the offending post and reason for complaint into the pop-up screen.
Review , then click "Send".
I do enjoy being an educator.
Now - On topic - a further report as to the handling of the Mueller report.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...69H?li=BBnb7Kz
Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has submitted a confidential report to Attorney General William P. Barr, marking the end of his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible obstruction of justice by President Trump, a Justice Department spokeswoman said.
The Justice Department notified Congress late Friday that it had received Mueller’s report but did not describe its contents. Barr is expected to summarize the findings for lawmakers in coming days.
In a letter to the leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary committees, Barr wrote that Mueller “has concluded his investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and related matters.”
The submission of Mueller’s report marks the culmination of his closely held inquiry, a case that has engulfed the Trump administration since its inception and led to multiple guilty pleas from former advisers to the president. With the closing of his investigation, Congress and the newly empowered Democratic House majority will soon assess his findings — and determine what steps to take next.
Barr wrote that Mueller submitted a report to him explaining his prosecution decisions. The attorney general told lawmakers he was “reviewing the report and anticipate that I may be in a position to advise you of the Special Counsel’s principal conclusions as soon as this weekend.”
The attorney general wrote he would consult with Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein and Mueller “to determine what other information from the report can be released to Congress and the public consistent with the law, including the Special Counsel regulations, and the Department’s long-standing practices and policies.”
Barr said there were no instances in the course of the investigation in which any of Mueller’s decisions were vetoed by his superiors at the Justice Department.
“I remain committed to as much transparency as possible, and I will keep you informed as to the status of my review,” Barr wrote.
After a week of growing expectation that Mueller’s long-awaited report would soon arrive, a security officer from Mueller’s office delivered it Friday afternoon to Rosenstein’s office at Justice Department headquarters, according to spokeswoman Kerri Kupec. Within minutes of that delivery, the report was transmitted upstairs to Barr.
Around 4:35, White House lawyer Emmet Flood was notified that the Justice Department had received the report. About a half-hour after that notification, a senior department official delivered Barr’s letter to the relevant House and Senate committees and senior congressional leaders, officials said.
One official described the report as “comprehensive,” but added that very few people have seen it.
Even with the report’s filing, Mueller is expected to retain his role as special counsel for a wind-down period, though it is unclear how long that may last, officials said. A small number of his staff will remain in the office to help shut down the operations.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said the next steps “are up to Attorney General Barr, and we look forward to the process taking its course. The White House has not received or been briefed on the Special Counsel’s report.”
Two of the president’s lawyers, Rudolph Giuliani and Jay Sekulow, said in a joint statement: “We’re pleased that the Office of Special Counsel has delivered its report to the Attorney General pursuant to the regulations. Attorney General Barr will determine the appropriate next steps.”
Well before its completion, Mueller’s report was a hotly debated issue. Lawmakers sought to wrest guarantees from the Justice Department that the special counsel would give a complete public accounting of what he found in the two-year inquiry.
According to Justice Department regulations, the special counsel’s report should explain Mueller’s decisions — who was charged, who was investigated but not charged, and why.
Mueller’s work has consumed Washington and at times the country, as the special counsel and his team investigated whether any Trump associates conspired with Russian officials to interfere in the election.
It is unclear how much of what Mueller found will be disclosed in Barr’s summary for Congress. Congressional Democrats, anticipating an incomplete accounting, have already sent extensive requests to the Justice Department for documents that would spell out what Mueller discovered.
Mueller’s work has led to criminal charges against 34 people, including six former Trump associates and advisers.
Five people close to the president have pleaded guilty: Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort; former deputy campaign manager Rick Gates; former national security adviser Michael Flynn; former personal attorney Michael Cohen; and former campaign adviser George Papadopoulos.
A sixth, Trump’s longtime friend Roger Stone, was indicted in January and accused of lying to Congress. He has pleaded not guilty.
More than two dozen of the people charged by Mueller are Russians, and because the United States does not have an extradition treaty with Russia, they are unlikely ever to see the inside of a U.S. courtroom.
None of the Americans charged by Mueller is accused of conspiring with Russia to interfere in the election — the central question of Mueller’s work. Instead, they pleaded guilty to various crimes including lying to the FBI.
The special counsel’s investigation was launched May 17, 2017, in a moment of crisis for the FBI, the Justice Department and the country.
Days earlier, President Trump had fired FBI Director James B. Comey. The purported reason was Comey’s handling of the 2016 investigation of former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, but Trump said in an interview with NBC News shortly after the firing that he was thinking about the Russia inquiry when he decided to remove Comey.
Because FBI directors are appointed to 10-year terms to ensure their political independence, the Comey firing rattled Washington. It set off alarms in the Justice Department and in Congress, where lawmakers feared the president was determined to end the Russia investigation before it was completed.
After then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation, Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein chose Mueller as special counsel in part to quell the burgeoning political crisis.
Mueller, a Vietnam War veteran, prosecutor and former FBI director, was highly regarded. Politicians on both sides of the aisle — as well as federal law enforcement and intelligence veterans — had long admired and trusted Mueller, a Republican.
The special counsel’s takeover of the Russia investigation left many of the president’s biggest critics more confident that Trump would not be able to stop the inquiry before Mueller obtained answers.
While it had been publicly known since the summer of 2016 that the FBI was investigating Russian attempts to interfere with the presidential campaign, officials had largely kept quiet that there was also an investigation, starting that July, to see if Trump campaign advisers might be conspiring with the Russians.
After Trump won the election, that investigation exploded into public view.
By late 2016 and early 2017, the FBI was investigating whether anyone close to Trump had helped Russia in those efforts, even as Trump was sworn into office and began filling senior government positions.
Just days into the new administration, FBI agents interviewed Flynn at the White House, questioning him about his conversations during the transition with Sergey Kislyak, then Russia’s ambassador to the United States. Flynn would be forced out of the job a month later amid accusations he had misled senior administration officials about those conversations.
The Mueller investigation pursued a number of investigative tracks, including whether the president’s behavior leading up to and after the firing of Comey amounted to an attempt to obstruct justice.
Throughout 2017, Mueller’s team, working out of an office building in Washington, pursued Manafort over his finances. That case also was inherited from work done previously by the Justice Department and the FBI, but under Mueller it gained new life. In October 2017, Manafort and Gates, his right-hand man, were charged with a host of financial crimes.
Two months later, Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.
Republican political opposition to his work also grew, encouraged in part by the president’s repeated declarations that the investigation was a “witch hunt.”
Within a day of Flynn’s plea, The Washington Post reported that the former lead FBI agent on Mueller’s team, Peter Strzok, had been removed from that position over anti-Trump text messages he had exchanged with a senior FBI lawyer, Lisa Page. Both had worked on the Clinton investigation, and their texts to each other during the campaign revealed disdain for Trump.
The texts, Justice Department officials insisted, had not compromised the Russia investigation, but they fueled a political counterattack by Republicans loyal to the president who charged the FBI’s handling of the Clinton and Trump matters showed the agency’s leadership was letting a political agenda influence the inquiry.
While those fights raged on, Mueller said virtually nothing. In part because of this silence, political factions tended to say almost anything they wanted about his work. Republicans in the House Freedom Caucus called it a money-wasting farce; Democrats touted every new investigative step as further evidence that the probe was so serious that Trump’s days as president could be numbered.
© J. Scott Applewhite/AP Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. As the investigation pushed into its second year, it took direct aim at Moscow. In February 2018, 13 Russians were charged as part of an online “troll farm” accused of sowing political division and distrust among Americans via social media. Five months later, Mueller’s office indicted a dozen Russian military intelligence officials, saying they conspired to hack into Democrats’ computer accounts and publicize the stolen files.
Last year saw Mueller’s time and energy focused on the question of obstruction. Whether Trump or his senior advisers had sought to stop or cripple the Russia inquiry was a key reason that Mueller’s job as special counsel existed in the first place. Mueller questioned those closest to Trump about the president’s private statements concerning the inquiry, about his tweets attacking law enforcement officials, and about internal White House documents that might shed light on his behavior.
Proving a suspect’s intent is an important element of any obstruction case, and there was one witness Mueller was never able to get in a room: Trump. After negotiating for months, the president’s lawyers agreed to submit written answers to questions from the special counsel. Ultimately, Mueller and the Justice Department did not serve the president with a subpoena, which could have led to a fight at the Supreme Court.
In August, Mueller’s team won a conviction of Manafort in a Virginia courthouse at the same time Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and self-described fixer, was pleading guilty as part of a deal with federal prosecutors in New York. Cohen would ultimately plead guilty twice, and at his sentencing, he angrily blamed Trump for his downfall.
In January, Mueller’s team accused Stone of obstructing the special counsel’s efforts and lying to Congress about his efforts in 2016 to learn when potentially damaging emails from Clinton’s presidential campaign would be released by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks.
Mueller’s final public indictment was emblematic of much of his investigation — a person close to the president had been arrested and charged with crimes, but not for conspiring with the Kremlin.
devlin.barrett@washpost.com
WAPO is hardly a Right wing newspaper. It seems an even handed report of results so far and the way the report will be handled.
I do hope the DPSY's on this Forum read the post - we will see what Barr releases and the Results -regarding IF criminal collusion with Russians to influence the 2016 election by Trump is established.
Does not mean that Cummings, Schiff, Pelosi, and Schumer won't cry about truly getting to the "True Facts" if nothing in the report incriminates Trump .
They will continue their harassment investigations regardless - because they Can, and are motivated by True hate.