Attorney General William Barr sent a four-page summary of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report to Congress this afternoon. In it, he quotes the report as clearing Donald Trump and his campaign of conspiracy with Russia to influence the 2016 election. According to The New York Times, Barr's summary also stated the Special Counsel, "lacked sufficient evidence to establish that President Trump illegally obstructed justice, but added that Mr. Mueller’s team stopped short of exonerating Mr. Trump."
Initial reactions are beginning to pour in, and you can be sure Democrats on the Hill will continue to demand the entire report be made public, once appropriate redactions for national security purposes, etc. have been made. The ball is now in their court on what to do with this completely morally bankrupt, oozing sentient bile duct of a president.
You can find the letter here.
Some initial legal and political minds are weighing in via twitter:
Remember, Trump does not text. He does not email. So, "evidence," such as it was, did not exist, unless people around him made note of things contemporaneously. We know what kind of people he kept around him, and we know he dangled pardons left and right.
He did not testify in person. This prevented Mueller from pressing him in any way. Even Bill Clinton testified in person. And Trump chose an Attorney General who wrote a memo about Obstruction of Justice that, according to Benjamin Wittes of Lawfare Blog, was based entirely on made-up facts.
Indeed, it is not an exaggeration to say that Barr’s entire memo is predicated on two broad assumptions: first, that he knows Mueller’s legal theory, and second, that he understands the fact pattern Mueller is investigating. “It appears Mueller’s team is investigating a possible case of ‘obstruction’ by the President predicated substantially on his expression of hope that the Comey [sic] could eventually ‘let ... go’ of its investigation of Flynn and his action in firing Comey,” Barr writes in his second paragraph.
Neither assumption is, in our judgment, warranted.
One thing is for sure. This Democratic House of Representatives will not take this sitting down.
