NO COLLUSION, NO OBSTRUCTION.
A brief summary of how the smear against
President Trump began:
Starting with the ridiculous DNC-funded
dossier, the Obama admin obtained a FISA
warrant to spy on the Trump campaign.
THERE WAS NO COLLUSION.
After Trump won the 2016 election, Democrats
called for a ridiculous investigation that culminated
with Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel.
THERE WAS STILL NO COLLUSION.
At the conclusion of the Special
Counsel’s investigation which AG Barr summarized
saying there was no collusion and no obstruction, Democrats led by Adam Schiff demanded
a the full report be released.
STILL… THERE WAS NO COLLUSION.
Bottom line: Now we know the history of the
lies Democrats told the American people as part of their political vendetta against
President Trump, Democrats need to be held accountable for recklessly dividing
America for their own political gain.
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RELATED
ARTICLES
Barr: White House Offered Unfettered Access
to Special Counsel Investigation, Did Not Obstruct Justice, No Executive
Privilege Claimed
By Katie Pavlich | Townhall
Speaking to reporters at the
Justice Department Thursday morning, Attorney General Bill Barr addressed
questions about obstruction of justice during the Special Counsel investigation
into the 2016 presidential election.
During his remarks, Barr argued
that not only was there no obstruction of justice, but that the White House
cooperated with every aspect of the probe, offered witnesses and provided
requested documentation. During this section, he specifically cited the Mueller
report.
"The White House fully
cooperated with the Special Counsel’s investigation, providing unfettered
access to campaign and White House documents, directing senior aides to testify
freely, and asserting no privilege claims. And at the same time, the
President took no act that in fact deprived the Special Counsel of the
documents and witnesses necessary to complete his investigation," Barr
said. "Apart from whether the acts were obstructive, this evidence of
non-corrupt motives weighs heavily against any allegation that the President
had a corrupt intent to obstruct the investigation."
Barr also provided context
surrounding President Trump's frustration with the probe, which he cooperated
with anyway.
"In assessing the
President’s actions discussed in the report, it is important to bear in mind
the context. President Trump faced an unprecedented situation. As
he entered into office, and sought to perform his responsibilities as
President, federal agents and prosecutors were scrutinizing his conduct before
and after taking office, and the conduct of some of his associates," Barr
said.
"At the same time, there was relentless speculation in the news
media about the President’s personal culpability. Yet, as he said from
the beginning, there was in fact no collusion. And as the Special
Counsel’s report acknowledges, there is substantial evidence to show that the
President was frustrated and angered by a sincere belief that the investigation
was undermining his presidency, propelled by his political opponents, and
fueled by illegal leaks."
When Barr released his
four-page letter with the bottom line findings three weeks ago, the White House
said President Trump would not assert executive privilege over the contents in
the final report. That position still stands.
"Accordingly, the public
report I am releasing today contains redactions only for the four categories
that I previously outlined, and no material has been redacted based on
executive privilege," Barr said.
Shortly after the press
conference ended, President Trump tweeted the following.
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Mueller report shows probe did not find
collusion evidence, reveals Trump efforts to sideline key players
The Justice Department posts online a redacted version of
special counsel Robert Mueller's report on Russian interference in the 2016
presidential election online; chief intelligence correspondent Catherine
Herridge reports.
After two years of suspense, Special Counsel Robert
Mueller’s report was released into Washington’s partisan scrum
Thursday showing investigators did not find evidence of collusion between
the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia – as Attorney General Bill Barr declared
last month – but revealing an array of controversial actions by the president
that were examined as part of the investigation’s obstruction inquiry.
This included President Trump allegedly telling his White
House counsel in June 2017 to inform the acting attorney general that Mueller
had conflicts of interest and "must be removed." The report said
Trump also fumed over the original appointment -- lamenting it would mean the
"end of his presidency" -- first telling then-DOJ leader Jeff
Sessions he should resign, and later trying to get Session to take back control
of the probe.
Mueller ultimately did not reach a conclusion on whether
the president's conduct amounted to obstruction, stating: "[W]hile this
report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not
exonerate him."
But even though Barr's DOJ determined they did not have
evidence to pursue such a case, the details in the report only fueled
Democrats' mounting calls to not only see the unredacted report but have
Mueller testify.
"This is exactly why we need to hear directly from
Special Counsel Mueller and receive the full, unredacted report with the
underlying evidence," House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler
tweeted, highlighting that section.
Trump and his legal team, though, declared victory upon
the release of the report.
"No collusion, no obstruction," Trump said.
The swift reactions indicated the release of the report
is only likely to fuel, not quiet, the long-raging debate in Washington over
the Russia probe and serve as fodder going into the 2020 election year.
As stated in Barr’s summary last month and
reiterated again at a press conference earlier Thursday morning, though, the
special counsel did not find clear evidence of collusion between members of the
Trump campaign and Russia.
“[T]he investigation did not establish that members of
the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its
election interference activities,” the report said, while also saying there
were "links" between the two.
“While the investigation identified numerous links
between individuals with ties to the Russian government and individuals
associated with the Trump Campaign, the evidence was not sufficient to support
criminal charges. Among other things, the evidence was not sufficient to charge
any Campaign official as an unregistered agent of the Russian government or
other Russian principal,” the special counsel report stated.
The version of the more than 400-page report that the
Justice Department made public Thursday includes redactions, consistent with
Barr’s plan to black out portions of the document—including grand jury
material, information the intelligence community believes would reveal
intelligence sources and methods, any material that could interfere with
ongoing prosecutions and information that could implicate the privacy or
reputational interests of “peripheral players.”
The redactions in the report were
color-coded, labeled with the reasoning behind each redaction, with
categories including "grand jury material," "personal
privacy," "investigative technique;" and "harm to
ongoing matter."
The report, meanwhile, went in depth on the obstruction
of justice question, despite the lack of a decision on that front. In
Barr's summary to Congress last month, he said he and Deputy Attorney
General Rod Rosenstein found the evidence was “not sufficient to establish that
the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.”
The report itself noted that they obtained evidence about
the president’s “actions and intent,” and that presented “difficult issues that
would need to be resolved” if they were making a traditional judgment.
The report looked at 10 episodes related to the
allegations of obstruction of justice, including:
“The campaign's response to reports about Russian support
for Trump; Conduct involving FBI Director Comey and Michael Flynn; The
President's reaction to the continuing Russia investigation; The President's
termination of Comey; The appointment of a Special Counsel and efforts to
remove him; Efforts to Curtail the Special Counsel's investigation;
Efforts to prevent public disclosure of evidence; Further efforts to have the
Attorney General take control of the investigation; and Conduct toward Flynn,
Manafort, [REDACTED]; conduct involving Michael Cohen.”
The report revealed that the president reacted to the
news a special counsel had been appointed by telling his advisers that it was
“the end of his presidency,” and demanding that Sessions resign. Once Sessions
submitted his resignation, the president did not accept it.
The report also details Trump's alleged effort to have
Mueller sidelined, amid reports at the time that special counsel’s office was
investigating the president for obstruction of justice. The report details a
dramatic moment where the president's White House counsel apparently rejected
the push.
“On June 17, 2017, the president called [White House
Counsel Don] McGahn at home and directed him to call the Acting Attorney
General and say that the Special Counsel had conflicts of interest and must be
removed. McGahn did not carry out the direction, however, deciding that he
would resign rather than trigger what he regarded as a potential Saturday Night
Massacre,” the report stated, referencing the Watergate scandal.
The report also revealed that when the media reported of
the president’s request for McGahn to have Mueller removed, the president
directed White House officials “to tell McGahn to dispute the story and create
a record stating he had not been ordered to have the special counsel removed.”
“McGahn refused to back away from what he remembered
happening,” the report said.
The report went on to explain that two days after the
initial request to McGahn, the president made another attempt to “affect the
course of the Russia investigation.”
“On June 19, 2017, the president met one-on-one in the
Oval Office with his former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, a trusted
advisor outside the government, and dictated a message for Lewandowski to
deliver to Sessions,” the report said.
“The message said that Sessions should publicly announce
that, notwithstanding his recusal from the Russia investigation, the
investigation was ‘very unfair’ to the president, the president had done
nothing wrong, and Sessions planned to meet with the Special Counsel and ‘let
[him] move forward with investigating election meddling for future elections.’”
Lewandowski, according to the report, said he understood
what the president wanted Sessions to do.
“Lewandowski did not want to deliver the president’s message
personally,” the report said, “so he asked senior White House official Rick
Dearborn to deliver it to Sessions.”
Dearborn ultimately did not follow through with the task.
The report also said “substantial evidence indicates that
the catalyst” for the decision to fire FBI Director James Comey was his
“unwillingness to publicly state that the president was not personally under
investigation.” But the report said the evidence “does not establish that the
termination of Comey was designed to cover up a conspiracy between the Trump
Campaign and Russia.”
The report stated that while the areas the special
counsel investigated “involved discrete acts, the overall pattern of the
President’s conduct towards the investigations” shed light on the “nature” of
his acts. The special counsel determined that the actions investigated are
divided into “two phases,” which they said reflected “a possible shift in the
President’s motives.”
The first phase was related to the firing of Comey.
“During that time, the President had been repeatedly told he was not personally
under investigation.
Soon after the firing of Comey and the appointment of the
Special Counsel, however, the President became aware that his own conduct was
being investigated in an obstruction-of-justice inquiry,” the report said,
adding that “at that point, the president engaged in a second phase of conduct,
involving public attacks on the investigation, non-public efforts to control
it, and efforts in both public and private to encourage witnesses not to cooperate
with the investigation.”
The evidence detailed in the report related to
allegations of obstruction of justice, though, is likely to come under intense
scrutiny from congressional Democrats and could be used in their sweeping
Trump-related investigations.
The president’s legal team, in anticipation of
obstruction of justice claims in the report, has prepared their own report to
counter the allegations.
“They assumed all along that there was going to be a
finding of no collusion, so the rebuttal is about obstruction,” a source close
to Trump’s legal team told Fox News. “They are preparing a rebuttal to presumed
allegations which will be refuted.”
The special counsel wrote that they sought a voluntary
interview with the president, but after more than a year of discussing the
prospect of one, the president declined. The president did, though, agree to
answer written questions on certain Russia-related topics. But according to the
report, he “did not similarly agree to provide written answers to questions on obstruction
topics or questions on events during the transition.”
Mueller’s team also said that, while they believed they
had the “authority and legal justification” to do so, they decided not to issue
a grand jury subpoena to obtain the president’s testimony.
Fox News' Adam Shaw, Jake Gibson, Catherine
Herridge, and Bill Mears contributed to this report.
Brooke Singman is a Politics Reporter for Fox News.
Follow her on Twitter at @brookefoxnews.
