What the Mueller report tells us about Trump, Russia and obstruction
The special counsel Robert Mueller’s highly anticipated report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election was made public on Thursday, examining potential coordination between the Trump campaign and Moscow and whether Donald Trump obstructed justice.
The special counsel found 10 episodes in which Trump’s own actions may have amounted to obstruction of justice, detailing several instances in which the president’s demands to interfere with the investigation were blocked by his aides. And in a separate instance, it was found there were additional efforts by the Trump campaign before the election to obscure its contacts with Russian figures.
The report separately examined the repeated contacts between the Trump campaign and individuals with ties to the Russian government. While Mueller did not find evidence of a criminal conspiracy, investigators made clear the Trump campaign was “receptive” to offers of assistance from the Russians.
Here are the key takeaways:
default
Obstruction inquiry finds numerous ‘episodes’ involving Trump
Mueller investigated 10 instances in which Trump sought to use the power of the presidency to obstruct justice by either personally interfering with the Russia investigation or directing his aides to do so.
They included Trump’s request that the then FBI director, James Comey, drop the investigation of the former national security adviser Michael Flynn; Trump’s attempts to stop the then attorney general Jeff Sessions’ recusal from overseeing the Russia investigation; Trump’s demand that the special counsel’s investigation be limited to election meddling only; and Trump’s efforts behind the scenes to fire Mueller.
“The President’s efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful,” the report states, “but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests.”
In other words, Mueller ultimately did not definitively conclude that Trump obstructed justice, but it was not for a lack of trying.
Mueller made clear he was not exonerating Trump of obstruction, writing:
The evidence we obtained about the President’s actions and intent presents difficult issues that would need to be resolved if we were making a traditional prosecutorial judgment. At the same time, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards however we are unable to reach that judgment. Accordingly while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.
Mueller separately noted that as a candidate, Trump repeatedly denied any connections to Russia even as his business was pursuing a potential real estate deal in Moscow. Trump also voiced skepticism that Russia had hacked Democratic party emails “at the same time as he and other Campaign advisors privately sought information … about any future planned WikiLeaks releases”, the report states.
Trump campaign was ‘receptive’ to help from the Russians
Although Mueller did not find evidence amounting to a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Moscow, the report makes clear that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election “in a sweeping and systematic fashion”.
It also notes that Russia was keen for Trump to win the 2016 election, beating Hillary Clinton. “The investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome.”
Investigators found multiple ties between the Trump campaign and the Russians, which were described as follows:
The Russian contacts consisted of business connections, offers of assistance to the Campaign, invitations for candidate Trump and Putin to meet in person, invitations for Campaign officials and representatives of the Russian government to meet, and policy positions seeking improved U.S.-Russian relations.
Some of the earliest contacts dated back to 2015 and were in connection to a potential real estate project, known as Trump Tower Moscow and negotiated by the Trump Organization. Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen was convicted in part for lying to Congress about the timeline and nature of those discussions, which reportedly entailed gifting Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, a $50m penthouse. The project ultimately did not come to fruition.
Among the most notable early contacts with the Russians was through the Trump campaign’s foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos, who learned that the Kremlin had “dirt” on Clinton “in the form of thousands of emails”.
Although Mueller did not prove that the contacts resulted in collusion, the report states that the Trump campaign “expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts”.
The investigation established multiple links between Trump Campaign officials and individuals tied to the Russian government. Those links included Russian offers of assistance to the Campaign. In some instances , the Campaign was receptive to the offer, while in other instances the Campaign officials shied away. Ultimately, the investigation did not establish that the Campaign coordinated or conspired with the Russian government in its election-interference activities.
Trump believed Mueller’s appointment would end his presidency
One of the most damning revelations in the 400-plus-page report is how Trump reacted to the appointment of a special counsel. Mueller was appointed by the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, on 17 May 2017, following the recusal of Sessions and the firing of Comey.
Trump was informed of Mueller’s appointment by Sessions while in the midst of conducting interviews for a new FBI director. According to notes written by Jody Hunt, who served at the time as Sessions’ chief of staff, Trump did not take the news well:
When Sessions told the President that a Special Counsel had been appointed, the President slumped back in his chair and said, ‘Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I’m fucked.’
Trump then “became angry” and lambasted his attorney general for recusing himself from the investigation after it was revealed Sessions misled Congress about his own contacts with the Russians.
“How could you let this happen, Jeff?” Trump asked Sessions. According to Sessions’ recollection, Trump then told him: “You were supposed to protect me,” or words to that effect.
The President returned to the consequences of the appointment and said, ‘Everyone tells me if you get one of these independent counsels it ruins your presidency. It takes years and years and I won’t be able to do anything. This is the worst thing that ever happened to me.’
Mueller could not prove Donald Trump Jr ‘willfully’ violated the law
Much was made of Donald Trump Jr’s role in arranging the infamous June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower in New York with the prospect of receiving incriminating information about Clinton. (According to emails released by the president’s eldest son, when informed of an effort by the Russian government to help elect his father, Trump Jr said: “If it’s what you say I love it.”)
Participants included Trump Jr; the president’s son-in-law and senior campaign adviser Jared Kushner; the then campaign chairman, Paul Manafort; and the Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. The Mueller report states that Trump Jr had informed top campaign officials and Trump family members in advance that “he had a lead on negative information about the Clinton Foundation”.
The 9 June 2016 meeting, according to the report, raised “difficult statutory and constitutional questions” relating to “schemes involving the solicitation or receipt of assistance from foreign sources”. But the special counsel ultimately concluded that they could not prove Trump Jr or other participants were knowingly in violation of the law:
The Office ultimately concluded that, even if the principal legal questions were resolved favorably to the government, a prosecution would encounter difficulties proving that Campaign officials or individuals connected to the Campaign willfully violated the law.
Sarah Sanders admitted she lied to press about Comey’s firing
The White House press secretary, Sarah Sanders, has long come under fire for making public statements that are untruthful or misleading.
But her role in covering up Trump’s motivations for firing Comey were laid bare in the report, which cited how her statements at a press briefing days after the FBI’s firing were at odds with the facts. Sanders insisted at the briefing that Trump fired Comey at the justice department’s recommendation and repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that rank-and-file members of the FBI had lost confidence in Comey.
Sanders acknowledged to the special counsel’s office that her assertion “was not founded on anything”.
According to the Mueller report, Trump actually decided to fire Comey before hearing the recommendation of the justice department and further pointed to the Russia investigation in his rationale:
The day after firing Comey, the President told Russian officials that he had ‘faced great pressure because of Russia’, which had been ‘taken off’ by Comey’s firing.
Mueller lays out case for Congress to investigate Trump on obstruction
The attorney general, William Barr, made his own determination that the special counsel lacked sufficient evidence to charge Trump with obstruction of justice. He also said he did not know if Mueller intended for Congress to be the arbiter of the matter.
Mueller, in fact, left little room for interpretation on Congress’s authority to evaluate the evidence and reach its own decision on obstruction:
“We concluded that Congress has authority to prohibit a President’s corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice,” the report states, adding:
The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the President’s corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law.