User:Onetwothreeip/Donald Trump

Mueller Report

In July 2018, the special counsel indicted twelve Russian intelligence operatives and accused them of conspiring to interfere in the 2016 U.S. elections, by hacking servers and emails of the Democratic Party and the Hillary Clinton 2016 presidential campaign.^[15] Six of Trump's campaign advisors and staff were indicted by the special counsel's office; five of them (Michael Cohen, Michael Flynn, Rick Gates, Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos) pleaded guilty, while one has pleaded not guilty (Roger Stone).^[16] As of December 2020, Stone, Papadopoulos, Manafort, and Flynn have been pardoned by Trump, but not Cohen or Gates.^[17]

On March 22, 2019, Special Counsel Robert Mueller submitted the final report to Attorney General William Barr. Two days later, Barr sent Congress a four-page letter, describing what he said were the special counsel's principal conclusions in the Mueller Report. Barr added that since the special counsel "did not draw a conclusion" on obstruction,^[18] this "leaves it to the Attorney General to determine whether the conduct described in the report constitutes a crime".^[19] Barr continued: "Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and I have concluded that the evidence developed during the Special Counsel's investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense."^[20][21]

On April 18, 2019, a two-volume redacted version of the Special Counsel's report was released to Congress and to the public.^[22][23][24] Volume I discusses Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, concluding that the Internet Research Agency, a Russian government-linked internet troll farm, campaigned on social media to favor presidential candidate Donald Trump and disparage his opponent, Hillary Clinton,^[25] and to "provoke and amplify political and social discord in the United States".^[26] The report also described how the Russian intelligence service, the GRU, performed computer hacking and strategic releasing of damaging material from the Clinton campaign and Democratic Party organizations.^[27] The investigation "identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign", and found that Russia had "perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency" and the 2016 Trump presidential campaign "expected it would benefit electorally" from Russian hacking efforts.

Ultimately, "the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."^[28][29] This may have been due to some associates of Trump campaign providing either false or incomplete testimony, declined to testify; or deleting, not saving or using encrypted communications. As such, the Mueller Report "cannot rule out the possibility" that information then unavailable to investigators would have presented different findings.^[30]

Volume II covered obstruction of justice. The report described ten episodes where Trump may have obstructed justice as president, plus one instance before he was elected.^[31][32] The report said that in addition to Trump's public attacks on the investigation and its subjects, he had also privately tried to "control the investigation" in multiple ways, but mostly failed to influence it because his subordinates or associates refused to carry out his instructions.^[33][34] For that reason, no charges against the Trump's aides and associates were recommended "beyond those already filed".^[31] The Special Counsel could not charge Trump himself once investigators decided to abide by an Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinion that a sitting president cannot stand trial,^[35][36] and they feared charges would affect Trump's governing and possibly preempt his impeachment.^[36][37] In addition, investigators felt it would be unfair to accuse Trump of a crime without charges and without a trial in which he could clear his name,^[35][36][33] hence investigators "determined not to apply an approach that could potentially result in a judgment that the President committed crimes".^[36][38][39]

Since the Special Counsel's office had decided "not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment" on whether to "initiate or decline a prosecution", they "did not draw ultimate conclusions about the President's conduct". The report "does not conclude that the president committed a crime",^[25][40] but specifically did not exonerate Trump on obstruction of justice.^[41][42] The report 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" and "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".^[39][42][33]

Upon announcing the formal closure of the investigation and his resignation from the Justice Department on May 29, Mueller said, "If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. We did not, however, decide as to whether the president did commit a crime."^[43]

Amid accusations by Trump and his supporters that he had been subjected to an illegitimate investigation, in May 2019 attorney general Bill Barr appointed federal prosecutor John Durham to review the origins of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.^[44] By September 2020, Durham's inquiry had expanded to include the FBI's investigation of the Clinton Foundation during the 2016 campaign.^[45] A previous two-year review of earlier Clinton investigations by another Trump Justice Department federal prosecutor, John Huber, was wound-down in January 2020 after finding no improper activity.^[46]