Attorney General William Barr and the Department of Justice have released a redacted version of the Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report.
In the report, Muller’s investigation was unable to clear President Donald Trump on obstruction. The report states that the evidence obtained “about the President’s actions and intent presents difficult issues that prevent us from conclusively determining that no criminal conduct occurred.”
Videos by PopCulture.com
The special counsel believed it had the authority to subpoena Trump, but decided against it because it would delay the investigation, according to the report. Prosecutors also believed they already had a substantial amount of evidence.
“We made the decision in view of the substantial delay that such an investigative step would likely produce at a late stage in our investigation” special counsel wrote in the report. “We had sufficient evidence to understand relevant events and to make certain assessments without the President’s testimony.”
The report also says that while the Office of Legal Council opinion concludes that a sitting president may not be prosecuted, “It recognizes that a criminal investigation during a President’s term is permissible.”
The report says that the OLC opinion “also recognizes that a President does not have immunity after he leaves office.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s lawyers called the report a “total victory for the President.”
“This vindication of the President is an important step forward for the country and a strong reminder that this type of abuse must never be permitted to occur again,” they said.
Earlier in the day, Trump shared a Game of Thrones-themed photo of himself. In the image, Trump is seen standing with his back turned while smoke surrounds him.
“No collusion. No obstruction. For the haters and the radical left Democrats – Game Over,” Game of Thrones-themed verbiage in the image reads.
The special counsel’s investigation into possible collusion found that members of the Trump campaign knew that they would benefit from Russia’s illegal actions to influence the election, but didn’t take criminal steps to help, Mueller’s report said.
Mueller specifically said Trump’s presidential campaign “showed interest” in WikiLeaks’ releases of emails that the Russians stole from the Democrats to hurt his opponent, Hillary Clinton.
Barr noted on Thursday that “publication of these types of materials would not be criminal unless the publisher also participated in the underlying hacking conspiracy.”
In the portion of the report that focused on collusion, Mueller offered a big-picture overview of the myriad of contacts between Trump associates and Russians in 2016, many of which were already known. Those contacts include the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting, negotiations with a Russian company to build a Trump-branded tower in Moscow and meetings with the Russian ambassador.