RT-1400/1422/1424
Mueller report details evidence for and against Trump obstruction of justice charge
WASHINGTON (Sinclair Broadcast Group) — A redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election was released Thursday, providing answers to some—though almost certainly not all—of the questions that have hung over Washington for the last two years.
Michael Flynn told investigators he reached out to associates for help locating Clinton’s emails, including Republican operative Peter Smith, who committed suicide in May 2017. According to the report, security contractor Erik Prince—the brother of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos—helped finance an effort to find the emails by another associate of Flynn. Prince also participated in a January 2017 meeting in the Seychelles with a Putin associate about U.S.-Russia relations.
A footnote in the report indicates Mueller’s team also looked into rumors Russia had compromising tapes of Trump, which had been mentioned in a controversial dossier of intelligence produced by former British spy Christopher Steele. According to the report, a Russian businessman had communicated with Cohen about tapes of Trump supposedly held by people associated with the 2013 Miss Universe pageant, but he told investigators he later learned the tapes were fake.
Barr told reporters Mueller's report reviews 10 specific episodes involving the president and weighs whether they should be considered obstruction of justice. He added that he disagreed with some of the special counsel's legal reasoning, and he maintained the White House's cooperation with Mueller's team suggests the president had no intent to obstruct the probe.
“The president took no action that, in fact, deprived the special counsel of the documents and witnesses necessary to complete its investigation,” Barr said, though Trump's lawyers did oppose allowing Mueller to interview him directly, with the president instead providing only written responses to limited questions.
The report notes Trump refused to answer questions about alleged obstruction or events that occurred during the transition, and it describes many of his answers as incompete, imprecise, and inadequate. Still, investigators opted not to subpoena Trump because it could result in "a substantial delay" of the probe and because they felt they had sufficient evidence from other sources.
“While we believed we had the authority and legal justification to issue a grand jury subpoena to obtain the president’s testimony, we chose not to do so," the report states.
