This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/18/us/politics/the-mueller-report.html

The article has changed 20 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 7 Version 8
Barr Speaks About the Mueller Report: Live Updates ¶ Mueller Report Live Updates: Barr Delivers Vigorous Defense of Trump
(32 minutes later)
Attorney General William P. Barr offered a strong defense of President Trump in advance of releasing the report of Mr. Mueller, saying that investigators “found no collusion” with Russia and taking it upon himself to clear the president of obstruction of justice.
The Justice Department plans to send a redacted version of the report to Congress at 11 a.m. on Thursday and will post it on the department’s website. Mr. Barr said during a news conference that he gave Mr. Trump’s lawyers advance access this week to Mr. Mueller’s report before it was to be sent to Congress and made public. Mr. Trump’s lawyers did not ask for any redactions.
Summarizing the report before it was made public, Mr. Barr said Mr. Mueller “found no evidence” that any member of the Trump campaign conspired with Russia in its effort to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. Summarizing the report before it was made public, Mr. Barr said Mr. Mueller “found no evidence” that any member of the Trump campaign conspired with Russia in its effort to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. “The special counsel found no collusion by any Americans,” Mr. Barr said.
Among the immediate questions once the report is released will be how faithfully Mr. Barr reflected its conclusions in a March 24 letter to Congress. He also defended his decision to clear the president on obstruction of justice even though Mr. Mueller said he was neither charging nor exonerating Mr. Trump on the matter.
Another question is how Mr. Mueller dealt with whether President Trump illegally obstructed justice; according to Mr. Barr, the special counsel neither accused nor exonerated Mr. Trump. The Justice Department will send the redacted report to Congress at 11 a.m. on Thursday and will post it on the department’s website.
The report may reveal more about Russia’s election intervention and interactions with Mr. Trump’s team even if, as Mr. Barr said, Mr. Mueller did not establish a criminal conspiracy. Mr. Trump did not even wait for the report to be released to begin responding aggressively, lashing out with a barrage of tweets denouncing the investigation. He posted a takeoff of “Game of Thrones” on Twitter that said “For the Haters and Radical Left Democrats: Game Over.”
The White House signaled that it may respond aggressively. Mr. Trump said that he may hold a news conference of his own and his lawyers have prepared a rebuttal document, though it was not clear whether they would issue it. In his news conference on Thursday morning, Mr. Barr at times sounded like a defense lawyer, making no criticism of the president and instead offering an understanding interpretation of actions that Mr. Trump’s critics have said amounted to obstruction of justice.
Mr. Barr’s decision to speak publicly before sending the report to Capitol Hill may give him a chance to set the stage for what members of Congress and the public will find in the nearly 400 pages prepared by Mr. Mueller. In addressing obstruction, Mr. Barr said the president had no corrupt intent and was understandably “frustrated and angered by his sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency, propelled by his political opponents and fueled by illegal leaks.”
The attorney general will have a chance to explain his process for deciding what to redact from the report and to defend his handling of the matter. Justice Department officials had numerous conversations with White House lawyers about Mr. Mueller’s conclusions in the days leading up to the report’s release, providing an opportunity for the president’s lawyers to prepare a response. Mr. Barr said the White House made no claims of executive privilege over any information in the report and none of the redactions were made at the request of the White House, but he did give the president’s lawyers the opportunity to read the report in advance.
A Justice Department spokeswoman said that Mr. Barr intends to address three main topics in his opening statement at the news conference: whether executive privilege was invoked, any interactions about the report’s contents between the Justice Department and the White House, and how the department redacted the document. “Earlier this week, the president’s personal counsel requested and were given the opportunity to read a final version of the redacted report before it was publicly released,” Mr. Barr said. “The president’s personal lawyers were not permitted to make, and did not request, any redactions.”
Democrats, including the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, harshly criticized Mr. Barr for holding a news conference before releasing the report, saying he was trying to spin it to protect the president. Democrats, including the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, harshly criticized Mr. Barr for holding a news conference before releasing the report. At the news conference, Mr. Barr made sure to include Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, who first appointed Mr. Mueller.
Around 7:18 on Thursday morning, a tinted Ford S.U.V. driven by a security officer for Mr. Mueller’s office drove diagonally at a high speed — while honking — across two driveways and into a freight garage in the special counsel’s offices, where a door quickly closed behind the car as it disappeared into a delivery area. The maneuver almost clipped the feet of several photographers. Mr. Barr said that investigators examined 10 episodes in which the president may have obstructed justice. We know that among the incidents that Mr. Mueller examined was a June 2017 effort by Mr. Trump to have his White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, fire Mr. Mueller.
The Ford’s occupant avoided the lenses of over a dozen journalists waiting with cameras. Mr. Mueller typically drives himself to work, arriving within minutes of that time, in a Subaru Forester. Mr. Barr said he would not stand in the way of Mr. Mueller testifying on Capitol Hill about his findings. “I have not objection to Bob Mueller testifying,” Mr. Barr said.
Mr. Barr’s account of Mr. Mueller’s conclusions has been at issue since he sent a four-page letter to Congress last month. Mr. Barr provided an important qualifier to the determination that President Trump and the Trump campaign did not engage in illegal collusion — not with the Russian government that stole the Democratic emails, but with WikiLeaks, which published them.
In his letter, Mr. Barr quoted Mr. Mueller’s report saying that the investigation “did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government” and that “while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” “The special counsel also investigated whether any member or affiliate of the Trump campaign encouraged or otherwise played a role in these dissemination efforts,” he said. “Under applicable law, publication of these types of materials would not be criminal unless the publisher also participated in the underlying hacking conspiracy. Here too, the special counsel’s report did not find that any person associated with the Trump campaign illegally participated in the dissemination of the materials.”
By citing only those two findings, Mr. Barr fueled Mr. Trump’s overstated public claims that Mr. Mueller’s report was a “complete and total exoneration,” though that was not the case on obstruction, even by Mr. Barr’s rendering. In other words, since WikiLeaks did not participate in Russia’s underlying hacking of the emails, its actions were no crime. Thus, any Trump campaign collusion with WikiLeaks could not be an illegal conspiracy.
Lawmakers and critics of Mr. Trump have questioned whether Mr. Barr’s account fully reflected the results of two years of investigation. Members of Mr. Mueller’s team have privately told associates that they were angry at his reduction of their work, which they said did not adequately convey findings that they deemed more troubling for the president than the attorney general publicly acknowledged.
Mr. Barr appeared sensitive to the criticism, later saying through a spokeswoman that his letter was not meant to be a comprehensive summary of the entire report, but only a transmission of the bottom-line conclusions.
The special counsel’s report was expected to describe a series of actions that Mr. Trump or his team took that could be interpreted as impeding the Russia investigation, even though Mr. Mueller did not come to a definitive conclusion about whether they add up to a crime of obstruction.The special counsel’s report was expected to describe a series of actions that Mr. Trump or his team took that could be interpreted as impeding the Russia investigation, even though Mr. Mueller did not come to a definitive conclusion about whether they add up to a crime of obstruction.
Many of the actions were taken publicly or have been reported before, including the president’s decision to fire James B. Comey, then the F.B.I. director, who was leading the investigation into Russia’s interference and possible links to the Trump campaign. But Mr. Barr’s letter suggested that the report would cite other actions not previously disclosed.Many of the actions were taken publicly or have been reported before, including the president’s decision to fire James B. Comey, then the F.B.I. director, who was leading the investigation into Russia’s interference and possible links to the Trump campaign. But Mr. Barr’s letter suggested that the report would cite other actions not previously disclosed.
Mr. Trump’s defenders have said a president cannot be accused of a crime for exercising the powers granted to him under the Constitution, while his critics have argued that otherwise legal actions can still be construed as obstruction if they are motivated by corrupt intent. While Mr. Mueller evidently opted not to make a decision, Mr. Barr did, telling Congress that he and Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, agreed that Mr. Trump committed no obstruction offense.Mr. Trump’s defenders have said a president cannot be accused of a crime for exercising the powers granted to him under the Constitution, while his critics have argued that otherwise legal actions can still be construed as obstruction if they are motivated by corrupt intent. While Mr. Mueller evidently opted not to make a decision, Mr. Barr did, telling Congress that he and Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, agreed that Mr. Trump committed no obstruction offense.
Long before anyone outside of the Justice Department saw the report, Mr. Barr and congressional Democrats were skirmishing over how much should be made public.
In providing the report to Congress and the public, Mr. Barr said he would black out information that would disclose secret grand jury proceedings, compromise open investigations, reveal intelligence sources and methods or intrude on the privacy or damage the reputations of “peripheral third parties.”
But Democrats who control the House have insisted that they be given access to the full report as well as any underlying evidence, arguing that they cannot trust Mr. Barr, a Trump appointee, to independently decide what gets released and what does not. The House Judiciary Committee has already authorized a subpoena for the unredacted report and may issue it if Democratic leaders are unsatisfied.
And the top leaders called for Mr. Mueller himself to testify, saying that the “only way to begin restoring public trust in the handling” of his investigation was for the special counsel to explain his findings.
“Attorney General Barr’s regrettably partisan handling of the Mueller report, including his slanted March 24th summary letter, his irresponsible testimony before Congress last week, and his indefensible plan to spin the report in a press conference later this morning — hours before he allows the public or Congress to see it — have resulted in a crisis of confidence in his independence and impartiality,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said in a statement released early Thursday.
Mr. Mueller has already established — through indictments of Russian individuals and organizations he linked to the Kremlin — that Russia sought to intervene in the 2016 election on Mr. Trump’s behalf.Mr. Mueller has already established — through indictments of Russian individuals and organizations he linked to the Kremlin — that Russia sought to intervene in the 2016 election on Mr. Trump’s behalf.
But even if Mr. Mueller established no illegal conspiracy by the Trump campaign, the report might offer additional information on contacts that might not rise to the level of a crime in his view. Previous court filings and public reports have already documented that Mr. Trump and at least 17 campaign officials and advisers had more than 100 contacts with Russian nationals and WikiLeaks, or their intermediaries, before his inauguration.But even if Mr. Mueller established no illegal conspiracy by the Trump campaign, the report might offer additional information on contacts that might not rise to the level of a crime in his view. Previous court filings and public reports have already documented that Mr. Trump and at least 17 campaign officials and advisers had more than 100 contacts with Russian nationals and WikiLeaks, or their intermediaries, before his inauguration.
Mr. Mueller’s report will be examined to see if he offers any further insight into what was going on behind the scenes or any additional details on the proposed Trump Tower that Mr. Trump and his associates were secretly negotiating to build in Moscow through much of the 2016 election year.Mr. Mueller’s report will be examined to see if he offers any further insight into what was going on behind the scenes or any additional details on the proposed Trump Tower that Mr. Trump and his associates were secretly negotiating to build in Moscow through much of the 2016 election year.
Mr. Trump has adamantly reduced his explanation of what went on in 2016 to a two-word mantra repeated at every turn: “no collusion.” With the release of Mr. Barr’s summary of Mr. Mueller’s report, he has amended it to say, “No collusion, no obstruction.” Mr. Trump tweeted a dramatic photo resembling a “Game of Thrones” poster that depicted him staring into a cloud, saying “No Collusion. No Obstruction. For the haters and radical left Democrats: Game Over.”
But Mr. Trump’s official responses to Mr. Mueller’s more specific questions have remained secret since he responded in writing in November. With his lawyers worried that he would make a false statement and expose himself to criminal charges, the president refused to be interviewed in person, and Mr. Mueller did not try to force the issue with a subpoena.
By drafting the answers in writing in consultation with his legal team, Mr. Trump may have sidestepped what his lawyers feared would be a “perjury trap.” If Mr. Mueller included them in his report in whole or in part, however, they could offer the broadest explanation by Mr. Trump of what he knew and when he knew it during the campaign and after he took office. The tweet was the latest of a barrage that the president posted starting early Thursday morning, long before the report was released. He has an event with wounded warriors at 10:30 a.m. where he will likely speak with reporters.
President Trump weighed in on the report hours before its release, with a familiar refrain on Twitter. The report may for the first time provide Mr. Trump’s official responses to Mr. Mueller’s specific questions, which have remained secret since he responded in writing in November. With his lawyers worried that he would make a false statement and expose himself to criminal charges, the president refused to be interviewed in person, and Mr. Mueller did not try to force the issue with a subpoena.
A few minutes later, he added: “PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT!” By drafting the answers in writing in consultation with his legal team, Mr. Trump may have sidestepped what his lawyers feared would be a “perjury trap.”
Katie Benner, Eileen Sullivan, Michael Tackett and Noah Weiland contributed reporting. Katie Benner, Michael S. Schmidt, Eileen Sullivan, Michael Tackett and Noah Weiland contributed reporting.