Bill Barr’s letter summarizing Mueller’s findings, explained

The Mueller investigation is done — and according to a summary of the special counsel’s conclusions written by Attorney General Bill Barr and submitted to Congress on Sunday, Mueller did not affirmatively find either collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, or obstruction of justice on the part of President Donald Trump.

We don’t yet have Robert Mueller’s report to read it for ourselves. But Barr does quote the special counsel’s exact words on a few key points.

On the topic of collusion, Mueller writes, “The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”

That means Mueller did not find — or at least could not prove — that Russian government officials worked with the Trump campaign in their effort to help elect Trump president.

Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

Second, on the topic of obstruction of justice, Mueller declined to issue a recommendation either for or against prosecution. “While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,” Mueller wrote.

However, Barr and Rosenstein then add that they examined the obstruction evidence themselves, and decided that Trump’s conduct was not criminal. Mueller’s reluctance to make a judgment call on this issue, however, will likely spur demands from House Democrats to see the underlying evidence themselves.

Unless Barr’s summary of Mueller’s conclusions is highly incomplete or misleading, the report sounds like good news for Trump — and heralds the end of the investigation that has loomed larger over his presidency than any others.

Mueller’s investigation did not prove any collusion or conspiracy between Trump associates and the Russian government

One big question so many have had for so long is whether Trump associates conspired with the Russian government’s effort to help Trump win the election in 2016.

But the special counsel’s extensive investigation did not prove any such thing.

In Mueller’s own words (quoted by Barr): “[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”

Barr writes that Mueller concluded the Russian government tried to interfere with the election through two “main” efforts — social media propaganda, and hacking and leaking Democrats’ emails. (Mueller has already indicted various overseas Russians for both offenses.)

According to Barr, though, Mueller did not find that any Trump associates worked with the Russian government on either of these. Barr writes:

“The Special Counsel did not find that the Trump campaign, or anyone associated with it, conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in these efforts, despite multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign.”

On its face, unless Barr’s summary is highly misleading, this certainly seems to vindicate Trump’s refrain that there was “no collusion” between his team and Russia.

Now, we should note that all the quotes here refer to coordination with “the Russian government.” That at least technically leaves open the possibility of coordination with other Russians who aren’t government officials (such as oligarchs or former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort’s associate Konstantin Kilimnik) or with an outside group like WikiLeaks. But perhaps Mueller’s fuller report clarifies that matter.

Mueller decided not to make a determination about whether Trump obstructed justice — and Barr and Rosenstein then determined Trump didn’t

The special counsel’s findings on the other major topic of his investigation — whether Trump obstructed justice while president — are more complicated.

This part of the probe was about matters like Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey, his prior suggestion that Comey “let” the investigation into Flynn “go,” his pressures on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to reverse his recusal, and many other efforts Trump made to attack and pressure the Justice Department.

The question was whether this rose to the level of obstruction of justice — that is, a corrupt effort by Trump to interfere with investigations into himself or his associates.

Win McNamee/Getty Images

According to Barr, Mueller made a “thorough factual investigation” into these matters, but “ultimately determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment.” The problem, per Barr, was that there were “difficult issues” of “law and fact concerning whether the President’s actions and intent could be viewed as obstruction.” So, Barr writes, Mueller “did not draw a conclusion — one way or the other.”

In Mueller’s words: “While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

So, Barr continues, that left it up to him and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to examine Mueller’s findings and determine whether Trump’s conduct constituted a crime. And they concluded it did not.

Barr said they left aside the issue of whether a sitting president could be indicted and simply examined the legal and factual issues. Barr writes:

“In cataloguing the President’s actions, much of which took place in public view, the report identifies no actions that, in our judgment, constitute obstructive conduct, had a nexus to a pending or contemplated proceeding, and were done with corrupt intent.”

That is: Barr and Rosenstein think nothing Trump did rose to the level of criminal obstruction of justice. But Mueller apparently thinks the issue is not so clear. So House Democrats are clearly going to want to learn more information about just what Mueller found.

There are no sealed Mueller indictments — but there are some topics the Justice Department is still investigating

Barr’s letter also makes clear that all of the charges Mueller has brought during his investigation have already “been publicly disclosed” and adds that the special counsel did not “obtain any sealed indictments that have yet to be made public.”

However, Barr says, Mueller has “referred several matters to other offices for further action.” That is, he’s sent handed off certain parts of his investigation elsewhere. Some of those handoffs have been reported on — for instance, an investigation into Paul Manafort’s lobbying associates.

Why is Barr writing this letter, and not Mueller?

It may seem strange that we are only seeing a summary of Mueller’s findings written by Attorney General Bill Barr (who Trump appointed to replace the fired Jeff Sessions a few months ago), rather than the special counsel’s own words.

But public disclosure was not part of Mueller’s job. According to the regulation governing the special counsel position, he or she is supposed to submit “a confidential report explaining the prosecution or declination decisions” he reached to the attorney general.

Note the word “confidential” there. That means it’s up to the attorney general to decide what information from Mueller’s report to make public.

Will we ever get to see the Mueller report?

Barr writes that his “goal and intent is to release” as much of the report as possible, “consistent with applicable law, regulations, and Departmental policies.”

But he says there are two issues. First is grand jury secrecy rules — Mueller used a grand jury to obtain much of his information, and Barr says that material cannot by law be made public. So he says he’s asked Mueller to help him identify what information in his report comes from the grand jury process, to block it from release.

The second issue, per Barr, is that he “must identify any information that could impact other ongoing matters, including those that the Special Counsel has referred to other offices.” (That is, he doesn’t want to release information about ongoing investigations.)

So we don’t actually know how long it will take for Barr and other DOJ officials to conduct this review — it could be days, weeks, or even longer until we see anything more. But expect House Democrats to be asking for it.

---

For more on the investigations into the president, follow Andrew Prokop on Twitter and check out Vox’s guide to the Trump-Russia investigation.