The full report submitted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller was released by the Department of Justice on April 18.
The report contains light redactions made in compliance with the law, according to Attorney General William Barr.
Teams working under Barr and Mueller worked together to make the redactions, the attorney general said.
Mueller investigated Russian interference into the 2016 presidential election, including allegations that members of President Donald Trump’s campaign colluded with Russians in an attempt to sway the election.
Mueller was unable to establish conspiracy or cooperation between members of the campaign, or Trump himself, with Russians, Barr said.
Mueller Report by on Scribd
Mueller’s team did establish interference from several different groups of Russians, including a group called the Internet Research Agency.
“The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion,” Mueller’s team concluded.
The agency “carried out a social media campaign that favored” Trump and “disparaged” Trump’s opponent Hillary Clinton. Based in St. Petersburg, the agency was funded by Russian oligarch Yevgeniy Prigozhin, who is widely reported to have ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Mueller said.
Among its operations, the agency bought political advertisements on social media platforms in the names of American persons and entities and staged political rallies inside the United States.
The report also claimed that Russians targeted the Democratic National Committee’s computers but, as the FBI did previously, but admitted that no members of the team personally examined the computers as part of the investigation, instead relying on a third party the committee hired.
Mueller said that the probe into whether Trump campaign officials coordinated with the Russian government was opened on July 31, 2016, by the FBI. Mueller was appointed in May 2017 to lead the probe by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein after then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself.
The report also contains information about four Trump campaign members who were charged with crimes, including Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, former campaign head Paul Manafort, and former campaign worker George Papadopoulos.
Mueller examined 10 episodes that may have led to obstruction charges against Trump, providing Barr and Rosenstein with facts surrounding each episode but ultimately not recommending charges. Barr and Rosenstein concluded, based on the evidence and other factors, that Trump did not obstruct the investigation, Barr explained at a press conference on April 18.
“The White House fully cooperated with the Special Counsel’s investigation, providing unfettered access to campaign and White House documents, directing senior aides to testify freely, and asserting no privilege claims. And at the same time, the President took no act that in fact deprived the Special Counsel of the documents and witnesses necessary to complete his investigation,” he said.
“Apart from whether the acts were obstructive, this evidence of non-corrupt motives weighs heavily against any allegation that the President had a corrupt intent to obstruct the investigation.”
One of the episodes was Trump’s firing of James Comey, the FBI Director at the time.
“Firing Comey would qualify as an obstructive act if it had the natural and probable effect of interfering with or impeding the investigation—for example, if the termination would have the effect of delaying or disrupting the investigation or providing the president with the opportunity to appoint a director who would take a different approach tot he investigation that the president perceived as more protective of his personal interests,” Mueller wrote.
However, he added, “the anticipated effect of removing the FBI director would not necessarily be to prevent or impede the FBI from continuing its investigation. As a general matter, FBI investigations run under the operational direction of FBI personnel levels below the FBI director.”
