United States

The Mueller report

After Mueller delivered the long-anticipated report on his investigation to the Department of Justice in March, Attorney General Barr issued a four-page summary in which he reported that Mueller had found no evidence that Trump or his associates had colluded with the Russian government. Barr also indicated that Mueller had chosen not to offer a determination on whether Trump had obstructed justice, leaving that task to Barr. According to Barr, there was insufficient evidence to establish that Trump had committed a crime. Trump pronounced that the report had completely exonerated him, but Democrats were quick to demand the release of the entire report, nearly 400 pages, in order to draw their own conclusions. Those demands intensified after The New York Times reported that some members of Mueller’s team had indicated that Barr’s summary “failed to adequately portray the findings of their inquiry” and that those findings “were more troubling for President Trump than Mr. Barr indicated.” The Department of Justice responded by defending Barr’s approach. In the meantime, several House committees, now chaired by Democrats, continued to investigate related matters, and a number of criminal cases that were outgrowths of the Mueller investigation continued to be pursued independently by public prosecutors in the New York and Virginia jurisdictions. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica