WASHINGTON, March 25 (NNN-AGENCIES) – US President Donald Trump declared Sunday that he had been completely exonerated after his campaign was cleared of colluding with Russia in the 2016 election, in a major boost for his re-election hopes.
The long-awaited final report of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe
into Moscow’s election meddling concluded that no member or associate of the campaign conspired or coordinated with Russia in its plot to boost Trump in the vote more than two years ago.
While not completely absolving the president, Attorney General Bill Barr’s
letter to Congress summarizing the still-secret Mueller report cleared a dark
cloud that had hung over the Trump’s legitimacy since he took office in
January 2017.
“There was no collusion with Russia. There was no obstruction. It was a
complete and total exoneration,” Trump said of Mueller’s conclusions.
“It’s a shame that the country had to go through this,” he added. “This was
an illegal takedown that failed.”
Deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley said Trump was “in a really good mood” and “very happy with how it all turned out.”
Gidley said the president watched television, talked to staff and made
calls during his flight home from Florida.
Summarizing Mueller’s findings, Barr said no Trump campaign official was
involved in Russian conspiracies in 2016 to hack Democratic computers and
flood social media with disinformation to harm Trump’s Democratic election rival Hillary Clinton.
Trump for two years has labeled the investigation a “witch hunt,” even as
Mueller’s team issued charges ranging from conspiracy to lying to
investigators against 34 individuals.
Six of those were former insiders in Trump’s circle, and five have been
convicted, including Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen, his
national security advisor Michael Flynn and his campaign chairman Paul
Manafort.
Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison for crimes including, at
Trump’s alleged instruction, using campaign funds for hush payments to an
adult film star who allegedly had an affair with Trump.
And Manafort was imprisoned for 7.5 years, though mostly for crimes
unrelated to the campaign.
White House advisor Kellyanne Conway tweeted “congratulations” to her boss.
“Today you won the 2016 election all over again. And got a gift for the
2020 election,” she tweeted.
But the end of Mueller’s operation did not leave Trump’s White House in the clear.
Democrats in Congress are already conducting some 17 investigations of the
administration, spreading their net far more broadly than Mueller’s
relatively narrow mandate.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Barr’s summary of the Mueller findings “raises as many questions as it
answers.”
Democrat Jerry Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, announced that he would be calling Barr to testify in the near future ” for the American people to know all the facts.” — NNN-AGENCIES