WASHINGTON, March 25 (NNN-AGENCIES) \u2013 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The long-awaited final report of Special Counsel Robert Mueller\u2019s probe
into Moscow\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While not completely absolving the president, Attorney General Bill Barr\u2019s
letter to Congress summarizing the still-secret Mueller report cleared a dark
cloud that had hung over the Trump\u2019s legitimacy since he took office in
January 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere was no collusion with Russia. There was no obstruction. It was a
complete and total exoneration,\u201d Trump said of Mueller\u2019s conclusions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a shame that the country had to go through this,\u201d he added. \u201cThis was
an illegal takedown that failed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley said Trump was \u201cin a really good mood\u201d and \u201cvery happy with how it all turned out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gidley said the president watched television, talked to staff and made
calls during his flight home from Florida.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Summarizing Mueller\u2019s 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\u2019s Democratic election rival Hillary Clinton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump for two years has labeled the investigation a \u201cwitch hunt,\u201d even as
Mueller\u2019s team issued charges ranging from conspiracy to lying to
investigators against 34 individuals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Six of those were former insiders in Trump\u2019s circle, and five have been
convicted, including Trump\u2019s former personal attorney Michael Cohen, his
national security advisor Michael Flynn and his campaign chairman Paul
Manafort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison for crimes including, at
Trump\u2019s alleged instruction, using campaign funds for hush payments to an
adult film star who allegedly had an affair with Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And Manafort was imprisoned for 7.5 years, though mostly for crimes
unrelated to the campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
White House advisor Kellyanne Conway tweeted \u201ccongratulations\u201d to her boss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cToday you won the 2016 election all over again. And got a gift for the
2020 election,\u201d she tweeted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the end of Mueller\u2019s operation did not leave Trump\u2019s White House in the clear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Democrats in Congress are already conducting some 17 investigations of the
administration, spreading their net far more broadly than Mueller\u2019s
relatively narrow mandate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Barr\u2019s summary of the Mueller findings \u201craises as many questions as it
answers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Democrat Jerry Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, announced that he would be calling Barr to testify in the near future \u201d for the American people to know all the facts.\u201d — NNN-AGENCIES
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON, March 25 (NNN-AGENCIES) \u2013 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\u2019s probeinto Moscow\u2019s election meddling concluded that no member […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":8755,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[208],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16058"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}