Mueller Report Takeaways in Bulletpoints

BY: KAYLA PASACRETA

The highly awaited 448-page Mueller report is finally here. Although the report is heavily redacted due to ongoing investigations, there are some noteworthy takeaways. When Attorney General Barr released his four-page summary of the report, he said that Mueller totally cleared Trump on election interference and obstruction of justice. Mueller’s report, however, paints a more complicated and guility picture.

We know y’all aren’t reading 448 pages, so we broke it down for you in bullet points:

• Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities. Note the text in bold is the full sentence from the report, the rest of the paragraph is the information that Barr initially provided.

• Trump was never interviewed by Mueller - the special counsel thought they would be able to an issue a subpoena, but did not want to potentially delay the investigation.

• Trump’s reaction when Sessions told him a special counsel had been appointed to investigate his campaign’s interference? Priceless: “Oh, my God. This is terrible,” he said. “This is the end of my presidency. I’m fucked.”

• The report does not exonerate Trump from obstruction - even though Mueller ultimately left the decision for impeachment up to Congress, he outlines 10 possible instances of obstruction and cites several incidents in which the President may have unethically demanded loyalty from his officials.

• Yes, Trump is right that Mueller found ‘no collusion’, but, collusion is not a legal term and other legal consequences can be taken against obstruction.

All in all, AG Barr downplayed the severity of Mueller’s findings of obstruction (of course), and the ball is in Congress’ court to decide where to go from here.