Russia tried to interfere in the 2016 US presidential polls, according to Special Counsel Robert Mueller\u2019s probe which did not find any evidence that members of the Trump campaign \u201cconspired or coordinated\u201d with Moscow, Attorney General William Barr said on Thursday.
The special counsel\u2019s report states that his \u201cinvestigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities,\u201d Barr told reporters at a crowded news conference here.
Briefing reporters on the details of the recently concluded Mueller investigations, a copy of which was now headed to the Congress and a redacted version also being made public, Barr said the report makes clear, the Russian government sought to interfere in American elections.
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\u201cBut\n thanks to the special counsel\u2019s thorough investigation, we now know \nthat the Russian operatives who perpetrated these schemes did not have \nthe cooperation of President Trump or the Trump campaign or the knowing \nassistance of any other Americans for that matter. That is something \nthat all Americans can and should be grateful to have confirmed,\u201d he \nsaid.
The report details efforts by the Internet Research Agency,\n a Russian company with close ties to the Russian government, to sow \nsocial discord among American voters through disinformation and social \nmedia operations.
Following a thorough investigation of this \ndisinformation campaign, Mueller brought charges in federal court \nagainst several Russian nationals and entities for their respective \nroles in this scheme. Those charges remain pending, and the individual \ndefendants remain at large, Barr said.
\u201cBut the special counsel \nfound no evidence that any Americans including anyone associated with \nthe Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government \nor the IRA in carrying out this illegal scheme,\u201d he said.
The \nreport details efforts by Russian military officials associated with the\n GRU to hack into computers and steal documents and emails from \nindividuals affiliated with the Democratic Party and the presidential \ncampaign of Hillary Clinton for the purpose of eventually publicising \nthose emails, he said.
Asserting that obtaining such unauthorised\n access into computers is a federal crime, he said following a thorough \ninvestigation of these hacking operations, Mueller brought charges in \nfederal court against several Russian military officers for their \nrespective roles in these illegal hacking activities.
Mueller \n\u201cdid not make a traditional prosecutorial judgment regarding this \nallegation. Instead, the report recounts 10 episodes involving the \nPresident and discusses potential legal theories for connecting these \nactions to elements of an obstruction offence,\u201d he said.
\u201cAfter \ncarefully reviewing the facts and legal theories outlined in the report,\n and in consultation with the Office of Legal Counsel and other \nDepartment lawyers, the Deputy Attorney General and I concluded that the\n evidence developed by the special counsel is not sufficient to \nestablish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice \noffense,\u201d Barr said.
Barr said after nearly two years of \ninvestigation, thousands of subpoenas, and hundreds of warrants and \nwitness interviews, Mueller confirmed that the Russian government \nsponsored efforts to illegally interfere with the 2016 presidential \nelection but did not find that the Trump campaign or other Americans \ncolluded in those schemes.
\u201cAfter finding no underlying collusion\n with Russia, the special counsel\u2019s report goes on to consider whether \ncertain actions of the President could amount to obstruction of the \nspecial counsel\u2019s investigation,\u201d he said.
Barr said Mueller \nacknowledges that there is substantial evidence to show that the \nPresident was frustrated and angered by a sincere belief that the \ninvestigation was undermining his presidency, propelled by his political\n opponents, and fuelled by illegal leaks.
\u201cNonetheless, the White\n House fully cooperated with the special counsel\u2019s investigation, \nproviding unfettered access to campaign and White House documents, \ndirecting senior aides to testify freely, and asserting no privilege \nclaims,\u201d he said.
\u201cAnd at the same time, the President took no \nact that in fact deprived the special counsel of the documents and \nwitnesses necessary to complete his investigation,\u201dhe said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Russia tried to interfere in the 2016 US presidential polls, according to Special Counsel Robert Mueller\u2019s probe which did not find any evidence that members of the Trump campaign \u201cconspired or coordinated\u201d with Moscow, Attorney General William Barr said on Thursday. The special counsel\u2019s report states that his \u201cinvestigation did not establish that members of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59510,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59509"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59511,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59509\/revisions\/59511"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}