Special Counsel investigation (2017–2019)

The Special Counsel investigation

was an investigation into Russian
interference in the 2016 United States
elections, links between associates of
Donald Trump and Russian officials,
and possible obstruction of justice by
Trump and his associates. The
investigation was conducted by
special prosecutor Robert Mueller
from May 2017 to March 2019. It
was also called the Russia
investigation, the Mueller probe,
and the Mueller investigation.[1][2]
The Mueller investigation culminated
with the Mueller report, which The order dated May 17, 2017, On April 18, 2019, a redacted
concluded that though the Trump appointing a special counsel to version of the Report on the
campaign welcomed Russian investigate Russian interference Investigation into Russian
interference and expected to benefit in the 2016 United States Interference in the 2016
from it, there was insufficient elections Presidential Election was
evidence of a criminal conspiracy to released to the public.
[3]
charge Trump. The report did not
reach a conclusion about possible
obstruction of justice of Trump, citing a Justice Department guideline that prohibits the federal indictment of
a sitting president.[4][5][6] The investigation resulted in charges against 34 individuals and 3 companies, 8
guilty pleas, and a conviction at trial.[7][8]

The Mueller investigation was created by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Former FBI director
Mueller was chosen to lead it due to a shortage of senate-confirmed U.S. attorneys. The dismissal of James
Comey was a factor in the decision to use a Special Counsel. The Mueller investigation took over the FBI's
investigation, which the FBI had named Crossfire Hurricane.

According to its authorizing document,[9] the investigation's scope included allegations of "links and/or
coordination" between the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump
campaign.[10][11] Mueller was also mandated to pursue "any matters that arose or may arise directly from
the investigation." The probe included a criminal investigation that looked into potential conspiracy and
obstruction of justice charges against President Trump and members of his campaign or his
administration.[12]

The investigation was officially concluded on March 22, 2019. The report concluded that the Russian
Internet Research Agency's social media campaign supported Trump's presidential candidacy while
attacking Clinton's, and Russian intelligence hacked and released damaging material from the Clinton
campaign and various Democratic Party organizations.[13] The investigation "identified numerous links
between the Russian government and the Trump campaign", and determined that the Trump campaign
"expected it would benefit electorally" from Russian hacking efforts. However, ultimately "the
investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the
Russian government in its election interference activities".[14][15][16] Mueller later said that the
investigation's conclusion on Russian interference "deserves the attention of every American".[17]

On potential obstruction of justice by President Trump, the investigation "does not conclude that the
President committed a crime",[18] as investigators would not indict a sitting president per an Office of Legal
Counsel opinion.[19][20] However, the investigation "also does not exonerate" Trump, finding both public
and private actions "by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement
investigations".[21] Ten episodes of potential obstruction by the president were described.[22][23] The report
states that Congress can decide whether Trump obstructed justice,[24] and has the authority to take action
against him.[25][26][27] Attorney General William Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who
had authorized the Mueller probe, decided on March 24, 2019, that the evidence was insufficient to
establish a finding that Trump committed obstruction of justice.[28] Upon his resignation on May 29, 2019,
Mueller stated that: "the Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally
accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing".[29][30][17] In July 2019, Mueller testified to Congress that a
president could be charged with obstruction of justice (or other crimes) after he left office.[31]

Contents
Original claims of Russian election involvement
Origin and powers
Original FBI investigations
Appointment and original oversight
Reasons for appointing a special counsel
Release of findings
Grand juries
Legal teams
Changes to oversight leadership
Whitaker's succession
Barr's succession
Topics
Cost–benefit analysis
Criminal charges
Indictments
Conclusions
Report sent to Attorney General
Follow-up to Attorney General's letter
Congressional requests for full report
Release of redacted report
End of investigation
Reactions
Investigations into origins of probes
See also
References
External links

Original claims of Russian election involvement

The first public US government assertion of Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election came in a joint
statement on September 22, 2016, by Senator Dianne Feinstein and House member Adam Schiff, the top
Democrats on the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, respectively.[32][33] The US Intelligence
Community released a similar statement fifteen days later.[34][35]

In January 2017, an assessment was released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, then
headed by Obama appointee James Clapper, which asserted that Russian leadership had favored
presidential candidate Donald Trump over rival candidate Hillary Clinton, adding that Russian President
Vladimir Putin had personally ordered an "influence campaign" to harm Clinton's electoral chances and
"undermine public faith in the US democratic process".[36] It is alleged that the Russian government
interfered in the 2016 presidential election by bolstering the candidacies of Trump, Bernie Sanders, and Jill
Stein in order to increase political instability in the United States as well as to damage the Clinton
presidential campaign.[37][38]

Origin and powers

Original FBI investigations

When the special counsel was appointed by Rod Rosenstein in May 2017, the special counsel took over an
existing counterintelligence investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) into what proved to
be Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections and numerous secretive links between Trump
associates and Russian officials.[39] According to reports, Australian officials informed American officials
that in May 2016, a Trump presidential campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos, told the Australian High
Commissioner to Britain, Alexander Downer, that Russian officials were in possession of politically
damaging information relating to Hillary Clinton, the rival presidential candidate to Trump from Democratic
Party. Since the FBI, in response to this information, opened an investigation into the links between Trump
associates and Russian officials on July 31, 2016, the meeting between Papadopoulos and Downer is
considered to be the 'spark' that led to the Mueller investigation.[40] In February 2018, the Nunes memo,
written by staff for U.S. Representative Devin Nunes, stated that the information on Papadopoulos
"triggered the opening of" the original FBI investigation,[41] rather than the Steele dossier by Christopher
Steele (see below) as asserted by, among others, Trump, Nunes, Fox News hosts Steve Doocy, Ed Henry,
Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Fox News contributor Andrew McCarthy.[42][43][44]

The special counsel also took over an FBI investigation on whether President Trump had committed
obstruction of justice, which began within eight days after Trump's dismissal of FBI Director James
Comey. CNN reported in December 2018 that then-acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe started the
investigation based on Comey's firing—which had been recommended in writing by Rosenstein in what
became known as the Comey memo—and also Comey's allegation that Trump had asked him to stop
investigating Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn.[45] In February 2019, McCabe, since
fired from the FBI, confirmed he launched the obstruction of justice investigation for those reasons, and
gave additional reasons such as Trump's multiple depictions of the investigation into Trump associates and
Russia as a "witch hunt", as well as Trump allegedly telling Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to
mention the Russia probe in Rosenstein's memo to recommend firing Comey, and Trump's comments to the
Russian ambassador and NBC relating Comey's firing to the Russia probe.[46]
Appointment and original oversight

A special counsel investigation is subject to oversight by the attorney

general.[47] After questions arose regarding contacts between then-senator
Jeff Sessions and Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak in 2016, one of the
first things Sessions did after being appointed attorney general, was to
recuse himself from any Justice Department investigations regarding
Russian interference in the election.[48] Former Attorney General
Jeff Sessions issues
Once Attorney General Sessions recused, oversight of any Russia statement announcing his
investigation into the 2016 election fell to the Deputy Attorney General recusal.
Rod Rosenstein, a Trump appointee. As part of his oversight, Rosenstein
appointed Robert Mueller as special counsel in May 2017 with the mandate
"to oversee the previously-confirmed FBI investigation of Russian government efforts to influence the 2016
presidential election and related matters".[49]

Rosenstein has said he would recuse himself from supervision of Mueller if he himself were to become a
subject in the investigation due to his role in the dismissal of Comey.[50] If Rosenstein were to recuse
himself, his duties in this matter would have been assumed by the Justice Department's third-in-command,
Associate Attorney General Jesse Panuccio.[51] So long as no successor fills that office, Solicitor General
Noel Francisco would assume the authorities of Associate Attorney General.[52]

Reasons for appointing a special counsel

Firing of James Comey

The special counsel appointment on May 17, 2017, came after protests, mostly from Democrats, over
President Trump firing the FBI Director James Comey on May 9, 2017.[53][54] In Congress, in reaction to
Comey's firing, over 130 Democratic lawmakers called for a special counsel to be appointed, over 80
Democratic lawmakers called for an independent investigation, while over 40 Republican lawmakers
expressed questions or concerns.[55] Complicating the situation, Comey arranged to leak to the press
classified information, notes from an interview with the president where Trump asked him to end the probe
into Michael Flynn.[56] Comey would later be rebuked by the Department of Justice's Office of Inspector
General for this action.[57] Trump fired Comey on the recommendations of Attorney General Jeff Sessions
and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.[58]

The New York Times reported on January 11, 2019, that FBI counterintelligence grew concerned about
Trump's ties to Russia during the 2016 campaign but held off opening an investigation because of
uncertainty about how to proceed on such a sensitive matter. Trump's behavior during the days immediately
before and after Comey's firing caused them to begin investigating whether Trump had been working on
behalf of Russia against U.S. interests, knowingly or unknowingly. The FBI merged that
counterintelligence investigation with a criminal obstruction of justice investigation related to Comey's
firing. Mueller took over that investigation upon his appointment, although it was not immediately clear if
he had pursued the counterintelligence angle.[59]

The New York Times reported in August 2020 that Rosenstein curtailed a May 2017 FBI inquiry into
Trump's personal and financial dealings in Russia, giving the bureau the impression that the special counsel
would investigate it, though Rosenstein instructed Mueller not to.[60][61]
Authority

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, in his role as Acting Attorney General for matters related to the
campaign due to the recusal of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, appointed Mueller, a former Director of the
FBI, to serve as Special Counsel for the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) with authority to
investigate Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, including exploring any links or
coordination between Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and the Russian government; "any matters that
arose or may arise directly from the investigation"; and any other matters within the scope of 28 C.F.R.
§ 600.4(a).[62]

As Rosenstein later informed Congress, he elected to use a Special Counsel rather than have the FBI itself
oversee the investigation because did not believe acting Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe was the right
person to lead the investigation. Instead, he would appoint a Special Counsel, as had been done in the past.
U.S. Attorneys serve as special counsel, but in May 2017 there were only three Senate-confirmed U.S.
Attorneys serving at the time, the Senate having not yet confirmed the new president's nominees, and those
three had remained as holdovers from the previous administration pending the arrival of the new attorneys.
As a result, Rosenstein decided to select Robert Mueller, though he was retired, because of his
reputation.[63][64][65][66]

As special counsel, Mueller had the power to issue subpoenas,[67] hire staff members, request funding, and
prosecute federal crimes in connection with the election interference along with other crimes he may
uncover.[68] The constitutionality of indicting a sitting president remains an unsettled legal
question.[69][70][71][72]

Release of findings

The Special Counsel law requires a special counsel to confidentially

provide the current attorney general with a report of findings. The attorney
general, in this case William Barr, is then required to provide a summary of
the findings to Congress, although he has considerable discretion in how
much detail he provides. The full release of the Mueller findings to
Congress and the public is not assured.[73] Should Congress be dissatisfied
with the summary it is provided, it could subpoena Mueller's full report,
and, if necessary, sue in federal court. Congress could also call Mueller to
testify.[74][75]

White House attorneys expect to preview whatever findings Barr decides to

provide to Congress and the public, in order to consider asserting executive On April 18, 2019, a
privilege to withhold the release of information gleaned from internal redacted version of the
documents and interviews with White House officials.[76] Commentators Report on the Investigation
have noted that executive privilege cannot be invoked if the purpose is to into Russian Interference in
shield wrongdoing or unlawful conduct.[77][78] the 2016 Presidential
Election was released to the
On March 14, 2019, the House voted 420–0 in favor of a non-binding public.
resolution calling for the full special counsel report to be released to
Congress and the public, excluding classified or grand jury information.[79]
The same day the bill was brought before the Senate for unanimous consent, but was blocked by Senator
Lindsey Graham, who said it needed a clause requiring the appointment of a special counsel to investigate
allegations against the 2016 Clinton campaign.[80] On March 15, Trump stated "there should be no Mueller
Report" because "this was an illegal & conflicted investigation." Five days later he stated, "I told the
House, 'If you want, let [the public] see it,'" adding, "that's up to the Attorney General."[81][82] On March
25, 2019, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell blocked an effort by minority leader Chuck Schumer
for the Senate to take up the same resolution approved by the House eleven days earlier.[83]

The special counsel delivered its report to Attorney General Barr on March 22, 2019.[84] Two days later,
on March 24, Barr sent a four-page letter of the report to Congress, describing the conclusions on Russian
interference in the 2016 presidential election and obstruction of justice.[10]

Barr said the report would be delivered to Congress by mid-April, with some redactions of any information
that would "potentially compromise sources and methods" or "unduly infringe on the personal privacy and
reputational interests of peripheral third parties".[85] A two-volume redacted version of the full report was
publicly released on April 18, 2019.[86] A less-redacted version of the report will eventually provided to a
limited number of members of Congress.[87][88]

Grand juries
On August 3, 2017, Mueller empaneled a grand jury in Washington, D.C., as part of his investigation. The
grand jury has the power to subpoena documents, require witnesses to testify under oath, and issue
indictments for targets of criminal charges if probable cause is found.

The Washingtonian grand jury is separate from an earlier Virginian grand jury investigating Michael Flynn;
the Flynn case has been absorbed into Mueller's overall investigation.[89]

The grand jury has issued subpoenas to those involved in the Trump Tower meeting held on June 9, 2016,
at Trump Tower, which was also the location of Trump's presidential campaign headquarters.[90]

Rinat Akhmetshin, a Russian-born lobbyist and former Soviet Army officer, a participant in
the Donald Trump Jr. meeting, testified under oath for several hours on August 11,
2017.[91][92]
Sam Clovis, an Iowa radio talk show host who worked on Trump's 2016 Presidential
campaign, testified during the week of August 23, 2017.[93]
Jason Maloni, spokesman for Paul Manafort, testified under oath for more than two hours on
September 15, 2017.[94] Maloni was employed by Manafort following the five months he
served as Chairman of Trump's campaign for president in 2016, to answer questions about
Manafort's involvement in Trump's campaign.
Carter Page, a former foreign-policy adviser to Trump's presidential campaign[95]
George Nader, Lebanese-American businessman who unofficially advises UAE Crown
Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, testified during the week preceding March 5,
2018.[96]

NBC News reported on August 25, 2017, that "in recent days" the grand jury subpoenaed witness
testimony from the executives of six public relations firms, who worked with Trump campaign chairman
Paul Manafort on lobbying efforts in Ukraine.[97]

On January 16, 2018, The New York Times reported that Steve Bannon was subpoenaed by Mueller to
testify before the standing grand jury in Washington, DC.[98] Reuters and CNN reported the next day that
Bannon had struck a deal with Mueller's team to be interviewed by prosecutors instead of testifying before
the grand jury.[99][100] On February 15, 2018, multiple sources reported that those interviews had taken
place over several days that week.[101][102][103] TMZ reported that Kristin M. Davis, the "Manhattan
Madam" who had previously worked for Roger Stone, was subpoenaed in June 2018.[104] On August 10,
2018, federal judge Beryl A. Howell found Stone's former aide Andrew Miller to be in contempt of court
for refusing to testify before the grand jury.[105] Also that day, the Mueller investigation subpoenaed Randy
Credico, whom Stone had described as his "backchannel" to Julian Assange.[106] The Wall Street Journal
reported on November 14, 2018, that Mueller's investigators are examining whether Stone engaged in
witness tampering by intimidating Credico into supporting Stone's assertions.[107]

Jerome Corsi, former Washington bureau chief of Infowars, was subpoenaed to appear on September 7,
2018, before a Mueller grand jury. Corsi's attorney said he expected his client to be asked about his
association with Roger Stone, who had appeared to know in advance that WikiLeaks would release
damaging information about the Clinton campaign.[108]

Legal teams
The investigation involved multiple legal teams: the attorneys that took part
in the investigation (supervised by Special Counsel Robert Mueller); the
team that defended President Trump in his personal capacity; and the team
that represented the White House as an institution separate from the
President.

According to CNN, as of August 2018, the prosecution team included 15

attorneys, led by Mueller.[109] The additional supporting staff brought the
number over 30. There were a few reported departures from Mueller's
team.[110]

The defense had two components: Emmet Flood representing the White
Robert Mueller was
House,[111] and a team representing Trump personally, including Jay appointed in May 2017 as
Sekulow, Andrew Ekonomou, Rudy Giuliani, the Raskin & Raskin law special counsel.
firm, and Joanna Hendon. Former members of the defense team include
white-collar crimes expert John Dowd[112] and Ty Cobb representing the
office of the presidency.[111]

Mueller's legal team was consistently attacked as biased against President Trump, who once referred to this
team as "The 13 Angry Democrats".[113][114][115][116] According to Politifact, while 13 of the 17 team
members were indeed Democrats (the rest unaffiliated to either of the two major parties), Mueller is a
registered Republican, and choosing to hire or not hire career attorneys on the basis of political affiliation is
contrary to both Justice Department policy and federal law.[117]

Changes to oversight leadership

Whitaker's succession

As the Mueller investigation progressed, Trump repeatedly expressed anger over Attorney General
Sessions' decision to recuse.[118] In July 2017, Trump said that Sessions should have informed him about
Sessions' impending recusal before Trump even nominated him, then Trump would have nominated
someone else for attorney general.[119] In May 2018, Trump said that he wished that he had nominated
someone other than Sessions for Attorney General.[120] In August 2018, Trump declared that Sessions' job
was safe at least until the November 2018 United States midterm elections.[121] Sessions resigned as
attorney general on November 7, 2018, the day after the midterm elections, writing that he had resigned at
Trump's request.[122][123]
With Sessions' resignation, Trump appointed Matthew Whitaker, Sessions'
chief of staff, as Acting Attorney General on November 7, 2018.[122] This
meant that Whitaker assumed oversight of the Mueller investigation from
Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein.[124][125]

Previously in August 2017, one month prior to joining the Justice

Department as Sessions' chief of staff, Whitaker wrote an opinion column
for CNN titled "Mueller's investigation of Trump is going too far".[126] He
stated that Mueller's investigation is a "lynch mob", that it should be limited
and should not probe into Trump's finances.[127][128] Whitaker also argued
in 2017 that the Trump Tower meeting was neither improper nor evidence
of collusion.[129] The New York Times reported that White House aides and
Matthew Whitaker, who
other people close to Trump anticipated that Whitaker would "rein in" the
served as the Acting
investigation.[130]
Attorney General from
Whitaker, a vocal Trump supporter, had publicly criticized the Mueller November 2018 to February
2019
investigation on several occasions before joining the Justice Department in
September 2017, asserting it was "going too far" and referring to it as a
"lynch mob".[131] Whitaker is also a personal friend of Sam Clovis,[132] a
former co-chair of the Trump campaign who has testified to Mueller's investigators and grand jury. Because
of his prior statements and involvement,[133] many Democrats and some Republicans have asserted that
Whitaker's potential conflicts of interest require him to recuse himself from overseeing Mueller,[134][135]
although Whitaker reportedly indicated he had no intention of doing so.[136] Justice Department ethics
officials typically review conflicts of interest to recommend recusals,[137][138][139] but their findings are not
binding and are usually kept confidential.

Barr's succession

On December 7, 2018, President Trump declared that he would nominate William Barr for the vacant post
of Attorney General. Barr was previously Attorney General under President George H. W. Bush.[140]

During his January 2019 confirmation hearings, Barr suggested the investigation's findings could be
withheld from the public, as their release is not mandated by law. In June 2018, Barr had sent an unsolicited
19-page memo to deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein and Trump attorneys arguing that the Special
Counsel's approach to potential obstruction of justice by Trump was "fatally misconceived" and that, based
on his knowledge, Trump's actions were within his presidential authority.[141] In June 2017, Barr had
characterized the obstruction investigation as "asinine" and that it was "taking on the look of an entirely
political operation to overthrow the president". Trump stated in a February 2019 interview that he had not
committed to releasing the Mueller report.[142][143][144]

On February 14, 2019, Barr was sworn in as attorney general after the Senate approved his appointment by
a 54–45 vote that day,[145][146] thus gaining oversight of the Mueller investigation from Whitaker.[147]

Topics
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein authorized Robert Mueller to investigate and prosecute "any
links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of
President Donald Trump", as well as "any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation"
and any other matters within the scope of 28 CFR 600.4 – Jurisdiction.[148][9]
The investigation's broad scope allowed Mueller to investigate many topics, including: Russian election
interference; links between Trump associates and Russian officials; alleged conspiracy between Trump
campaign and Russian agents; potential obstruction of justice; financial investigations; lobbyists; Trump as a
subject of investigation; other topics; and the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal.

Cost–benefit analysis
A cost–benefit analysis of the investigation shows a net benefit for the government, with far more income
than expenses.

By December 2018, the investigation had cost approximately $32 million[149] but gained approximately
$48 million. More than half of the cost of the investigation was for personnel compensation and benefits.
The gains were accrued primarily by uncovering unpaid taxes by targets in the investigation, seizing assets,
and collecting fines.[150]

Criminal charges
The Special Counsel indicted 34 people—seven U.S. nationals, 26 Russian nationals, and one Dutch
national—and three Russian organizations. Two additional individuals were charged as a result of referrals
to other FBI offices.[151]

Charges were filed against Trump campaign members George

Papadopoulos, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Michael Flynn, and Michael
Cohen. Charges were also filed against bank account seller Richard
Pinedo,[152] and lawyer Alex van der Zwaan as well as Paul Manafort
associate Konstantin Kilimnik. Also indicted were Russia-based Internet
Research Agency and related organizations and individuals directed by
Yevgeny Prigozhin, and a group of Russian hackers referred to as Viktor
Netyksho, et al.[153] On March 16, 2020, the US government dropped the
charges against Prigozhin-owned companies Concord Management and
Consulting and Concord Catering.[154]

Following the guilty plea of Michael Cohen for lying to the Senate Manafort speaking to media
Intelligence Committee, ranking member Mark Warner stated the at the 2016 Republican
committee had made multiple criminal referrals of individuals to Mueller National Convention
and continues to examine witness testimonies for other false
statements.[155] The Democrat-controlled House Intelligence Committee
voted in February 2019 to refer dozens of witness testimony transcripts and thousands of other documents
to Mueller's office. Committee Republicans had blocked Democrat efforts to release the documents to
Mueller's office when Republicans controlled the Committee in 2018.[156]

On January 25, 2019, Roger Stone, a long time advisor to Donald Trump, was arrested by the FBI at a pre-
dawn raid in Florida.[157] The indictment filed by the Office of the Special Counsel contained 7 charges,
including obstructing an official proceeding, witness tampering, and lying to congress in regard to the
investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US election and his involvement with WikiLeaks.[158]
In the charging document, prosecutors alleged that, after the first Wikileaks release of hacked DNC emails
in July 2016, "a senior Trump Campaign official was directed to contact Stone about any additional
releases and what other damaging information [WikiLeaks] had regarding the Clinton Campaign. Stone
thereafter told the Trump Campaign about potential future releases of damaging material by [WikiLeaks]."
The indictment also alleged that Stone had discussed Wikileaks releases with multiple senior Trump
campaign officials. By the time of those contacts, it had been publicly reported that the DNC emails had
been hacked by Russians and provided to Wikileaks.[159][160] Stone was convicted of all charges in
November 2019, after the conclusion of the investigation and his sentence was commuted by Trump.[161]

Indictments

A total of thirty-four individuals and three companies were indicted by Mueller's investigators. Eight have
pleaded guilty to or been convicted of felonies, including five Trump associates and campaign officials.
None of those five convictions "involved a conspiracy between the campaign and Russians"[162] and
"Mueller did not charge or suggest charges for   [...] whether the Trump campaign worked with the
Russians to influence the election".[163] The investigation was, however, more complex. On May 29, 2019,
In a press conference, Mueller stated that "If we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a
crime, we would have said that. We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did
commit a crime... A president cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office. That is
unconstitutional. Even if the charge is kept under seal and hidden from public view – that too is
prohibited."[164]

Dozens of ongoing investigations originally handled by the Special Counsel's office were forwarded to
district and state prosecutors, other Department of Justice (DoJ) branches, and other federal agencies.[165]
The following (in alphabetical order) were indicted during the Mueller investigation:

13 Russians implicated in election interference: Mueller's team indicted thirteen Russian

citizens, the Internet Research Agency (IRA), Concord Management and Consulting and
Concord Catering with conducting social media campaigns about the U.S. elections.[166]
Twelve of the Russian defendants, who were alleged to be members of the Russian GRU
cyber espionage group known as Fancy Bear, were charged in June 2018 with hacking and
leaking DNC emails.[167] The other Russian indicted, who was not a direct employee of
Fancy Bear, was Russian business tycoon Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was alleged to have
served as the financier for the organization.[168] The US government dropped all charges
against Concord Management and Consulting and Concord Catering in March 2020.[154] In
November 2019, Time magazine reported that it was "unlikely that any of the Russians will
ever face a trial in the United States, but the charges make it harder for them to travel
overseas".[169]
Maria Butina, who had claimed to be a Russian gun activist, was investigated by the Special
Counsel investigators and then prosecuted by the National Security Law Unit. She was
imprisoned for conspiracy to act as an unregistered foreign agent after entering a guilty
plea.[170][171]
Michael Cohen, Trump's personal lawyer, pled guilty to making hush payments to Stormy
Daniels and Karen McDougal in violation of campaign finance laws, and was convicted for
several unrelated counts of bank and tax fraud.[172][173]
Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, who had been appointed as National Security Advisor by
the incoming Trump administration, was dismissed from his position and later pled guilty to
making false statements to FBI investigators about his conversations with Russian
Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak during the presidential transition.[174][175]
Rick Gates, former Trump Deputy Campaign Chairman, was indicted along with Paul
Manafort in October 2017 on charges related to their consultation work with pro-Russian
political figures in Ukraine. The charges were dropped after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy
against the United States for making false statements in the investigation into Russian
interference in the 2016 United States elections.[176]
Konstantin Kilimnik, Manafort's business partner in Ukraine, was indicted for witness
tampering at the behest of Manafort;[177] Kilimnik is suspected of working for Russian
 intelligence.[178]
Paul Manafort, former Trump campaign chairman was found guilty on eight felony counts of
tax evasion and bank fraud,[179] pursuant to his earlier lobbying activities for the Party of
Regions of former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich.[180][181] He later pled guilty to
conspiracy to defraud and obstruction of justice;[182][183] in total, he was sentenced to over
seven years in jail[184] in February 2018.
George Papadopoulos, Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, was convicted for making
false statements to the FBI.[185]
Roger Stone, a longtime Trump advisor who had met with a Russian person offering to sell
derogatory financial information about Hillary Clinton,[186] was indicted on seven charges of
lying to Congress and witness tampering. He pled not guilty.[187] The jury subsequently
found him guilty on all seven counts.[188]
Alex van der Zwaan, a Dutch lawyer with the global law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate,
Meagher & Flom, he pleaded guilty to one count of making a false statement to investigators
while answering questions about Russian interference in the 2016 United States
elections.[189]

Conclusions

Report sent to Attorney General

On March 22, 2019, the special counsel's office concluded their

investigation and sent a report to the Department of Justice where it was
received by Attorney General William Barr. Barr, at Trump's nomination,
had become attorney general on February 14, 2019, gaining oversight of
the investigation from Trump-appointed Acting Attorney General Matthew
Whitaker. Whitaker had assumed oversight from Rosenstein on November
7, 2018, after the resignation of then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who
had recused himself from the investigation. Both Barr and Whitaker had
been critical of the Mueller investigation before their appointments. Barr
Letter from Attorney General
has faced bipartisan pressure to release the full report to the public, to the
William Barr to leaders of
maximum extent permissible by law.[190]
the House and Senate
Judiciary Committees
On March 24, 2019, Attorney General Barr sent a four-page letter to
notifying them about
Congress regarding the special counsel's findings regarding Russian
conclusion of the
interference and obstruction of justice.[191] Barr said that on the question of
investigation
Russian interference in the election, Mueller detailed two ways in which
Russia attempted to influence the election, firstly disinformation and social
media campaigns by the Internet Research Agency to cause social discord, and secondly computer hacking
and strategic release of emails from the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign and Democratic Party
organizations.[192][193] However, Barr quoted the report as saying: "[T]he investigation did not establish
that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election
interference activities."[194][191][195][196]

On the question of obstruction of justice, Barr said no conclusion was reached by the special counsel,
noting that Mueller wrote "while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also
does not exonerate him".[195][197] Barr and Rosenstein concluded that the evidence for obstruction of
justice could not form the basis for a prosecution.[198][199][200] On April 18, Barr and Rosenstein held a
press conference ninety minutes before a redacted version of the report, titled Report on the Investigation
into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election, was released to Congress and the public.[201] A
less-redacted version is planned to be accessible to "a bipartisan group of leaders from several
Congressional committees".[202]

Follow-up to Attorney General's letter

The New York Times reported on April 3, that some members of the special counsel had told associates that
they believe Barr's letter did not adequately portray their findings, which they considered to be more
troubling for Trump than reported.[203] The next day, The Washington Post reported that members of
Mueller's team, who spoke anonymously, reported that the evidence gathered on obstruction of justice was
"much more acute than Barr suggested."[204] These members of Mueller's team revealed that they believed
that the evidence showed Trump obstructed justice, but that the entire team could not draw a conclusion
because they were split over the evidence and law.[204][205] The Washington Post report did not explain
why they believed their findings to be more serious than Barr's conclusions and it is unknown how many
members of the special counsel hold these opinions.[206]

Barr's letter quoted Mueller's report as stating, "the evidence does not establish that the President was
involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference," leading Barr to write, "the
evidence developed during the Special Counsel's investigation is not sufficient to establish that the
President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense," and concluding, "while not determinative, the
absence of such evidence bears upon the President's intent with respect to obstruction." Some legal analysts
challenged Barr's reasoning that Trump would not have intended to obstruct justice solely because he knew
he had not committed a crime, noting that one can have intent to obstruct justice for other reasons, such as
protecting associates from harm.[207][208][209][196]

In May 2021, federal judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled the Barr DOJ had misled her and Congress by
asserting a heavily redacted March 2019 internal memorandum[210] contained only deliberative analysis of
whether Trump should be charged with obstruction of justice. Jackson had seen the unredacted memo and
concluded it contained "strategic" analysis to justify a decision Barr had already made. She ordered the
memo to be publicly released within two weeks, pending any appeal by the DOJ.[211][212]

Congressional requests for full report

On April 3, 2019, the House Judiciary Committee, which did not receive the unredacted report by its April
2 deadline,[213] voted 24–17 along party lines to approve a resolution which authorizes subpoenas of the
full report.[214][213] The resolution also authorized subpoenas related to five of President Donald Trump's
former top advisers, including strategist Steve Bannon, communications director Hope Hicks, chief of staff
Reince Priebus, former-White House counsel Donald McGahn and counsel Annie Donaldson.[215][216]

The Justice Department discussed the report with White House attorneys, and Barr discussed it in an April
18, 2019, press conference, a few hours before its release to Congress and the public later that day.[201]

On April 19, 2019, House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler issued a subpoena for the release of the full
unredacted report.[217][218] On May 3, 2019, Nadler informed Barr that a subpoena had been issued giving
him until May 6 to release the full unredacted Mueller Report to the House Judiciary
Committee.[219][220][221][222] On May 6, after Barr failed to meet the committee's deadline to release the
full report, the committee agreed to hold a vote to start Contempt of Congress proceedings against Barr on
May 8.[223][224] A law issued in 1857 gives Congress the power to issue criminal charges for this
matter.[225] Trump's announcement of executive privilege came just hours before the House Judiciary
Committee planned to vote on whether to hold Barr in contempt. On May 8, 2019, after Trump invoked
executive privilege, the House Judiciary Committee voted unanimously to reject White House's assertion of
executive privilege and approve a motion put forward by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fl) which states that a vote to
hold Barr in contempt would not "be construed as a directive for the Attorney General to violate Federal
law or rules."[226][227] In a 24–16 vote, the House Judiciary Committee voted to hold Barr in
contempt.[228][226]

Release of redacted report

On April 18, 2019, a redacted version of the Special Counsel's report titled Report on the Investigation into
Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election, was released to Congress and the public. About
one-eighth of the lines in the public version were redacted.[229][230][231] The report was in two volumes,
the first about Russian interference in the election and potential involvement of Trump associates, and the
second on possible obstruction of justice by Trump.

Russian interference

The report concluded that Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election did occur "in sweeping and
systematic fashion" and "violated U.S. criminal law."[232][233]

The first method detailed in the final report was the usage of the Internet Research Agency, waging "a
social media campaign that favored presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and disparaged presidential
candidate Hillary Clinton".[18] The Internet Research Agency also sought to "provoke and amplify political
and social discord in the United States".[234]

The second method of Russian interference saw the Russian intelligence service, the GRU, hacking into
email accounts owned by volunteers and employees of the Clinton presidential campaign, including that of
campaign chairman John Podesta, and also hacking into "the computer networks of the Democratic
Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic National Committee (DNC)". As a
result, the GRU obtained hundreds of thousands of hacked documents, and the GRU proceeded by
arranging releases of damaging hacked material via the WikiLeaks organization and also GRU's personas
"DCLeaks" and "Guccifer 2.0."[13][235][236]

Conspiracy or coordination

To establish whether a crime was committed by members of the Trump campaign with regard to Russian
interference, investigators "applied the framework of conspiracy law", and not the concept of "collusion",
because collusion "is not a specific offense or theory of liability found in the United States Code, nor is it a
term of art in federal criminal law".[237][238][239] They also investigated if members of the Trump
campaign "coordinated" with Russia, using the definition of "coordination" as having "an agreement —
tacit or express — between the Trump campaign and the Russian government on election interference".
Investigators further elaborated that merely having "two parties taking actions that were informed by or
responsive to the other's actions or interests" was not enough to establish coordination.[240]

The report writes that the investigation "identified numerous links between the Russian government and the
Trump campaign", found that Russia "perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency" and that the
2016 Trump presidential campaign "expected it would benefit electorally" from Russian hacking efforts.
However, ultimately "the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or
coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities".[14][15] The evidence was
not necessarily complete due to encrypted, deleted, or unsaved communications as well as false,
incomplete, or declined testimony.[241][242][243][244][245]
Obstruction of justice

The second volume of the report investigated the topic of obstruction of justice, describing ten episodes
where Trump may have obstructed justice as president and one episode before he was elected, and
analyzing each in terms of the criteria needed to constitute criminal obstruction.[246][23][22] The
investigation found both public and private actions "by the President that were capable of exerting undue
influence over law enforcement investigations, including the Russian-interference and obstruction
investigations".[21] However, Trump mostly failed to influence it because his subordinates or associates
refused to carry out his instructions.[247][248][249] The Mueller team refrained from charging Trump with
obstruction because investigators abided by a DOJ Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinion that a sitting
president cannot stand trial,[19][20] and they feared that charges would affect Trump's governing and
possibly preempt a potential impeachment.[24][20][250] In addition, investigators felt it would be unfair to
accuse Trump of a crime without charges and without a trial in which he could clear his name.[19][20][251]
Since they had decided "not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment" on whether to "initiate or decline
a prosecution," the special counsel's office "did not draw ultimate conclusions about the President's
conduct." The report "does not conclude that the president committed a crime",[18][252] but specifically did
not exonerate Trump on obstruction of justice, because investigators were not confident that Trump was
innocent after examining his intent and actions.[253][254] The report concluded that Congress has the
authority to take further action against Trump on the question of obstruction of justice, stating that no one is
above the law.[25][26][254][247]

End of investigation
On May 29, 2019, Mueller announced that he was retiring as special counsel and that the office would be
shut down, and he spoke publicly about the report for the first time.[255] Saying "[t]he report is my
testimony," he indicated he would have nothing to say that wasn't already in the report. On the subject of
obstruction of justice, he said he had been prohibited by Justice Department policy from charging the
president with a crime and that any potential wrongdoing by a president must be addressed by a "process
other than the criminal justice system".[256] This suggested that the investigation could now be picked up
by Congress.[30][17][29] He stressed that the central conclusion of his investigation was "that there were
multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our election. That allegation deserves the attention of every
American."[257] He also stated: "If we had had confidence that the President clearly did not commit a
crime, we would have said so. We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did
commit a crime".[30][17]

The House Judiciary and Intelligence committees subpoenaed Mueller on June 25, 2019, with a letter
saying that "the American public deserves to hear directly from you about your investigation and
conclusions." Mueller reluctantly agreed to testify publicly with a scheduled date of July 17.[258] This date
was later pushed back to July 24.[259] During his testimony, Mueller answered Republican Representative
Ken Buck that a president could be charged with obstruction of justice (or other crimes) after the president
left office.[31]

Following the Trump–Ukraine scandal, the House of Representatives launched an impeachment inquiry
against Trump in September 2019 but did not pursue an article of impeachment related to the Mueller
investigation.[260][261]

Reactions

Investigations into origins of probes

There have been numerous calls and requests to open a counter-investigation into the origins of the FBI's
Crossfire Hurricane probe, with attention on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) documents
against Carter Page and the Steele dossier.[262][263]

On April 9, 2019, Attorney General William Barr testified before the House Appropriations Subcommittee.
Barr announced that the Department of Justice will be "reviewing the conduct" of the FBI's Russia
probe.[262][263] "I am reviewing the conduct of the investigation and trying to get my arms around all the
aspects of the counterintelligence investigation that was conducted during the summer of 2016," Barr
said.[264] When asked whether he was suggesting that spying occurred, Barr said, "I think that spying did
occur. But the question is whether it was predicated, adequately predicated. And I'm not suggesting it
wasn't adequately predicated, but I need to explore that."[265]

During Attorney General Barr's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 1, Barr again
said he was looking into the origins of the FBI's Russia probe. “Many people seem to assume that the only
intelligence collection that occurred was a single confidential informant [referring to Stefan Halper] and a
FISA warrant," Barr stated. "I’d like to find out whether that is in fact true. It strikes me as a fairly anemic
effort if that was the counterintelligence effort designed to stop a threat as it's being represented.” When
asked by Republican Senator John Cornyn "Can we state with confidence that the Steele dossier was not
part of the Russian disinformation campaign” Barr responded “No. That is one of the areas that I am
reviewing. I’m concerned about it. And I don’t think it's entirely speculative.”[266][267] When asked about
FISA abuses by the DOJ and FBI during his testimony, Barr responded "These are the things I need to
look at, and I have to say as I said before, to the extent that there was any overreach, it was a few people in
the upper echelons of the (FBI) and perhaps the department, but those people are no longer there", Barr
said.[268]

Barr appointed a federal prosecutor, John Durham, to assist in the investigation.[269] On October 24, 2019,
news media reported that Durham had opened a criminal probe into the matter, giving him the power to
empanel a grand jury and to compel testimony.[270] On December 1, 2020, the Associated Press reported
that Barr had appointed Durham as a Special Counsel under the federal statute governing such
appointments to conduct an investigation into "…the investigation of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller
III," by which was meant the FBI personnel who worked on Crossfire Hurricane before joining the Mueller
team.[271]

On December 9, 2019, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz released a report on the FBI's use of the
FISA process and related matters, concluding that no "political bias or improper motivation influenced the
FBI's decision to seek FISA authority on Carter Page," but also found 17 "significant inaccuracies and
omissions" in the FBI's four FISA applications made to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to
obtain warrants for the surveillance of Page.[272]

On May 7, 2020, the United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence released dozens of
transcripts from the Russia probe which committee chairman Adam Schiff said "detail evidence of the
Trump campaign's efforts to invite, make use of, and cover up Russia's help in the 2016 presidential
election."[273] Top officials from the Obama administration had testified that they had no empirical
evidence of a conspiracy between Trump associates and Russian officials.[274]

See also
Nobody Is Above the Law, a nationwide protest held on November 8, 2018
RT America, the American arm of the RT network
Russian espionage in the United States
Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections
 Russian involvement in regime change
Special Counsel Independence and Integrity Act, a proposed law that sought to protect the
investigation
Timelines related to Donald Trump and Russian interference in United States elections

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government employed a second form of interference: cyber intrusions (hacking) and
releases of hacked materials damaging to the Clinton Campaign. The Russian intelligence
service known as the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Army
(GRU) carried out these operations. In March 2016, the GRU began hacking the email
accounts of Clinton Campaign volunteers and employees, including campaign chairman
John Podesta. In April 2016, the GRU hacked into the computer networks of the Democratic
Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic National Committee
(DNC). The GRU stole hundreds of thousands of documents from the compromised email
accounts and networks. Around the time that the DNC announced in mid-June 2016 the
Russian government's role in hacking its network, the GRU began disseminating stolen
materials through the fictitious online personas "DCLeaks" and "Guccifer 2.0." The GRU
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evidence about collective action of multiple individuals constituted a crime, we applied the
framework of conspiracy law, not the concept of "collusion." In so doing, the Office
recognized that the word "collud[e]" was used in communications with the Acting Attorney
General confirming certain aspects of the investigation's scope and that the term has
frequently been invoked in public reporting about the investigation. But collusion is not a
specific offense or theory of liability found in the United States Code, nor is it a term of art in
federal criminal law. For those reasons, the Office's focus in analyzing questions of joint
criminal liability was on conspiracy as defined in federal law.
239. Desiderio, Andrew; Cheney, Kyle (July 24, 2019). "Mueller refutes Trump's 'no collusion, no
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analysis, we addressed the factual question whether members of the Trump Campaign
"coordinat[ed]" — a term that appears in the appointment order — with Russian election
interference activities. Like collusion, "coordination" does not have a settled definition in
federal criminal law. We understood coordination to require an agreement — tacit or express
— between the Trump Campaign and the Russian government on election interference.
That requires more than the two parties taking actions that were informed by or responsive to
the other's actions or interests. We applied the term coordination in that sense when stating
in the report that the investigation did not establish that the Trump Campaign coordinated
with the Russian government in its election interference activities.
241. Mueller Report (https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf), Vol. 1, p. 10: The investigation
did not always yield admissible information or testimony, or a complete picture of the
activities undertaken by subjects of the investigation. Some individuals invoked their Fifth
Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination and were not, in the Office's
judgment, appropriate candidates for grants of immunity. The Office limited its pursuit of
other witnesses and information-such as information known to attorneys or individuals
claiming to be members of the media-in light of internal Department of Justice policies. See,
e.g., Justice Manual §§ 9–13.400, 13.410. Some of the information obtained via court
process, moreover, was presumptively covered by legal privilege and was screened from
investigators by a filter (or "taint") team. Even when individuals testified or agreed to be
interviewed, they sometimes provided information that was false or incomplete, leading to
some of the false-statements charges described above. And the Office faced practical limits
on its ability to access relevant evidence as well-numerous witnesses and subjects lived
abroad, and documents were held outside the United States. Further, the Office learned that
some of the individuals we interviewed or whose conduct we investigated-including some
associated with the Trump Campaign—deleted relevant communications or communicated
during the relevant period using applications that feature encryption or that do not provide for
long-term retention of data or communications records. In such cases, the Office was not
able to corroborate witness statements through comparison to contemporaneous
communications or fully question witnesses about statements that appeared inconsistent
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External links
Full redacted report from the Special Counsel. Volume 2 begins on page 200. (Version
hosted at Justice.gov (https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf)). Searchable
Full redacted report from the Special Counsel. Volume 2 begins on page 200. (https://archiv
e.org/details/mueller_report) Searchable
 Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election (htt
ps://librivox.org/report-on-the-investigation-into-russian-interference-in-the-2016-presidential
-election-by-robert-mueller/) at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
Audio version of the Mueller report (https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Mueller-Report-Audiob
ook/B07PXN468K) from Audible (free registration needed)
Letter to Congress from Attorney General William Barr laying out the findings of special
counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation., March 24, 2019, 28 CFR § 600.9(c) (https://
www.documentcloud.org/documents/5779699-Letter-to-Congress-detailing-Robert-Mueller-
s.html)
Official Website of the United States Department of Justice: Office of Special Counsel (http
s://www.justice.gov/sco)
"Joint Statement from the Department Of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of
National Intelligence on Election Security" (https://www.dhs.gov/news/2016/10/07/joint-state
ment-department-homeland-security-and-office-director-national), October 7, 2016.
James Comey's opening statement preceding the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on
June 8, 2017 (https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/os-jcomey-0
60817.pdf)
"Inside the secretive nerve center of the Mueller investigation" (https://www.washingtonpost.
com/politics/inside-the-secretive-nerve-center-of-the-mueller-investigation/2017/12/02/e676
4720-d45f-11e7-b62d-d9345ced896d_story.html), The Washington Post. December 2, 2017.
"Meet the Mueller team" (http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2018/politics/meet-the-mueller-tea
m/), CNN
Anderson, Robert (November 9, 2017). "How Robert Mueller Works a Case" (http://time.com/
5016175/robert-mueller-donald-trump-george-papadopoulos/), Time.
Yourish, Karen (December 10, 2017). "Confused by all the news about Russia and the 2016
presidential election? We are here to help" (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/10/
us/politics/trump-and-russia.html) The New York Times.
Frank, Thomas (January 12, 2018). "Secret Money: How Trump Made Millions Selling
Condos To Unknown Buyers." (https://www.buzzfeed.com/thomasfrank/secret-money-how-tr
ump-made-millions-selling-condos-to) BuzzFeed News.
Litigation Documents Related to the Mueller Investigation (https://www.lawfareblog.com/litig
ation-documents-related-mueller-investigation) via Lawfareblog.com (https://www.lawfareblo
g.com/)
"A visual guide to the Roger Stone-WikiLeaks side of the Russia investigation" (https://www.
washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/11/28/visual-guide-roger-stone-wikileaks-side-russia-inve
stigation/), Washington Post, November 28, 2018

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