UNITED STATES—Attorney General William Barr released the findings of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Thursday, April 18.
During a press conference on Thursday, Barr spoke about the release of the confidential report completed by Robert Mueller on March 22. A public version of the reported with redacted details was made available on the Department of Justice website after it was submitted to Congress.
After expressing his gratitude to both Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein for his diligence and Robert Mueller for exposing efforts by the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, Barr stated:
“As you know, one of the primary purposes of the Special Counsel’s investigation was to determine whether President Trump’s campaign or any individual associated with it conspired or coordinated with the Russian Government to interfere in the 2016 election.”
The report states: “The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
“As [the] Special Counsel’s report makes clear that the Russian government sought to interfere in our electoral process, but thanks to the Special Counsel’s thorough investigation we now know that the Russian operatives who perpetrated these schemes did not have the cooperation of President Trump or the Trump campaign or the knowing assistance of any other American for that matter. That is something that all Americans can and should be grateful to have confirmed,” said Attorney General William Barr.
Barr noted the report outlines two main efforts by the Russian government to influence the 2016 election.
“The first is the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a Russian company with close ties to the Russian government to sow social discord among American voters through disinformation and social media operations. Following a thorough investigation of this disinformation campaign, the Special Counsel brought charges in Federal Court against several Russian Nationals and entities for their respective roles in this scheme. These charges are still pending and the defendants remain at large.
The Special Counsel found no evidence that any American including anyone associated with the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian Government or the IRA in this illegal scheme,” said Barr.
“Second, the report details efforts by the Russian military officials associated with the GRU, a Russian military intelligence Organization to deliberately hack into computers and steal documents and emails of individuals associated with the Democratic party and Hillary Clinton’s campaign for the purpose of eventually publicizing the documents. Following a thorough investigation of these hacking violations the Special Counsel also brought charges in Federal Court against the Russian military officers for their respective role in these illegal hacking operations. Those charges are still pending and the defendants remain at large. But again, the Special Counsel’s report did not find any evidence that members of the Trump campaign or anyone associated with the campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian Government in these hacking operations. The GRU transferred some of the documents obtained to Wikileaks for publication in the process of making document dumps,” said Barr during the press conference.
“Here too, the Special Counsel’s report did not find that any person associated with the Trump campaign illegally participated in the dissemination of the materials,” Barr reported.
Barr concluded that after a two year investigation, thousands of subpoenas, and hundreds of warrants and witness interviews, the U.S. found that the Russian government illegally tried to influence and interfere with the 2016 presidential election, but no one from the Trump campaign or other Americans assisted with those colluded in those schemes.
