Catch up on the Mueller report: what's next?

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A report of more than 400 pages detailing the investigation led by the special council, Robert S. Mueller III, revealed the extent of an ambitious Russian campaign to sabotage the 2016 presidential election and sought to determine whether President Trump had obstructed the investigation. .

The report, which the Justice Department drafted before making it public on Thursday, presented the president in an unflattering light, without however accusing him of a criminal offense. It does not exonerate him either.

Here's what you need to know:

The report explicitly stated that the investigation had not cleared the president of obstructing justice. "If we had confidence, after a thorough investigation into the facts, that the president had clearly not obstructed justice, we would say so," the report said.

Although Mr. Trump tweeted that there was no collusion, collusion is not a legal concept.

Instead, Mr. Mueller was looking for evidence of a criminal conspiracy or "coordination" between the Trump campaign and Russia in its activities of electoral interference. Mr. Mueller decided that there was not enough evidence to prove co-ordination.

The report revealed that Mr Trump was continuously and impulsively asking staff members to take steps that would have led to the dismissal of the special advocate.

Donald F. McGahn II, the White House Council, was asked to dismiss Mr. Mueller, but the According to the report, Mr. McGahn decided "that he would resign rather than trigger what he considered a possible Saturday night massacre", referring to Richard M. Nixon's dismissal in 1973 of the Special Prosecutor in charge of his investigation.

[Ensavoirplussur[Readmoreabout[Ensavoirplussur[ReadmoreaboutThe role of Mr McGahn in the investigation.]

Shortly after Mr. McGahn's resignation, Mr. Trump asked a councilor, Corey Lewandowski, to ask Attorney General Jeff Sessions to close the investigation. Mr. Lewandowski has instead asked his colleague Rick Dearborn to do so. Mr Dearborn chose not to do so because "he was uncomfortable with this task," says the report.

The report summarized and developed on false statements, exploring why so many people have lied, changed their stories and published misleading statements both to the public and to the federal authorities – all of which helped fuel the investigation.

One of those cases came when it was reported that Mr. Trump had asked Mr. McGahn to fire Mr. Mueller. Mr. Trump refused the reports to reporters but Mr. McGahn confirmed them to the investigators.

After the F.B.I. The director, James B. Comey, was sacked. Mr. Trump asked Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein to inform the media that the dismissal was an idea of ​​Mr. Rosenstein. Rosenstein refused, saying that if "the press asked him, he would tell the truth," says the report.

Although Mr. Trump described his presidential behavior as false news, some of the less flattering information about Mr. Trump was correct, and White House officials often knew it was the case even when he criticized the journalists.

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