Mueller report: Trump camp celebrates, but the danger has not yet passed | American News

According to Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump's lawyer, it was like waiting for his baby to be born. He pulled his hand on a darker comparison: it was rather waiting for the jury to deliver its verdict.

"I will distribute cigars if that's good news," he told the Washington Post.

Friday, around 16:30, the wait was over. The report of the special advocate Robert Mueller on Russia's interference in the 2016 US presidential election was handed over to the Justice Ministry. But we still did not know if the baby was a boy or a girl, or if the jury had declared the defendant guilty or not guilty.

The findings of the Mueller Inquiry remained secret, Washington's biggest secret, fueling feverish speculation. While Attorney General William Barr examines the amount of report to be made public, a moment of truth that could break the Trump presidency, millions of Americans remain on the verge of losing their seat on the question of whether he is connivance with Moscow to win the elections sought to impede justice once in the White House.

But a fact has been established with certainty this week: after an investigation costing millions of dollars and spreading over 674 days, hundreds of interviews, thousands of documents and criminal charges against 34 people – six of whom in Trump – Mueller 's entourage will no longer recommend indictments. . It turned out that Trump's son Don Jr and son-in-law Jared Kushner were out of play.

It was fine that the two men attended a meeting at the Trump Tower in June 2016 with a Russian lawyer to hear potentially damaging information about Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. "If you like what you say," Don Jr wrote in an email to Rob Goldstone, a British journalist who had organized the meeting. Prosecutors said that Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya was a Kremlin agent. Don Jr and Goldstone claim that she has not offered anything of substance and made them waste time.

Kushner, now senior adviser to the White House, asked the Russian ambbadador, Sergei Kislyak, to set up in December 2016 a secure communication channel with the Russian Embbady. During this month, he also met Sergei Gorkov, a Russian spy officer at the head of a Russian public bank under the US sanctions regime. Kushner insisted that there was no discussion of sanctions or specific policies.

Anderson Cooper, A CNN host told television viewers Friday night, "It's a good night for the president, for his family. Don Jr was at the meeting at Trump Tower, he will not be charged. Jared Kushner, questions about him, he is not going to be indicted. "

Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who told Congress he was unaware of any communication between the Trump team and Russia, admitted to having met Kislyak at least twice during the campaign, Carter Page, a foreign policy adviser accused by the FBI of "collaboration and conspiracy" with the Kremlin, and Jerome Corsi, a right-wing expert considered a possible intermediary between Trump's adviser, Roger Stone, and WikiLeaks, also seemed ready to avoid criminal charges.

The president being thousands of miles from his home in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, his most partisan allies claimed the merits and gave rise to celebrations. Steve Scalise, Republican in House No. 2, said: "The reports that there will be no new charges confirm what we have always known: there has never been any collusion with the Russia. The only collusion between Democrats and many media hawked this lie because they continue to refuse to accept the results of the 2016 election. "

Ronna McDaniel, President of the Republican National Committee, tweeted: "The Democrats … have already pbaded from glaring collusion to the argument that the Mueller report is only the beginning. Leave me alone. The American people know what a politically motivated disrepute campaign looks like, and that's exactly what it is. "

Giuliani criticized a former CIA director who described Trump's remarks at a joint press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki last summer of treason. "John Brennan said that Potus's action regarding Russian collusion was treason," The former mayor of New York tweeted. "Well, even very aggressive prosecutors have not brought any charges of collusion. As a patriot, I think Brennan is relieved. He should apologize for a charge that is damaging to our country. Treason??"

The tweet did not acknowledge that "collusion" was not an offense defined by law. This will probably not prevent Trump from arguing such arguments during his re-election campaign next year, by portraying himself and his supporters as victims of the deep state, democrats and "fake media".

Analysts cautioned, however, to be cautious, noting that it is possible that Mueller, a former FBI director, is not laying charges against some people because he has referred their case back to the US. other prosecutors. It is also possible that his report may condemn, establish a collusion or obstruction of justice in an opinion court other than a court, fueling Trump's indictment applications and mortally wounding his chances of re-election.

Benjamin Wittes, senior researcher at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, wrote on his Lawfare blog: "The president should wait before blowing up the corks and tweeting successfully. Yes, in the best case for the president, Mueller does not go further because it lacks evidence to do so. But even this possibility contains multitudes: everything, from what the president calls "NO COLLUSION!" To evidence that is not enough to prove that criminal acts were committed before a reasonable jury, beyond a doubt reasonable – evidence that could still be devastating if the conduct in question becomes public. "

"Main conclusions"

So, all eyes are on Barr, who was Attorney General under George HW Bush in the early 1990s and who took over the role under Trump last month. In a letter, he said he could send Congress a summary of Mueller's report, or "main conclusions," as early as this weekend. Unlike the special council office, Congress is known to flow like a sieve.

Democrats called for the publication of the full report. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Leader Chuck Schumer said it was "imperative" that Barr not give Trump a "snapshot" of the results and that the White House not be allowed to intervene in decisions about what is made public.

The chairs of six House committees insisted in a joint letter: "We also expect that the underlying evidence discovered during the Special Advocate's investigation will be forwarded to the appropriate committees of the House of Commons. Congress on their request. serious questions as to whether the Department of Justice's policy is used as a pretext to conceal misconduct. "

Trump said this week that he was not opposed to the release of the report and that Barr had promised that he would "commit to as much transparency as possible". But he remains uncertain if he will choose to disclose everything.

The Mueller Report is not the end of the question. With the Democrats in power, they launched a myriad of investigations on Trump, his presidency, his family and his business interests. They are armed with the power of summons and could still pbad Don Jr, Kushner and others to the pbad.

Indeed, it has been speculated in Washington that Mueller's findings prove that the House Judiciary Committee Chair, Jerrold Nadler, is directed against the climate and targets 81 individuals and groups. Kushner allegedly collaborated in the committee's investigation into whether Trump had impeded justice by dismissing alleged enemies, such as FBI director James Comey, from the Justice Department, and had abused his power by suspending possibly pardons or by modifying witnesses.

Adam Schiff, chairman of the House's intelligence committee, told CNN that he still had the intention to pursue "if the president and other people around him acted as agents of A foreign power ".

Trump is in legal danger on another front. His personal attorney, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty last year to a violation of election campaign funding in a case supervised by federal prosecutors in New York, who testified in court that Cohen had committed crimes under the Trump's direction. The US Attorney's Office in Manhattan is also reviewing the expenses of Trump's inaugural committee and the business practices of the Trump Organization, the family-owned company.

But for the moment, the United States is contemplating a turning point in their modern political history. The Mueller investigation split Washington and the country, with the President working furiously to discredit him by calling it a "hoax" and "witch hunt", and the anti-Trump resistance aspiring to make it the secret weapon that finally kills him. The only person who did not seem to be talking about it this weekend was Robert Mueller himself, perpetually silent, like a sphinx and straight as an arrow.