The report from a special advocate indicates that investigators were wondering if Trump had committed a crime of obstruction

The long-awaited report of special advocate Robert S. Mueller III details extensive evidence against President Trump, revealing 10 episodes of potential obstruction, but ultimately concluding that it was not up to Mueller to determine if the commander-in-chief had broken the law.

"The evidence we have obtained about the actions and the intention of the president raise difficult problems that we would have to solve if we made a traditional judgment," Mueller's team said in the report. submitted to Congress Thursday. "At the same time, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts, the President has clearly not obstructed justice, we would say. Based on the facts and applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach this judgment. "

[Read the Mueller report: The full redacted version, annotated]

Since Mueller completed his investigation last month, the Justice Department has been wondering why Mueller's team did not reach a conclusion as to whether the president was obstructing justice. The report pointed out that the issue was complicated by two key factors: the fact that, in accordance with the practice of the ministry, a president-in-office can not be charged with a crime and that the president has many constitutional powers to give orders to Other officials. .

Trump submitted written responses to the investigators. The special advocate's office found them "unsuitable", but did not insist on an interview with him, as this would cause "considerable delay," the report says.

According to the report, the investigators considered that they had "sufficient evidence to understand the relevant events and to carry out certain evaluations without the testimony of the president".

[Live updates: The Mueller report release]

Although the report marks the end of Mueller's work, his investigation has already resulted in criminal charges against 34 people, including six former Trump associates and advisers. Several related investigations involving the president are ongoing.

Trump's legal team called Mueller's report a "total victory" for the president.

"The report highlights what we have defended from the beginning – there was no collusion – there was no obstruction," they said.

In their statement, Trump's lawyers also attacked former FBI leaders for opening "a partial political attack on the president – overturning one of our basic legal standards."

But if Mueller's report was a victory for the president, it was ugly.

Investigators paint an unflattering portrayal of a president who believes the Department of Justice and the FBI should respect his orders, even in criminal investigations.

At a meeting at which the President complained about the decision of the Attorney General of the time, Jeff Sessions, to recuse himself from the investigation into Russia, Trump has insisted that former attorneys general had been more obedient to their presidents, referring to the Kennedy brothers and the Obama administration.

"Are you telling me Bobby and Jack did not talk about investigations? Or did not Obama tell Eric Holder who to investigate? Trump told senior White House officials Stephen K. Bannon and Donald McGahn, according to the report.

"Bannon recalled that the president was as crazy as Bannon had ever seen him and that he had been shouting at McGahn how weak the sessions were," the report said.

On several occasions, it seems that Trump may have been saved from a more serious legal danger because his own collaborators refused to execute orders that they considered problematic or potentially illegal.

For example, in the early days of administration, as the president faced growing questions regarding the conversation of then National Security Advisor Michael Flynn about sanctions with a Russian ambassador, the president ordered another aide, KT McFarland, to write an email stating that the president did not direct these conversations. She decided not to do it, not knowing if it was true and fearing it would be inappropriate.

"Some evidence suggests that the President was aware of the existence and content of Flynn's appeals when they occurred, but the evidence is inconclusive and can not be relied upon. to establish the knowledge of the president, "says the report.

The report also chronicles a remarkable moment in May 2017, when Sessions announced to Trump that Mueller had just been appointed special advisor. Trump fell into his chair, according to the notes of Jody Hunt, then Sessions chief of staff. "Oh my God, it's terrible. It's the end of my presidency, "said Trump. Trump then insisted in the sessions for his recusal, saying the sessions had dropped.

"Everyone tells me that if you get one of these independent boards, it ruins your presidency," Trump said, according to Hunt's notes. "It takes years and years and I can not do anything. It's the worst thing that has happened to me. "

The report of the special advocate on a possible coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russians to interfere in the 2016 election is extremely detailed and contains only modest rephrasions – painting a very different picture for Trump the one that Attorney General William P. Barr proposed and revealing new details about the interactions between Russians and Trump's associates.

Mueller's team wrote that, although their investigation "did not establish that the Trump campaign was coordinated with the Russian government in its activities of electoral interference," this claim was based on the coordination required that more than two parties "take informed or responsive measures". to the actions or interests of the other. "

And Mueller was very clear: Russia wanted to help the Trump campaign and the Trump campaign was willing to take it.

"Although the investigation has established that the Russian government has the impression of taking advantage of a Trump presidency and has striven to achieve this result, and that the campaign hoped to benefit from information stolen and published by the Russian authorities , she did not establish that the members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its activities of electoral interference, "wrote Mueller's team.

The report details the chronology of contacts between the Trump campaign and those with ties to Russia – much of it is already known, but some are new.

For example, Mueller's team claimed that in August 2016, Konstantin Kilimnik, whom the FBI had described as a link with Russian intelligence services, met Paul Manafort, president of the Trump campaign, " to present himself a peace plan for Ukraine that Manafort had recognized The special council office was a roundabout way for Russia to control a part of eastern Ukraine. "

The special council wrote that the two men thought that the plan would require the "consent to the success of the candidate Trump (if he had been elected president)".

"They also discussed the status of the Trump campaign and Manafort's strategy to win Democratic votes in the Midwestern states," the special advocate wrote. "A few months before this meeting, Manafort had caused the sharing of internal query data with Kilimnik, sharing that continued for a certain period after the August meeting."

Mueller's report suggests that his investigation into the obstruction of justice was largely supported by an opinion from the Office of the Legal Counsel of the Department of Justice that a sitting president can not be charged – a finding accepted by Mueller's team.

"And aside from the constitutional view of OLC, we recognized that a federal criminal charge against a sitting president would place a heavy burden on his ability to govern and potentially prevent a constitutional process." to remedy the presidential misconduct, "wrote Mueller's team.

This decision, however, seemed to leave the investigators in a strange place. Mueller's team wrote that it "decided not to apply an approach likely to lead to a judgment that the president would have committed crimes." They seemed reluctant to even produce an internal document alleging that the president had done something wrong, deciding in essence that they would not decide.

"Although the internal report of a prosecutor does not represent a formal public accusation related to an indictment, the possibility of public disclosure of the report and the absence of". a neutral decision-making forum to review its findings, against which it is advisable not to "determine that the person's conduct is a federal offense."

At a press conference on Thursday, Barr said officials at the Justice Department had questioned Mueller "about the opinion of the OLC and about to find out. he claimed that he would have found a crime without the existence of the opinion of the OLC ".

"He explained very clearly, on several occasions, that he was not taking a stand – he was not saying without the OLC's opinion that he would have found a crime," he said. Barr.

Mueller did not attend the press conference.

Barr spoke to the media before publishing the report of nearly 400 pages. He made several references to "collusion", echoing the language emphasized by the president, even though it is not a legal term.

Barr also described how the country's top law enforcement officials fought to investigate Trump in order to obstruct justice. With Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, "he disagreed with some of the legal theories of the special advocate and felt that some of the episodes did not lead to obstruction in law", but that they accepted the "legal framework" of the special advocate analyzed the case, Barr said.

This was the first official recognition of differences of views within the Justice Department on how to investigate the president.

Barr also spoke of the president's state of mind as Trump responded to the ongoing investigation. "As the report of the Special Adviser indicates, there is ample evidence that the President was frustrated and angered by the sincere belief that the investigation was threatening his presidency, under the impetus of his political opponents and fueled. by illegal leaks, "he said.

Before the release of the report, the president launched a new attack on the investigation. "PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT!" He tweeted Thursday morning. "The biggest political hoax of all time! Crimes were committed by Crooked, Dirty Cops and DNC / The Democrats. "

The Mueller report is considered so politically explosive that even the Department of Justice's deployment plan set off a storm, with Democrats suggesting that the Attorney General was trying to improperly alter Mueller's findings before the public can not read them.

Invited by a journalist, Barr responded to a call earlier on Thursday by the two most influential Democrats in Congress to have Mueller appear before House and Senate committees. "I have no objection to Bob Mueller testifying personally," said the Attorney General.

In a letter, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), And the leader of the Senate minority, Charles E. Schumer (DN.Y.), said they wanted to obtain Mueller's testimony "as soon as as possible". And after Barr's press conference, the chair of the Judiciary Committee of the House, Jerrold Nadler (DN.Y.), addressed a letter to the special advocate, inviting him to appear before his panel. no later than 23 May ".

The congressional Democrats vowed to fight for the entire report, without redacting it, as well as the underlying investigative documents that Mueller had collected.

The report has been the subject of heated debate since Barr informed Congress last month that Mueller had completed his work.

Barr told legislators that he needed time to delete sensitive information before it could be made public, including grand jury documents as well as details the public disclosure of which could adversely affect investigations. course.

Barr also stated that he would review the document to remove information that could "compromise sources and methods" in the collection of information, as well as anything that "would unduly affect privacy and reputation." third-party devices ".

This language suggests that Barr wants to keep secret all the unkind information collected by investigators on personalities who are not at the heart of Mueller's investigation.

Philip Rucker, John Wagner and Felicia Sonmez contributed to this report.