Special Counsel Robert Mueller delivered the results of his investigation into Russian meddling into the 2016 election to U.S. Attorney General William Barr late Friday. Barr told members of Congress he might be ready to brief them on its contents as early as next week.
The 673-day investigation has cast a dark shadow over the Trump administration, as the special counsel worked to determine whether the president or his campaign colluded with Russia or obstructed justice.
Barr letter to Congress –> pic.twitter.com/swpCpwgWtt
— David S. Joachim (@davidjoachim) March 22, 2019
The report Mueller handed to Barr will have laid out the reasoning behind cases the special counsel prosecuted, in addition to explaining any cases the special counsel declined to pursue, according to the rules under which Mueller was empaneled.
Mueller’s team has filed dozens of indictments and secured convictions and guilty pleas in the conspiracy to interfere in the 2016 election: Six of President Donald Trump’s close associates and employees have faced charges. George Papadopoulos, a former campaign adviser; Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chair; Rick Gates, a campaign aide and longtime Manafort business partner; Michael Flynn, a former foreign policy adviser; Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and fixer; and Roger Stone, a longtime Trump adviser, have all been charged by Mueller. Both Manafort and Cohen have been convicted and sentenced to prison.
Barr has broad discretion over what steps he can pursue next: he’s required to write a summary report for Congress, but it’s up to him whether he releases the report (or a sanitized or redacted version of the report) to the public. During his confirmation hearing, Democrats repeatedly asked whether he would agree to make the report public; he declined to commit to do so.
Barr’s summary is then delivered to the chairman and ranking member of the House and Senate Judiciary committees. The summary report must include an explanation of instances in which the attorney general prevented Mueller from taking action.
Immediately following the release of the report, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted, “The next steps are up to Attorney General Barr, and we look forward to the process taking its course. The White House has not received or been briefed on the Special Counsel’s report.”
Earlier in the day Trump told reporters the decision to release the report will be up to Barr. Earlier in the week, while questioning why Mueller was writing a report in the first place, he told reporters that the report should be released to the public. “Let it come out, let people see it,” he said.
Following the release of the report, the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., commented on a tweet by Washington Post reporter Josh Dawsey that the Justice Department letter stated that Mueller was never blocked from taking any actions he wanted to take. “Well that’s going to make it a bit harder for the MSM and Dems to spin but they’ll do it anyway.”
Well that’s going to make it a bit harder for the MSM and Dems to spin but they’ll do it anyway. https://t.co/ZMa90ISlcF
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) March 22, 2019
Investigations have only just begun
Other investigations into Trump’s crimes and corruption will continue now that Mueller has concluded his work.
Congressional committees are investigating the president and his associates: The House and Senate Intelligence committees are looking at Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and possible collusion by members of the Trump campaign, while House Oversight, Finance, and Ways and Means are investigating alleged illegality surrounding the president’s businesses, his hush-money payments made during the campaign, his taxes, his inauguration, and his transition teams.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, is also leading an investigation into Russian influence in the National Rifle Association after Maria Butina pleaded guilty in December to attempting to infiltrate the gun rights group on behalf of Russia.
The most sprawling congressional investigation is being lead by House Judiciary Committee chair Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), who has requested documents from 81 companies, federal agencies, U.S. and foreign individuals, Republican organizations, and people within Trump’s inner circle, including several members of his family. The committee plans to seek documents from other groups and individuals as well.
Congress isn’t Trump’s only problem now that the Mueller probe is over. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York is investigating what role the president played in the hush-money payments over his alleged affairs, which could amount to campaign finance violations.
The president’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, provided congressional investigators with checks last month that Trump personally signed to reimburse him for hush-money payment. Cohen said the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., and the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, also signed hush-money reimbursement checks.
Cohen was sentenced in December to three years in jail after pleading guilty to lying to Congress about the timing of a Trump Tower project in Moscow.
Federal prosecutors are also probing Trump’s Inaugural Committee and whether it committed any crimes when it raised and spent more than $100 million for the president’s inauguration in 2017. Prosecutors last month forced the committee to turn over a wide range of documents including all of its donors, donations, and event attendees and its communications with a large donor Imaad Zuberi, a Los Angeles-based financer who once registered as a foreign agent on behalf of the Sri Lankan government.
The Trump Organization is also under investigation: The New York State Department of Financial Services has launched its own probe into the Trump Organization and has issued a subpoena to the insurance company that represents the president’s business.
The probe launched after Cohen’s congressional testimony, in which he accused Trump of inflating his networth to lenders, inflating property values to insurers, and deflating his property values so he could dodge taxes. Cohen said Trump inflated his assets by $4 billion in one instance so he could obtain a loan from Deutsche Bank in a failed effort purchase the NFL football franchise Buffalo Bills.
The New York attorney general is also still digging into the president’s former charity, the Trump Foundation, which dissolved in December after prosecutors found it was functioning as “little more than a checkbook to serve Mr. Trump’s business and political interests,” the attorney general Barbara Underwood explained.
Democrats have also called on the FBI to look into whether Trump sold access to Chinese business people through the former owner of a Florida massage parlor that was busted by law enforcement officials for operating a prostitution and sex trafficking ring. The Miami Herald reported that the former massage parlor owner, Cindy Yang, arranged to have her Chinese clients attend one of Trump’s 2017 fundraisers as her guests.
