Redacted Mueller Report to Be Released on Thursday

Attorney General Bill Barr is set to share a version of the document related to the nearly two-year Trump-Russia collusion probe

By Maureen Mackey | April 15, 2019

The Department of Justice, headed by Attorney General William Barr, is now set to release on Thursday a redacted version of the report filed after the nearly two-year-long special counsel investigation into potential collusion by the 2016 Trump campaign with Russian interests.

The report on Thursday will be made available to Congress and to the public, the Justice Department revealed on Monday morning.

The nearly 400-page document will be examined almost immediately for any clues or insights as to why the special counsel did not establish a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Related: Mueller Just Spent Nearly Two Years on His Report, Yet Schiff Feels This Is Not Enough

Congress and others will also want to see special counsel Robert Mueller’s reasoning in terms of why he chose not to make a final ruling on whether the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, obstructed justice or not.

Recently, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) rejected reports indicating that no more indictments from special counsel Robert Mueller would be forthcoming.

Schiff suggested he would call the special counsel to testify before a House panel if necessary to learn what is in the report that he spent nearly two years working on, as Fox News reported several weeks ago.

“If necessary, we will call Bob Mueller or others before our committee. I would imagine the judiciary committee may call the attorney general if necessary,” Schiff told CNN.

Mueller and his team spent nearly two years looking into possible crimes committed by the president or his associates, with a particular focus on whether or not they colluded with Russian interests during the presidential election of 2016.

Trump and his campaign actually drew the interest of federal investigators long before the special counsel probe even began.

Related: Comey Claims He Doesn’t Know ‘What the Heck’ Barr Means by ‘Spying’ on Trump Campaign

Former campaign aide Carter Page was under surveillance during the election season as part of a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant. That warrant was partially based on opposition research indirectly paid for by the Democratic National Committee.

Justice Department official Bruce Ohr provided the FBI with the opposition research dossier. Nellie Ohr, his wife, worked for Fusion GPS — the opposition research firm hired to create the dossier.

And Christopher Steele, a former British spy with deep connections to Russian intelligence, was tasked with compiling it.

Related: Giuliani Reaction to Mueller Report Conclusions: ‘Complete and Absolute Victory’ for Trump

Ohr was demoted from his post as associate deputy attorney general once his alleged involvement was revealed. He later appeared before a closed-door hearing as part of the congressional investigation back in August 2018.

Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) said at the time that the testimony confirmed many of his fears of bias and FISA process abuse.

Ohr also gave testimony that reportedly conflicted with what congressional investigators had heard earlier from Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) told reporters outside the closed hearing at the time that there were a number of factual conflicts — so one of them had to be lying.

Trump shared the following message, and more, on Monday morning:

Trump tweeted hundreds of times earlier that he did not collude with Russians amid the almost constant allegations from the mainstream media and political figures over the past two years or more — so the moment the report was completed a few weeks ago amounted to vindication for him.

This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

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