Mueller report: No collusion, ‘crime related to Russian election interference,’ Chris Matthews livid

A letter released to Congress by Attorney General William Barr Sunday afternoon claims that Special Counsel Robert Mueller found no evidence “to establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference.”

“The Special Counsel found no evidence that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired with the Russians to influence the election, despite offers by the Russians to do so,” the report reads.

FBI Director Robert Mueller testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee
Image/Video Screen Shot

The four page letter, available from the House Judiciary Committee, however, says that while Mueller’s “report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,'” leaving the final conclusions up to Congress.

Mueller used a team of 19 lawyers and 40 FBI special agents to issue “more than 2,800 subpoenas,” execute “nearly 500 search warrants,” obtain “more than 230 orders for communication records,” issue requests to 13 foreign countries and interview more than 500 witnesses.

The special counsel found that, despite overt efforts on the part of Russian officials and the Russian-controlled “Internet Research Agency” to influence the election through on- and off-line misinformation campaigns, no members of the Trump Campaign — or any Americans, for that matter — collaborated with the Russians in their efforts.

MSNBC host Chris Matthews appeared livid: “Why was there never an interrogation of this president? We were told for weeks by experts, ‘You cannot deal with an obstruction-of-justice charge or investigation without getting the motive. … How could they let Trump off the hook?” Matthews asked during his show.

“He will not be charged with obstruction or of collusion without ever having to sit down with the Special Counsel Mueller and answer his damn questions. How could that happen?”

NBC News national security reporter Ken Dilanian, suggested that the president couldn’t be indicted in a criminal sense as Mueller did not have the evidence, Matthews responded saying, “Maybe [Mueller] missed the boat here. Because we know about the Trump Tower meeting in June 2016, we know about the meeting at the cigar bar with [Konstantin] Kilimnik. My God, we know about all of those meetings with [Sergey] Kislyak at the Republican convention in Cleveland. All these dots we’re now to believe don’t connect.”

Dilanian said, “Well, that’s the conclusion in front of us. All of that stuff was suggestive, it didn’t prove anything.”

CNN’s legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin also shared his thoughts on the news. He said the lack of indictments is “really good news for a lot of people around Donald Trump.”

“Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, Jerome Corsi, the writer who had a draft indictment presented to him by Mueller’s office and they decided not to go forward with this. Let’s be fair here. There has been a lot of suspicion around certain people. And a lot of negative things have been said and imputation of criminal activity,” Toobin said.

“Mueller has said, I am not proceeding. There is no better news to receive than you are not being indicted by the United States government,” he added.