'This Is the End of My Presidency': All The Mueller Report Details Everyone Is Talking About

By Christianna Silva and Ella Ceron


By appointment from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, special counsel Robert Mueller and his team of investigators and legal officials have, for the better segment of two years, investigated the possibility of interference by Russian operatives in the 2016 presidential election, and also any potential ties to the Trump campaign and obstruction of justice with regards to the investigation. In January 2017, American intelligence concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin “ordered an influence campaign” with regards to the election, according to the New York Times; starting in May of that year, Mueller’s job was figure out if the Trump campaign was involved, and potentially how.


On Friday, March 22, Mueller submitted his investigation to Attorney General William Barr, who then released a short summary of what he mentioned were key findings from the report on Sunday, March 24. This summary just wasn’t good enough for Democratic lawmakers, who fought to prepare the entire report public.


On Thursday, April 18, the heavily redacted, 448-page report was released. It's a daunting range, to be sure, however thanks in part to keyword searches and Twitter recaps, those interested in the juiciest, most headline-making specifics don't have to read all 448 pages themselves.


Was this President Donald Trump’s biggest moment of clarity?


According to the report, any time Trump learned that Mueller was assigned to investigate collusion, he slumped in his chair and mentioned, “Oh my god. This is terrible. This is the end of my presidency. I’m fucked.” He then, allegedly, “lambasted” then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from the report. “How could you let this happen, Jeff?” He asked before adding: “‘You were supposed to protect me,’ or words to that effect."


Louder, for the people in the back: Mueller didn’t clear Trump of obstruction of justice


Despite the president continuously claiming that the release of the investigation exonerating him, the report states, “If we had confidence soon after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state.”


It certainly seems like Mueller’s team attempted to clarify this as best they could in the report; per Intelligencer, the report also says, “a statement that the investigation did not establish particular facts does not mean there was no evidence of these facts.” So why is there no trial? According to the report, “the evidence was not sufficient to support criminal charges.”


Sad this investigation is over? Don’t worry — it spawned 14 spinoff investigations


Yep: there really are currently 14 (fourteen!) Ongoing investigations into various issues. Only two of these were not redacted: potential wire fraud and employment law violations associated with Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer; and expenses against former White Residence Counsel under President Barack Obama, Gregory Craig. Craig was accused of lying to investigators whenever they interviewed him about a pro-Russian government in Ukraine the New York Times reported.


... But make it fashion!


The report named Russian style investor Miroslava “Mira” Duma, who was all nevertheless ousted from her place of influence in January 2018 for racist and transphobic comments. According to the report, “in late December 2015, Mira Duma — a contact of Ivanka Trump's from the style industry — first passed along invitations [to the St. Petersburg Economic Forum] for Ivanka Trump and candidate Trump from Sergei Prikhodko, a Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation.” Trump denied the invitation nevertheless was “honored to be asked to participate in the rather prestigious” event.


The White Residence Press Secretary admitted to lying


White Residence Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told investigators that she lied to the press soon following the firing of James Comey. The report mentioned that since morale was at a “all-time low,” Sanders instructed them press that the White Home had heard from “countless” FBI agents that they had lost confidence in Comey. “Sanders acknowledged to investigators that her comments were not founded on anything,” the report added.


In an interview with ABC, Sanders claimed her lie “was the heat of the moment, meaning that it wasn't a scripted talking point. I'm sorry that I wasn't a robot like the Democratic Party.” Although she had trotted it out repeatedly in press briefings, as George Stephanopoulos pointed out.


What would a Trump campaign story be without Hope Hicks?


Trump’s former communications director, Hope Hicks, obtained a telephone call from someone who “sounded foreign” on election night, and may even only make out the words “Putin call.” She sent the caller to her email. The following day, Sergey Kuznetsov, an official at the Russian Embassy, emailed Hicks congratulating Trump on his victory, stating that he and Putin “look forward to working with [Trump] on leading Russian-American relations out of crisis.” Hicks immediately forwarded the email to Jared Kushner asking him to look into it and adding, “Don’t wish to get duped nevertheless don’t hope to blow off Putin!”


Donald Jr. Didn’t even know if he was doing crimes


The report states that Donald Trump Jr., Who was in the report approximately 69 times, did plenty of investigatable actions: He derived the email from Rob Goldstone of behalf of Russian pop star Emin Agalarov promising dirt on Hillary Clinton and he set up the infamous Trump Tower meeting in June 2016. The report even states that the individual counsel’s office “considered whether to charge Trump Campaign officials with crimes in connection with the June 9 meeting.”


Nevertheless Donald Jr. Ended up getting off without any expenses against him, not because Mueller didn’t think he had done anything sketchy, however because Mueller determined he didn’t really know what he was doing. “The Office did not obtain admissible evidence likely to meet the government’s burden to prove in back of a reasonable doubt that these individuals acted ‘willfully,’ i.E. With general knowledge of the illegality of their conduct,” the report reads. In response, the President’s son replied:


Mueller left it up Congress to determine on obstruction


Mueller wrote in the report that Congress should determine if Trump’s conduct qualified as obstruction of justice. “With respect to whether the President can be noticed to have obstructed justice by exercising his powers under Article II of the Constitution, we concluded that Congress has the authority to prohibit a President’s corrupt use of his authority categorize in attempt to protect the integrity of the administration of justice,” Mueller wrote.


And politicians are already divided about taking next steps. Per CNN, Residence Majority Leader Steny Hoyer mentioned, “Based on what we have seen to date, going forward on impeachment isn't worthwhile at this point. Very frankly, there really is an election in 18 months and the American people will make a judgement.” Yet in a later tweet, he mentioned, “Congress must have the complete report & all underlying evidence sort in attempt to decide what actions may be needed to make sure that the Congress & the American people have all of the info they require to know the truth & all options ought to remain on the table to achieve that objective."


Meanwhile, Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar have signed onto Representative Rashida Tlaib’s impeachment resolution, which was first submitted on March 27.


Other politicians are calling for Mueller to testify in front of Congress. Representative Jerry Nadler has already invited The unique Counsel to testify “no later than May 23.” On Friday, he revealed that the Residence Judiciary Committee had issued a subpoena to the Department of Justice for the complete report, without redactions.