ROBERT MUELLER/RUSSIA INVESTIGATION/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump’s calculated move to pre-emptively declare ‘complete exoneration’ in the Russia probe will be put to the test in a matter of hours. After nearly two years of waiting, the public on Thursday will finally see the results of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into whether the Trump campaign conspired with Russia to sway the 2016 election and whether the president attempted to stymie that investigation. Before the report’s release, Attorney General William Barr gave a high-level summary of the report at a Thursday morning news conference, stressing repeatedly that there had been ‘no collusion’ between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin on its attempt to sow digital discord in the U.S.…Barr also explained his rationale for announcing he would not bring an obstruction case against the president, even though Mueller choose not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment on the subject. The attorney general noted that he ‘disagreed’ with some of Mueller’s ‘legal theories,’ but ‘accepted the special counsel’s legal framework for purposes of our analysis.’”
–Darren Samuelsohn, “Mueller report to test Trump’s ‘exoneration’ claims,” Politico, April 18, 2019 10:47 am