Democrats in the US House of Representatives look likely to launch contempt proceedings against Attorney General William Barr after he failed to comply with a subpoena to submit an unredacted version of the Mueller report.
Attorney General William Barr Rob Crandall / Shutterstock.com
No Collusion?
This report appears to vindicate President Trump and his campaign from any Russian interference, however, the summary provided is somewhat vague and the only released versions of the report have been heavily redacted. This has led critics to question whether there are subtexts in the report which would throw doubt onto this conclusion and would point to facts such as:
There were a number of contacts between members of Trump’s circle and Russia, and the campaign “expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts”.
The Trump team also “showed interest” in the Wikileaks release of hacked emails and “welcomed their potential to damage” Hillary Clinton. Quite despicable but as the Mueller team state this does not (in their opinion amount to a criminal conspiracy.
Overall the view was:
“While the investigation identified numerous links between individuals with ties to the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump campaign, the evidence was not sufficient to support criminal charges”.
If this is the case it is surprising that an unredacted version of the report has not been made freely available, and that the Attorney General is willing to risk criminal prosecution by ignoring a subpoena; although to enact any criminal proceedings the Republicans would have to support it – fat chance of that.
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