US Special Counsel Robert Mueller has closed his two-year investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election and any potential wrongdoing by US President Donald Trump. RNA - Mueller submitted his confidential report to US Attorney General William Barr on Friday, triggering calls from lawmakers in Congress for the document’s quick release.
Barr, the top US law enforcement officer who heads the Justice Department, will have to decide how much of the report to disclose.
Throughout his investigation, Mueller has brought charges against 34 people and three companies.
It is not clear yet whether the report contains allegations of wrongdoing by Trump or exonerates him.
Mueller, a former FBI director, had been examining since May 2017 whether Trump’s election campaign colluded with Moscow to try to influence the 2016 presidential election and whether the Republican president later unlawfully tried to obstruct his investigation.
US intelligence agencies claim Moscow meddled in the election with a campaign of email hacking and online propaganda aimed at sowing discord in the United States, hurting Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and helping Trump.
Both Trump and Russia have repeatedly denied the accusations. Trump has sought to discredit the investigation, calling it a “witch hunt” and accusing Mueller of conflicts of interest.
Lawmakers from both major political parties called for prompt release of the report.
Barr told lawmakers in a letter he may be able to provide the “principal conclusions” of Mueller’s findings to Congress as soon as this weekend and added that he was “committed to as much transparency as possible.”
A small number of Democrats in the US House of Representatives have pushed for Congress to impeach Trump and remove him from office but the party’s leadership including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has urged caution.
No president has every been removed from office via impeachment. The last president to be impeached by the House, Democrat Bill Clinton, was acquitted by the Senate in 1999 on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, meaning he was not removed from office.
The House Judiciary Committee in 1974 voted to recommend impeachment of then President Richard Nixon, accusing him of planning to obstruct an investigation in the Watergate scandal. Before the full House could vote on impeachment, Nixon became the only US president ever to resign.
Trump's legal woes go beyond the Mueller report
However, the closure of Mueller’s investigation does not mark the end of legal worries for Trump and people close to him. Other ongoing investigations and litigation are focusing on issues including his businesses and financial dealings, charitable foundation, personal conduct and inaugural committee.
These investigations, pursued by prosecutors at the federal and state level, could result in charges beyond those brought in Mueller’s investigation or civil liability.
Trump potentially could face charges once he is out of office because the US Justice Department has a decades-old policy that a sitting president cannot face criminal charges.
But some legal experts have argued the department is wrong and that a president is not immune from prosecution.
Trump may face significant peril from federal prosecutors in New York over his business practices and financial dealings, according to legal experts.
His former personal lawyer Michael Cohen already has implicated Trump in campaign finance law violations to which he pleaded guilty in August 2018 as part of the Southern District investigation.
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