Lawmakers clash over whether conclusion of Mueller investigation signals no collusion

Democratic and Republican lawmakers clashed Sunday over whether the delivery of special counsel Robert Mueller’s final report to the Department of Justice signals there wasn’t collusion between President Trump’s campaign and Russia in the 2016 presidential election.

Republicans argued that the end of the probe and the revelation that Mueller won’t be issuing any new indictments hint that the special counsel concluded that Trump and his campaign didn’t coordinate with Moscow.

{mosads}”I have been consistent saying this president didn’t collude, and now it appears that the facts will support that assumption,” House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) said during an interview Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“And so if there was collusion, either Bob Mueller decided not to actually prosecute somebody with evidence being there, which I find hard to believe that that would happen,” Meadows added.

Another member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), made a similar argument during appearances Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” and ABC’s “This Week.”

“We’ll see the report, but all indications are that there’s not going to be any finding of collusion whatsoever,” he said on “This Week.”

Rep. Jim Jordan says Democrats and GOP thought Mueller “is the guy we need for the job,” he is “right next to Jesus, he can almost walk on water.”

“We’ll see the report, but all indications are that there’s not going to be any finding of any collusion” https://t.co/6C5clrnTrm pic.twitter.com/IuoTjWYjma

— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) March 24, 2019

And Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said during an interview on “State of the Union” that it would be “good news” if Mueller concluded that there wasn’t evidence of collusion.

“If … there are no indictments for collusion with the Russians, that’s good news for the American people. Those were serious charges when they were raised two years ago, and if the special counsel concluded that there is not evidence that that occurred, that would be very good news,” he said.

Democrats, however, emphasized that conclusions shouldn’t be drawn until the report’s findings are made public and maintained that there could have been collusion even if it wasn’t enough to warrant criminal charges. 

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said on “State of the Union” that saying Trump didn’t coordinate with Russia before seeing the contents of the report would be “disingenuous.”

“To say there’s no collusion when we haven’t seen the report … I think is disingenuous,” she said. “We need to look at everything, not just the summary conclusions but everything underneath. There certainly is precedent, thanks to the Republicans, for releasing even classified information.”

“To say there’s no collusion when we haven’t seen the report…I think is disingenuous. We need to look at everything, not just the summary conclusions, but everything underneath,” Democrat @RepJayapal says about the Mueller report. #CNNSOTU https://t.co/SlainVzQJr pic.twitter.com/BDPj1TTEO4

— State of the Union (@CNNSotu) March 24, 2019

Mueller, who was investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign, on Friday submitted a confidential report to Attorney General William Barr, signaling the end of the investigation. A summary of the report’s findings could be released to Congress as soon as Sunday. 

Trump has long railed against the special counsel, often lashing out at investigators for what he claimed were conflicts of interest and arguing that the probe was a politically motivated “witch hunt,” even as Mueller secured convictions and guilty pleas from several of Trump’s former associates.

The president also maintained throughout the investigation that there was “no collusion” between his campaign and Russia.

On Sunday, Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, argued that Trump’s claims of no collusion had been “proved right.”

“In their main core of the collusion or investigation of obstruction, they’re seemingly coming to the point that the president and those around him had nothing to do with this,” Collins said of the special counsel on “Fox News Sunday.”

“That is the core finding at least in what we’re seeing so far,” he added.

But top Democrats on Sunday did not back down from their assertions that there is already evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Rep. Adam Schiff (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said there is “significant evidence of collusion” even if Mueller concluded that it didn’t amount to criminal conspiracy.

“There’s a difference between compelling evidence of collusion and whether the special counsel concludes that he can prove beyond a reasonable doubt the criminal charge of conspiracy,” Schiff said during an interview on “This Week.”

Similarly, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said Sunday that there was collusion “in plain sight.”

Nadler, appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” pointed to the 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Trump campaign officials and Russian and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort sharing polling data with a Russian associate.

“Maybe it’s not indictable, but we know there was collusion,” Nadler said. “The question is to what degree and for what purpose.”