except for exception ok and what do you think are the chances of seeing the fall reported based on that twenty two month investigation that well i think has as the attorney general he pointed out at the end of that letter there will need to be several legal loops that need to be jumped through before that report can be released but certainly he didn't close it down in his testimony before being confirmed for the position he said that he would release if you possibly could the president has said he wants out the entire united states house of representatives has voted to get this thing released so there will be political pressure to do so i think as quick as possible because up until now i mean until that sort of fall report is published presumably we are just basing this on the interpretation exam valid they may be of course of the attorney general which i'm guessing some democrats would still question but of course just because what he's not sure about this the attorney general is appointed by nominated by president trump he is not donald trump's personal attorney it must be pointed out he's the attorney general

of the united states there to effectively render the law without fear or favor but of course there will no doubt be people to the left of the political spectrum doubtless in america and maybe around the world who will be looking at this and saying well why haven't we got the full report yet why are we only seeing what might be interpreted potentially as a political interpretation of what is that what was put forward ok what do you think you know i mean i suppose in a way that the election campaign is already starting for twenty twenty what do you think this does to his chances of reelection. it must be said if you look at the cycles of american presidential history there was a funny habit of the american people electing each party to a two term cycle which would suggest that donald trump should be considered the favorite for reelection on that basis come next november when you consider the democrats who are running against him it's difficult to see an obvious forerunner this will i think factor heavily into the presidential election you're going to see i think democrats across the range talking about this demanding to see the release

of the report and then i think will be the the real schism in american politics moving forward republicans saying now we've got to come together to heal the country put this behind us move on democrats saying oh no no no no this is not the end of the matter it's only beginning now we've had the interim report from the g. now we need the full report and we'll be looking at the nitty gritty i think this is something that the democrats will want to look for more into and the democrats the republicans will want to see effectively closed down ok james boys thank you please stay with us we will of course come back to you for more analysis of this swallowers investigation has ensnared six members of trump's inner circle and twenty eight foreign nationals let's take a look at some of the key players the president's former personal lawyer that's michael cohen pleaded guilty to lying to congress and has been sentenced over hush money payments that he made on trance behalf for my campaign chair paul man of ford

has been convicted of financial fraud he also shared private polling data with a man connected to russian intelligence times first national security advisor michael flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the f.b.i. about his conversations with the russian ambassador during the presidential transition and times close friend roger stone has been indicted for lying about his efforts to contact weiqi leaks he allegedly wanted to know how hacked democratic e-mails could help trump's campaign twelve russian intelligence officers were also charged over that has. which target the chairman of hillary clinton's presidential campaign and thirteen russians were charged with manipulating social media to help trump's election campaign. well joining me now from washington d.c. is jeff hauser he's executive director of the revolving door project that the center for economic and policy research focusing on the integrity integrity of political appointments sir thank you so much for joining us here on al-jazeera first of all your reaction to the summary that's been released of the mole of

report. this is an appetizer it definitely makes one interested in seeing what the entree is what the full report will show i think it shows that there are a series of forty's sions between trump and the russian government that there was no agreement that can be proven to been reached between the campaign and the russians about russian assistance to the campaign but as even the bar summary demonstrates there were a series of. contacts initiated by the russians basically saying we're going to help you out and obviously the russians were no matter discouraged one of the indictment showed that the russian hacking increased after the trump press conference where he in fact called upon the russians to do hacking so i think it seems like trump campaign went very close to breaking the law on conspiracy or

what has been called collusion but did not quite go there on obstruction they seem to have gotten even closer but we have this very odd situation in which mahler did and the grand jury which he had impaneled the american citizens never really reached a decision about whether or not that was criminal or not and trump attorney general has decided that it's not but i suspect that is a judgment that the congress will want to look into much more closely which takes me to the second question and then legally and politically what do you think we go from here. why i think legally we go to actually many different fronts because the mower team seems to have been very punk tilley it's about staying within the narrow parameters of the appointment of special counsel muller he had only a limited ambit and whenever he came upon other crimes he would give those seeming crimes to other parts of the justice department different u.s. attorneys spread out across the country different divisions of the main justice

department so there could be a lot of legal fronts simultaneously on the issues that are not addressed in directly in this memo and then on the issues directly within this memo you're going to see really bitter fights over congress getting the material quicker than i suspect are wants to provide it that the company history should want to provide it they're going to try to go slow congress is going to go try to go fast and then there is also going to be some of the information is going to probably be withheld by the justice department especially that which they say constitutes executive privilege that is was the project was subject of deliberations within the. executive branch and so we're going to see all sorts of fights raising all sorts of relatively novel questions as congress tries to get its hands on the evidence i also think congress is going to try to get robert mueller to testify sooner rather than later and i'm not sure moer wants to testify but i'm not sure that he's going to choice in the matter jeff how's it please stay with us. the line i just want to

cross to our correspondent in florida gabriel and these on the gate i think you've got some some new some reaction from the white house. that's right sarah huckabee sanders the president's spokesperson just put out a statement so first reaction from the white house i'm just going to read it to you it says quote the special counsel did not find any collusion and did not find any obstruction attorney general barr and deputy attorney general rosenstein further determined there was no obstruction the findings of the department of justice are a total and complete exoneration of the president of the united states in quote that statement just coming in from sarah huckabee sanders again she's leaving nothing to the imagination there it's very clear that the white house views this clearly as a huge huge victory she did say in her statement that the special counsel did

not find any collusion it's important just remember that what we've had this four page letter is from a summary of robert muller's report that was given to the attorney general it's unclear if the white house has seen the entire report but it's very clear that they've at least seen this summary of it we've also heard from one of president trump's attorneys rudy giuliani he was quoted by reuters new news agency as saying that this news is better than he could have ever expected still no tweets still no comments directly from the president the united states who is still here at his resort mar a lago. he was scheduled to leave back to washington d.c. about twenty minutes ago but by all accounts he's still here gabriel is on the with the latest there from palm beach gave thank you let's go back to jeff houser

executive director of the revolving door project jeff hauser so we have the white house spokeswoman saying the findings of the partment of justice are a complete and total exoneration of the president and of course we have the house judiciary committee chairman saying special counsel miller clearly and explicitly is not exonerating the president which one is it. well i mean attorney general barr took specific note of the fact that muller is not exonerating trump on obstruction of justice so obviously the judiciary chairman jerry nadler is correct about that the reading comprehension skills of the trauma team seems to leave a little bit to be improved upon but i think that what is what is clear is that the absence of the ability to prove a charge is not evidence of absence of a crime so on the conspiracy question before the justice department will prosecute someone they have to believe that there is an eighty five percent chance that they

will be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime was committed and in a case like this where that crime will acquire evidence of men that is to say criminal intent by trump or the members of his campaign to conspire that means they need proof that a more innocent explanation is not possible that is a very high bar to achieve and so the fact that this report indicates that robert mueller did not believe he could. breach and go her to go over that hurdle on this does not mean that trump is in any way innocent it just means that he is not provably guilty and mahler's doing the right thing therefore i mean of course that report is coming out now that. is dominated by democrats once again presumably if it had as it was before the the midterms that still in the hands of the republicans they swayed all just go away when it. i mean i would go away

in terms of political significance i don't know that it would ever have gone away and terms of public consciousness which is why if trump is so innocent on these charges he really should want to have a full congressional hearing because you just i mean an innocent person would not want to leave fifty percent of america or more and i suspect you know you're going to see like roughly fifty five sixty percent of americans are going to believe that there was in fact some form of conspiracy i think you would not want to leave that perception out there and you would want the evidence to be provided and have it with a gated so and i think if it wasn't given an opportunity litigated in congress it would instead be litigated perpetually in t.v. movies and in newspaper accounts and online and on social media and so i don't think this story you know there is no way to put this story. away and hide it so i think if i were trump i would try to deal with that frontal and let's i knew i was guilty jeff houser from the center for economic and policy research thank you so

much for sharing your views of the us here on al-jazeera. bring in james voice political historian specializing in the united states politics and professor of international political studies at richmond university so we had that comment there i guess not very surprising from sarah huckabee sound there is their claim that the president is totally exonerated and obviously that is going to be the line that president trump pushes it will indeed there's no doubt that the republicans will jump all over this and say see here we go we've said all along no collusion we've stuck to the same line day in day out the president has been vindicated it's interesting to note that there is i think a very fine line however that the white house is walking suggesting that there is no collusion where is as we are reporting and commenting upon very clearly what even the attorney general has noted in his excerpts from the report it's very clear that muller basically does not exonerate the president and that is

a lie and i think you're going to see three very important the democrats leaping all over and they are chairman chairman cummings and chairman shift for chairman of the judiciary the oversight and intelligence committees in the house of representatives all democrats all of whom have subpoena power all of whom are now going to want to work get to the bottom of this they're going to want that report they're likely to start having to subpoena individuals and of course you know we're looking here at the political fallout of this the political fallout and the legal fallout is going to continue against donald trump and his entourage including his children it was pointed out there are a whole series of allegations. and you're a christian his son in law of course this idea of obstruction of justice isn't just confined to the more investigation let's not forget also michael cohen is testimony before congress recently in which he named key individuals including donald trump's

own to raj people working for the trump organization all of whom now because they've been named in those hearings could very easily be open subpoena. they get brought before congress if they lie or obstruct justice obstruction of congress and that again opens up issues to do the stretching of justice which again opens up a can of worms the whole administration hey james thanks again for that please stay with us we can go to the white house now and cross the heidi show castro who is there for us good to see you and tell us a little bit more about the reaction that we've had from the president's spokesperson sarah huckabee sanders. sure as you heard from gabe a little earlier the statement by siri sanders has been very short it's stated that the special counsel did not find any collusion and it did not find any obstruction of justice however if you just take the second half of that statement that's a direct contradiction of what the letter that william barr the attorney general

sent to congress actually says and i want to read a portion of that letter it says the special counsel robert mueller determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment the special counsel therefore did not draw a conclusion one way or the other as to whether the exam and conduct constituted obstruction and why this is very important is because the determination then to not file charges against president donald trump obstruction of justice was not a decision made by the special counsel but rather a decision made by attorney general william barr who again as we know was just appointed by. the position of turning it general a few months ago and with the help of assistant attorney general rod rosenstein and the bar explain the thinking why he determined that obstruction of justice should not be pursued and he laid out two reasons one that because robert muller did not

find evidence of collusion with russia for the presidential election that takes away some of the malice or some of the intent that they examined in president trump's actions that were being examined for possible obstruction of justice those actions being the firing of james komi the f.b.i. director and other actions and another reason that bar said not to pursue obstruction of justice charges is because most of those actions that were examined under took happened in public and so because of the lack of in ten. and as determined by william barr turn in general that is why he decided not to pursue the obstruction of justice which is the bigger explanation of why the special counsel said in this letter that this in no way exonerates president trump from obstruction of justice and certainly this is a point that should not be lost in the conversations and the now lasse's of this

letter because certainly this will be a main point of focus from the democratic congressional message gaiters going forward barbara. starr with the latest from the white house heidi for now thank you get more now from our political correspondent patty in washington d.c. as you've been looking through it again a bit more just tell us what you think the political fallout of this is going to be . well i think that we were already seen as democrats saying wait a minute so the special counsel had twenty two months to look at this and it took the attorney general bob barr just two days to decide that this didn't rise to the level of obstruction of justice so republicans are taking to twitter they are saying that this exonerates the president completely although the white house statement that it does exonerate the president says that there was no obstruction of justice it doesn't say that and specifically says it doesn't exonerate him of committing crimes but still this will be seen as a good day for republicans for president trump democrats though do not peer that

they're going to let this go again there is a pull a legal standard that robert mueller has to adhere to federal prosecutors do not pursue criminal charges against anyone much less the president of the united states and less they think that they have basically it's a slam dunk they can get a conviction so that's the bar he was working towards the political bar when you talk about impeachment that doesn't necessarily have to be as high so democrats are going to want to see exactly what he found he has a tremendous amount of information they're going to want to see it they're going to if they have to subpoena him to testify before congress they're going to try and get all of the information and then make that public but this is a good day for president trump for two years he has been saying no obstruction no collusion well six very close aides around him pled guilty to lying to the federal bureau of investigation or financial crimes it looked like there was a lot of smoke robert muller's telling through the attorney general there is no

fire classical name it with the latest in washington patty for the moment thank you mentioning president trump well we can cross live now to gabriel is on the was in palm beach florida not far from the president's farleigh good resort town he was meant to fly back to washington was any gay but he hasn't done that and now we know why tell us. that's right because he's been presumably with his lawyers at mar a lago his resort that's just not too far down the street behind me meeting with his lawyers and his communication staff he has not tweeted but the silence of donald trump we're told will into perry soon the white house saying that he's expected to address reporters here in palm beach florida before he gets on air force one that's expected to happen momentarily so we'll be hearing the first comments directly from the president here probably within the next few minutes. is on that with the latest from florida thank you let's go back to pass in washington d.c. so passive we haven't heard from the president yet but we have had

a tweet from a spokesperson. there is saying that this amounts to a full exoneration not everyone agrees with her. no it isn't twitter a wonderful thing at times like this i was just looking at the tweets from representative nadler he is in charge of the house judiciary committee so he can decide who gets subpoenaed who who doesn't and he is basically saying the d.o.j. owes more public more more to the public than just a brief synopsis and basically say wait the special counsel waited for twit took twenty two months and the attorney general decided in two days that there was no obstruction of justice and then he said but he's not exonerated basically so what does that mean how is he not exonerated what's that evidence so they're saying that they're going to call william bard to testify before their committee to try and get answers on that now william barr showed during his confirmation confirmation hearing he knows how to handle tough questions so it looks like the show it's

shaping up to be an instant interesting showdown but democrats are saying this initial report says everything's good now let's see if we believe made the right decision show us the evidence. this is getting incredibly complicated and as you said earlier certainly did not find the smoking gun that many democrats at least you know let's be honest wanted him to find but for all these people that say that you know politics in washington is is you know gridlock that nothing can get done because it's so divided this is just going to make things worse isn't it. it is it's going to say to all of donald trump's supporters it was a witch on the deep state though as i've said the deep state is trying to get rid of the president and democrats have been really holding out all of their hopes on this motor report we saw the speaker of the house nancy pelosi say we're there's no need to talk about impeachment until we hear what muller says and that is what they've been saying they've been basically putting everything on the idea that they

can get rid of the president has rubber mahler's going to make it easy he's going to hand them the evidence and say here this is an impeachable offense remember the president can be impeached for treason bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors so for robert mueller these two areas that he was looking at one potential collusion with the russian government to did he have struck justice by fire in the f.b.i. director and so they're saying the first one absolutely no there's no evidence of collusion that they could basically make a case for an ironclad case that there was collusion between the trim campaign in russia although they say russia tried obstruction of justice they say they can exonerate the president but they also can't can try and convict him on this so democrats are going to seize on that why can't you exonerate him what evidence is there because again the political bars much lower than one face in prosecutors there's going to be a lot of people questioning bob barr and his time in two days in and since our moller said he couldn't make the decision it was too complicated too difficult left it up to bill barr and rod rosenstein both appointees of president trump so this

isn't over it's a good day for the president make no mistake about it he can say see have been saying for two years it's a witch hunt there's no collusion and now he could actually hold up the letter and say robert muller the person that everybody has so much respect for in this country he agrees. patty thank you so much for that will of course come back and chat with us throughout the next few hours for more analysis on this let's just remind our viewers of what the breaking news is has been for the past hour or so in washington the report from special counsel robert mueller has concluded that neither donald trump nor any of his officials knowingly conspired with russia during the two thousand and sixteen election campaign the report though declined to exonerate president trump of attempted of any attempt to obstruct the course of justice and just a reminder again to the viewers of this is based on the attorney general's interpretation of that report and what has been released has been a four pages summary

a letter of the main points but obviously if a lot of issues that certainly the democrats still have question marks over james boies as a political historian specializing in u.s. politics staying hero with us tonight to try to make sense of all of it so effectively the mole or a statement saying there is no sufficient evidence to prove obstruction of justice but it's more that they can find the evidence rather than saying it's completely exonerated absolutely i was reminded of a legal option in scotland i believe which is it's possible be proven not prove a case not proven rather than guilty or innocent of it to be that seems to be the where we're at with regard to this i was there one of the state which we're hearing so far is from rudy giuliani the president's private attorney who says that it's a much better report than i expected many of us i think were very very skeptical about how it was that giuliani was defending the president and indeed the president's own decisions to time and time and time again speak about these issues

on camera we've heard from patty there are a number of times about the idea that he used to openly admittedly he got rid of me because of russia to many of us that seem to be from the face of evidence of obstruction of justice and of course what the model report appears to be saying is because you would. making these statements in public that's evidence that it's not an obstruction of justice it's quite a remarkable series in his own defense and it was very understated it's a remarkable situation and again it just demonstrates how the trump presidency appears to be turning everything on its head in terms of levels of expectations now even in the legal spear well be interesting because we're going to be hearing guessing quite soon from president trying to himself was the side of the stay at is resort in mar-a lago in florida was when to get on a flight i guess if you want to be on a flight for a couple of hours at right now i think he's probably going to err treasure and enjoy the next few hours or so i mean knowing him what do you think his statement

will be like well it's interesting that so far we've we've heard from his press secretary could be sanders who's put out a pretty standard statement saying look you know this is exactly what we thought daughter has been very quiet on twitter all day doubtless waiting to see what's coming up. i would much there be an awful lot of exclamation marks references to make america great again talking about bin decay ssion and about how this report totally exonerates him it's important member of course that we are only basing all our reporting on or assessments upon born four letter documents from the attorney general and not upon the actual report one has to watch oneself what we do if disagrees with what the attorney general has concluded what a free believes that this is not the actual findings that he has put forward where are we then for example i mentioned earlier on key members of congress representative now shift for example in comics i expect they will all be wanted to

hear directly from robert mueller to make sure that the letter that we have seen released to the press today by jerry nadler is exactly reflecting what it is that his findings bear out it's what we were mentioning at before with patty culhane that basically the threshold of culpability is different. you're a prosecutor then if what you're looking for is you know political implications of something so in a way it's almost like both sides could find whatever it is they want to read in this report and that was always going to the case i think whatever of this report said you would find democrats interpret you get one way republicans interpret it and get the other one of the interesting quotes that jerry nadler put out initially from the from the four letter was basically saying that conceded that he wasn't going to make a traditional judicial rendering with regard to this will one wonders why not and again as and explain to us for that with all this idea you'd imagine that he would have come forward and said yes one way or the other but with regard to the obstruction of justice what he's saying is look here's what we have found seemingly

to be attorney general you go where you make your decision and i think the question is going to be asked why after two years and all the resources did you not feel it appropriate to reach a decision and instead hand it over to the a.g. who is after all alternately a political appointee in the president's cabinet his voice thank you let's go back to gabriel is on them palm beach florida not far from the president's resort gave i think we have another statement from the president's press secretary. not so much a statement but what we're having is that. the pool group of reporters that are with the president or with his group of people. are talking to his people and sarah huckabee sanders the press secretary kind of gave an update to her first statement there's the question of obstruction of justice and it appears that sanders is clarifying the white house's position on that piece of the their report

from the attorney general second the sanders says the special counters investigation did not find that the trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with russia in its efforts to influence the two thousand and sixteen u.s. presidential election that stays the same but then she goes on to say the report identifies no actions that in our judgment constitute obstructive conduct that's part of a. statement from sarah huckabee sanders so you can see that this whole idea of obstruction of justice is what people are focusing on now the white house an initially saying that the summary of the re report showed no obstruction of justice now they're basically saying in our judgment it shows no obstruction of justice so clearly there's a lot to parse here again important to point out that this is just the interpretation of the molar report from the attorney general so

a lot of interpretations of a lot of different things going on right now but an important clarification now coming out from the white house still though that says and this doesn't take away from the fact the white house clearly is very happy with what they've read so far. given that is on the with that reaction live for us in florida again for the moment thank you let's go back to jeff houser joining us from washington d.c. executive the executive director of the revolving door project at the center for economic and policy research for. because in the integrity of political appointments which i guess is an interesting topic right now i mean from everything we've been discussing since this summary has come out it does seem it's effectively going to boil down to interpretation and the political implications of that it's going to come down to interpretation but a lot of that is also going to come down to what facts we have to interpret there's going to be an enormous battle between the house of representatives and the

executive branch as to what information that robert muller and his team assembled some of that information that they assembled may not actually be usable in a court of law it could be counterintelligence material it could be hearsay it could be the type of material that you would not want to rely on in a corporate could still be very interesting there's a lot of evidence on both the obstruction as well as the underlying whether or not the failure to charge conspiracy means there was no conspiracy or not there's a lot of evidence out there and there's going to norma's fight as congress seeks to obtain that evidence and i suspect the president and his justice department to try to keep congress from getting that information. i mean the attorney general of seems to have well effectively or decided to almost exonerate crum doesn't leave the president involved in the crime what about don jr any question mark still on them because of the family. absolutely i mean don jr had shoe

incredibly interesting meetings in the trump tower the first and most famous in june on june eighth occurred with representatives of the russian government which was stated in the e-mails that set up the meeting to be about russia's ongoing assistance to the campaign in the election that meaning did not apparently in of itself prove sufficient to allow a conspiracy charge but that's very interesting the second was a meeting that he had that is outside the context of the russian this is a geisha and but with the united arab emirates and saudi arabia that is an ongoing investigation that may or may not ever prove charges but what bar said here is that because the president himself was not being proven charged with an underlying crime that may that tilted the balance in the attorney general's assessment of the possibility of bringing an obstruction of justice charge against the president and i think that the possibility that the president may himself have managed to be one

step removed from a possible crime but that his son might have been part of a crime and that the president might be committing obstruction of justice in order to keep his oldest son add of present that seems like a really worrisome possibility and it's something that is entirely consistent with the text of bars letter i mean bar may not be my favorite lawyer in the world but he is a talented lawyer who's been around the block and when i see language written as carefully as the language in this letter when it leaves really interesting questions like was the obstruction of justice potentially motivated to protect other people when it doesn't answer that question and all it says is that the president was not obstructing justice in order to protect himself it raises more questions for me than it does answers. jeff hauser for the moment thank you let's take you to live pictures there of the airport in florida air force one there you can just about see and that is the motorcade of president trump arriving

at the airport he was shuttled to fly about an hour ago now back to washington d.c. he has the lead the flight and we've been told that he is due to speak to reporters assembled there so we will obviously bring that to you live in the meantime let's cross live to gabriel is on the in palm beach florida again there because that's where president trump has been over the weekend that is resort in mar-a lago and we we are waiting to hear from the president address a news conference but we've had a tweet from him what is agave. we have a president has just arrived at air force one he's going to be we're told speaking to reporters there will turn that tape around as soon as we get that but he has tweeted right is the was in his motorcade about three minutes ago and this is what the president the united states first reaction to this summary of the report is

from the attorney general quote donald trump quote no collusion no obstructed obstruction complete and total exoneration keep america great that's a reaction from donald trump exoneration and keep america great and all caps clearly for emphasis this is a president perhaps by no surprise that feels as though he has been vindicated and feels as though he likes a lot of what he's seen out of a report so far again we expect to hear from the president we're told before he boarded air again to let me stop you there because president trump is about to speak. investigation. after so many people have been so badly hurt. after not looking at the other side. were a lot of bad things happened a lot of horrible things happen a lot of very bad things happen for our country. it was just announced

there was no could with the right the most ridiculous thing i've ever heard there was no collusion with the russians there was no up structure. and none whatsoever. and it was a complete and total exoneration. it's a shame that our country had to go through this. to be honest it's a shame that your president has had to go through this for before i even got elected it began. and it began to illegally and hopefully somebody is going to look at the other side this was a legal take down. and hopefully somebody is going to be looking at the other side george complete. exoneration no collusion no

thank you very much thank you. president addressing the press there is about to get on air force one to head back to washington d.c. after a weekend in florida said it was an illegal a takedown that had failed completely exonerated and kept on repeating and now it's time to look at the other side let's go to gabriel in the zone also in florida. hoping that you were able to hear what president trump said we can just see he's just gone into the plane and what did you make of his speech. listen he doubled down he feels like he's a president that's been vindicated no doubt about it i mean listen no matter probably what. was the summary of the moeller report probably would have spun it to his favor like probably any president would have but this president is particularly at depth at spinning negative news in a positive fashion for him so this is pretty positive by most accounts you know and

so he's doubling down on this no collusion no obstruction what he repeated he repeated what he said in a tweet about three minutes before he said it there on the tarmac before boarding air force one and then one even further as you said an illegal takedown that failed even suggesting that the other side whatever the other side is presumably is political opponents he might be talking about i don't know he said even the other side should now be looked into so this is a president is boarding air force one to head back to washington d.c. and probably a very very good mood because he feels as though the moeller investigation that went on for nearly two years as exonerated him and he's been saying for many law a long time now no collusion no obstruction clearly that's his interpretation his opinion i think the democrats will probably have something to say about that and investigations continue right now no doubt about it this is a president who feels he's leaving mar

a lago resort leaving florida heading back to washington with a huge victory. there in florida thank you well let's go to the white house now and speak to hide the as you know castro she joins us from there now as president i think we just saw a few minutes ago just getting on air force one heading back to washington heading back to the white house i guess now that i mean we don't know when the white house managed to get a copy of the report when or whether they have to full report we don't know when they got a copy of the summary but certainly we are seeing reactions now both from the president and the official press spokesman. that's right and as you just heard from gave you know president trump is the ultimate spinmaster he is characterizing this as a great victory in the president's own words repeating those of his press secretary that this was quote a complete exoneration however if you actually look at the letter delivered by

attorney general william barr to congress which quotes the findings of the special counsel robert muller moeller wrote to the attorney general that while this report does not conclude the president committed a crime it also does not exonerate him so there is a direct contradiction to the way that the president is seeing this results in black and white now where this gray zone comes in is on this question of obstruction of justice mohler was clear and what we learned from the summary from bar that there was no evidence for collusion with russia however on that second major question that miller was an investigating of whether trump committed obstruction of justice it's quite unclear what the findings were in fact it's an extraordinary the fact that the special counsel did not make

a finding on that very question the report says that the special counsel made no conclusion about whether there was obstruction of justice and instead of listed evidence on both sides of course that means there was evidence that there was conclusion that there was obstruction and also exonerating evidence that there wasn't but both sides of that evidence were laid out in the report from robert mueller to the attorney general and an explanation that there was no determination there was no waiting of the two sides of that question and no determination and so right so william barr goes on to explain in his letter to congress that it was upon him and. fellow appointee rosenstein the assistant attorney general who came to the conclusion that there would not be charges pressed on the president when it comes to obstruction of justice and it's much more important than just parsing the words here the fact that this determination of no stretching of justice came from bar and

not from mobile or is something that democrats will surely latch onto in fact on twitter the chairman of the house judiciary committee already pointed out to this quote from more himself that this does not exonerate the president and the issue here is the wealth of trust that the american people as well as both member both parties of congress have placed in this investigation rested squarely on the shoulders of robert mueller who up to this point has given no evidence of bias who both sides have accepted as an objective orbiter investigator in this case and muller said he couldn't decide whether or not trump obstructed justice again that determination was made by trump appointees well in bar the current attorney general and that is what's going to give doubt and ammunition to democrats in congress to

continue their investigation and to continue a demand for transparency why bar over the last twenty four hours made this very critical decision hi there joe castro the latest from the white house heidi for the moment thank you is just around the viewers of the breaking news that we've just over an hour ago basically the report from special counsel robot will or has concluded that neither donald trump nor any of his officials knowingly conspired with russia during the two thousand and sixteen election campaign the report however declined to actually exonerate president trump of attempts to obstruct the call. of justice joining me now from washington d.c. again to discuss this further is jeff houser executive it executive director of the revolving door project at the center for economic and policy research so in a way we have the reports saying specifically that it doesn't exonerate trump but

then trump both on camera and on twitter and his press spokesman as well all say that this amounts to a full exoneration. yeah that was both inevitable and is alarming is arguably one of the biggest reasons why democrats view donald trump is not only a president with whom they disagree on policy but as a threat to the country the fact that the man can spin anything and act like he actually believes his own spin is both impressive but also very alarming for the president of the you know the leader of the free world as america likes to believe the president to be i think that what is so important to understand is that this is a summary of robert muller's conclusions with respect to robert muller's role as a prosecutor which means that he doesn't necessarily deal in exoneration he deals in what can he prove in a court of law and that is something that is very difficult to do in cases where it

requires a guilty conscience and guilty understanding where men stray requirements so the fact that mahler could not did not believe that he could prove true or jury beyond a reasonable doubt that trump is guilty is so far and away from evidence that he was in fact not guilty all it means is that he cannot be charged that's what it means it should be taken to mean no more or no less than that and yet you see people in the mainstream media as well as the president weeping to the conclusion that trump has been exonerated it's worrisome it's ignorance of the law and it is kind of really just it's a problem for america. jeff hauser obviously this is going to have lots of political as well as the eagle implications for the moment jeff houser thank you for sharing your expertise with us. and we're just going to take a short break do stay with us we're going to have more analysis and reaction from

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coming. president trump reacts after special counsel robert roller finds that trump did not collude with russia in the two thousand and sixteen election campaign. a pro-military party unexpectedly takes the lead in thailand's first elections since the two thousand and fourteen coup and kenya says up to a million people are at risk of starvation after a severe drought. with all your sports naomi and sought out tennis as world number one suffers a rather good this is. a total and complete exoneration of the president of the united states that saw the white house the scribe the findings of special counsel robert mueller is investigation into alleged collusion between russia and donald trump's two thousand

and sixteen election campaign the u.s. attorney general has sent a summary of the investigations conclusions to congress and the investigation found that neither trump nor any of his officials knowingly conspired with russia to manipulate the outcome of the two thousand and sixteen presidential election it also says there is insufficient evidence to establish the president trump committed obstruction of justice in relation to the investigation however it's specifically declines to exonerate president trump for committing any crimes with a u.s. . and has been reacting to the release of the attorney general's letter in the report here's what he had to say. so after a long look. after a long. investigation. after so many people have been so badly hurt. after not looking at the other side. were a lot of bad things happened a lot of horrible things happened

a lot of very bad things happen for our country. it was just announced there was no could with russia the most ridiculous thing i've ever heard there was no collusion with the russians there was no ups truck here and none whatsoever. and it was a complete and total exoneration. it's a shame that our country had to go through this. to be honest it's a shame that your president assad to go through these poor before i even got elected it began. and it began to illegally and hopefully somebody is going to look at the other side this was an illegal takedown that failed and hopefully somebody is going to be looking at the other side so it's complete.

exoneration no collusion no obstruction thank you very much thank you. donald trump speaking about twenty minutes ago there in florida where he spent the weekend go get gabriel is on the is in palm beach of course not far from the president's mara lago resort and the president had been pretty quiet uncharacteristically off twitter for the past few days but there we hear him sounding surprisingly vindicated. absolutely you know air force one just took off oh about four or five minutes ago and it just sailed over my right shoulder as he was taking off towards washington and you can imagine there's probably quite a bit a celebration going on on that plane right now you just heard president trumps a statement there he got on the plane he did not take any questions from reporters but clearly he feels vindicated without a doubt his press person sarah's huckabee sanders press secretary as well basically saying exactly what trump said but to hear it from the president's mouth himself he

tweeted actually no collusion no obstruction total vindication while he's in his motorcade on the way to the airport and then briefly addressed reporters there with that statement this is a president for the last two days has been on pins and needles waiting for this summary of this report he didn't tweet he didn't comment about it at all on saturday played golf sunday he didn't comment about it at all did not tweet about it all very unusual for him what we read into that it's anybody's guess but he had all of his top white house officials here with his top communications people his chief of staff mick mulvaney was here with him all weekend as well as his top lawyers dealing with the whole investigation all were here all weekend all were silent until just within the last hour when that came out this is a president that very much feels like i said no other way to put it if he feels that he's definitely been vindicated again it's important note that this is just

the attorney general's summary of the moeller report it's unclear if the white house has seen the entire moeller report at this juncture but just with the summary from the attorney general at least the trump white house feels very good on this sunday night. with the latest there from florida thank you let's get a passable hane a following details of this from washington d.c. having a proper look at that summary just four pages but quite a lot there already and it does seem that we're getting two narratives aren't we patty there's the president saying he's being totally exonerated and the report itself in a sense saying he hasn't been totally exonerated and then many people trying to do something about it. it really is going to be seen through a partisan lens like all things with president donald trump the thing that democrats are focusing on right now is this slime this is not conclude that the president committed a crime it also does not exonerate him so what does it exonerate him what evidence

are they talking about obviously the prosecutor in this case a special counsel robert mueller didn't think he had enough evidence to rise to the legal bar which is a really high bar that says the prosecutors fully believe they have exactly enough evidence as they need even more to get a conviction so what is the evidence that did not exonerate him well when you talk about it from a political level that is a much lower bar because democrats are going to are already saying wait a minute so robert mueller look for twenty two months on this that he couldn't answer the question of obstruction of justice but the attorney general point by donald trump decided there was not enough to go after obstruction of justice after just two days what exactly was this evidence that didn't exonerate him of committing the struction of justice still the president is right to be pleased with the part of the russian investigation it says that while russians made several attempts to influence the campaign that they found no direct evidence that basically there was a coordination

a conspiracy between the trumpet ministration and russia so that is something that the president has been saying for two more than two years this is a witch hunt that it was a hoax that there is no collusion they're saying here yes there really was no collusion the obstruction of justice question well that's a little bit murky here. how divisive do you think this will be because of course everyone is going to read this report whichever way they they want to even the summary let alone the full one based on twenty two months of it of investigation but i guess this is this frisk just not not being a full stop on it but actually making the situation even worse. it is going to make it even that much more political because the democrats are going to give up on this are not just going to say ok well we got a lot of from bob barr so i'm sure it's good nothing to see here folks know they're going and they've already said they're going to subpoena bob barr to say how did you come up to this conclusion then they're going to probably go to the courts and say we want to see the report if that is the president or the attorney general say

they don't want to hand that over that executive privilege they could claim that they presidents have tried that in the past and tend to lose on that issue in court but that takes time in the meantime they could subpoena bob mueller they could subpoena the congress because mahler and william barr they say that they are going to with bar and say hold on a minute this was an enormous amount of evidence they gathered and i think this was one of the more shocking things in the letter it just details exactly what bob miller's been doing over the past twenty two months with nineteen lawyers forty f.b.i. agents and just to give you a sense they did twenty eight hundred two thousand eight hundred subpoenas nearly five hundred search warrants two hundred three orders for communication records fifty orders authorizing the use of pen registers that's basically says hey tell me every phone to every phone call the this particular phone has made thirteen requests to foreign governments interviewed approximately five hundred witnesses so imagine the detail that is in robert muller's evidence that he says is not enough

for a prosecution for collusion bit with russia or that he's chosen not to make a decision on obstruction of justice so imagine all that is in there congress wants to see this they're going to do everything they can to get their hands on this so no this is far from over and moeller is just one of several investigations that donald trump is facing he has got a much more serious in many ways investigation from the southern district of new york those are federal prosecutors robert mueller was told you can look at two things obstruction of justice and collusion with russia there's no restriction on the southern district of new york they're looking at his inaugural committee his family businesses his family members. his past taxes they are looking at everything and they are renowned for being some of the best lawyers in the country there's also investigations of maryland d.c. new jersey the state of new york so this president can feel good he can come out and say hey i told you two years no collusion but exactly what all went into this

and all we're going to continue to find out it's not over medical lane with the latest from washington patty for the moment thank you well judge sugarman is a professor of law at fordham university joins us now via skype from new york sir thank you so much for speaking to us here on al-jazeera as we were hearing from our correspondent there i guess the results of the miller investigation of what we've seen anyway don't spell the end of the legal woes for president trump but at the same time no smoking gun was found so to speak so do you think it does mean that the president as jumped over the biggest legal hurdle that he was going to face as president. well that certainly seems to be the case from this letter but i do want to take a step back and heard part of your interview from the end of the last hour and i would agree with that commentator jeff hauser where this it letter is four pages but it only includes one page on russian interference without much detail and

there's one page on obstruction and the page on russian let me also say one bigger thing you're about the muller report to the bar letter surely the bar the muller report would include some kind of executive summary the starr report from the clinton era from from the whitewater and lewinsky investigation had short introductions or overviews like an executive summary it seems surprising to me here or at least questionable here that bar only quoted from muller's report with three sentences so if bar was going to summarize muller's report why not offer more quotations from miller's a summer.