WASHINGTON (AP) — After nearly two years of waiting, America will get some answers straight from Robert Mueller— but not before President Donald Trump's attorney general has his say.

The Justice Department on Thursday is expected to release a redacted version of the special counsel's report on Russian election interference and Trump's campaign, opening up months, if not years, of fights over what the document means in a deeply divided country.

Even the planned release of the nearly 400-page report quickly spiraled into a political battle Wednesday over whether Attorney General William Barr is attempting to shield the president who appointed him and spin the report's findings before the American people can read it and come to their own judgments.

Barr will hold a 9:30 a.m. news conference to present his interpretation of the report's findings, before providing redacted copies to Congress and the public. The news conference, first announced by Trump during a radio interview, provoked immediate criticism from congressional Democrats.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Barr had "thrown out his credibility & the DOJ's independence with his single-minded effort to protect" Trump. And Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said, "The process is poisoned before the report is even released."

"Barr shouldn't be spinning the report at all, but it's doubly outrageous he's doing it before America is given a chance to read it," Schumer said.

A Justice Department official confirmed Barr's plan to speak and answer questions about his "process" before the report's public release. He will be accompanied by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversaw the investigation after Mueller's appointment in May 2017. Mueller and other members of his team will not attend, special counsel spokesman Peter Carr said.

After the news conference, the report will be delivered to Congress on CDs between 11 a.m. and noon and then be posted on the special counsel's website, said the official, who wasn't authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Barr formulated the report's roll-out and briefed the White House on his plans, according to a White House official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. The White House declined to comment on an ABC News report that it had been briefed on the contents of Mueller's report beyond what Barr has made public.

At a later date, the Justice Department also plans to provide a "limited number" of members of Congress and their staff access to a copy of the Mueller report with fewer redactions than the public version, according to a court filing Wednesday.

The report is expected to reveal what Mueller uncovered about ties between the Trump campaign and Russia that fell short of criminal conduct. It will also lay out the special counsel's conclusions about formative episodes in Trump's presidency, including his firing of FBI Director James Comey and his efforts to undermine the Russia investigation publicly and privately.

The report is not expected to place the president in legal jeopardy, as Barr made his own decision that Trump shouldn't be prosecuted for obstruction. But it is likely to contain unflattering details about the president's efforts to control the Russia investigation that will cloud his ability to credibly claim total exoneration. And it may paint the Trump campaign as eager to exploit Russian aid and emails stolen from Democrats and Hillary Clinton's campaign even if no Americans crossed the line into criminal activity.

The report's release will be a test of Barr's credibility as the public and Congress judge whether he is using his post to protect Trump.

Barr will also face scrutiny over how much of the report he blacks out and whether Mueller's document lines up with a letter the attorney general released last month. The letter said Mueller didn't find a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russian government but he found evidence on "both sides" of the question of whether the president obstructed justice.

Barr has said he is withholding grand jury and classified information as well as portions relating to ongoing investigation and the privacy or reputation of uncharged "peripheral" people. But how liberally he interprets those categories is yet to be seen.

Democrats have vowed to fight in court for the disclosure of the additional information from the report and say they have subpoenas ready to go if it is heavily redacted.

House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said Wednesday he will "probably find it useful" to call Mueller and members of his team to testify after reading the version of the report Barr releases.

Nadler also criticized the attorney general for trying to "bake in the narrative" of the report to the benefit of the White House.

Late Wednesday, Nadler joined the chairs of four other House committees in calling for Barr to cancel his news conference. But Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, defended Barr and accused Democrats of "trying to spin the report."

Collins said Barr has done "nothing unilaterally," saying he had worked with Rosenstein and Mueller's team "step by step."

Mueller is known to have investigated multiple efforts by the president over the last two years to influence the Russia probe or shape public perception of it.

In addition to Comey's firing, Mueller scrutinized the president's request of Comey to end an investigation into Trump's first national security adviser; his relentless badgering of former Attorney General Jeff Sessions over his recusal from the Russia investigation; and his role in drafting an incomplete explanation about a meeting his oldest son took at Trump Tower with a Kremlin-connected lawyer.

Overall, Mueller brought charges against 34 people — including six Trump aides and advisers — and revealed a sophisticated, wide-ranging Russian effort to influence the 2016 presidential election. Twenty-five of those charged were Russians accused either in the hacking of Democratic email accounts or of a hidden but powerful social media effort to spread disinformation online.

Five former Trump aides or advisers pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate in Mueller's investigation, including Trump's campaign chairman, national security adviser and personal lawyer.

Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Zeke Miller in Washington and Jonathan Lemire and Jennifer Peltz in New York contributed to this report.</s>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on his inquiry into Russia’s role in the 2016 U.S. election detailed a series of actions by President Donald Trump to impede the probe, raising questions about whether he committed the crime of obstruction of justice.

The release on Thursday of the 448-page report that disclosed the findings of a 22-month investigation represented a watershed moment in Trump’s tumultuous presidency.

Mueller did not make a conclusion on whether Trump, whose presidency has been overshadowed by the Russia investigation, had committed obstruction of justice but did not exonerate him either.

The report provided fresh details of how the Republican president tried to force Mueller’s ouster, directed members of his administration to publicly vouch for his innocence and dangled a pardon to a former aide to try to prevent him from cooperating with the special counsel.

It also concluded, as Barr announced last month, that Trump and his campaign had not engaged in a criminal conspiracy with Russia during the election.

Barr in March concluded that Trump had not broken the law, but told a news conference on Thursday that Mueller had detailed “10 episodes involving the president and discusses potential legal theories for connecting these actions to elements of an obstruction offense.”

Trump appeared to be in a celebratory mood, saying at a White House event with wounded U.S. troops that he was “having a good day” following the report’s release, adding, “It’s called no collusion, no obstruction.”

The report’s disclosure, with portions blacked out by Barr to protect some sensitive information, is certain to launch a new political fight in Congress and on the 2020 presidential campaign trail, as Trump seeks re-election in a deeply divided country.

Trump has long described Mueller’s inquiry as a “witch hunt.”

The report stated that when Jeff Sessions, Barr’s predecessor as attorney general, told Trump in May 2017 that a special counsel was being appointed by the Justice Department to look into allegations that the Republican’s campaign colluded with Russia, Trump slumped back in his chair and said, “Oh my god. This is terrible. This is the end of my presidency. I’m fucked.”

Some Democrats in the House of Representatives have spoken of launching impeachment proceedings against Trump in Congress but top Democrats have been notably cautious. Any such effort would be unlikely to be successful because Trump fellow Republicans controls the Senate, which would decide the president’s fate.

The inquiry laid bare what the special counsel and U.S. intelligence agencies have described as a Russian campaign of hacking and propaganda to sow discord in the United States, denigrate 2016 Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and boost Trump, the Kremlin’s preferred candidate. Russia has denied election interference.

In analyzing whether Trump obstructed justice, Mueller looked at a series of actions by Trump, including his attempts to remove Mueller and limit the scope of his probe and efforts to prevent the public from knowing about a June, 2016 meeting at Trump Tower in New York between senior campaign officials and Russians.

In June 2017, Trump directed White House counsel Don McGahn to tell the then-acting attorney general that Mueller had conflicts of interest and must be removed, the report said.

It also said there was “substantial evidence” that Trump fired James Comey as FBI director in 2017 due to his “unwillingness to publicly state that the president was not personally under investigation.”

Mueller cited “some evidence” suggesting Trump knew about former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s controversial calls with the Russian ambassador to the United States before Trump took office, but evidence was “inconclusive” and could not be used to establish intent to obstruct.

The report said Trump directed former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski to ask former Attorney General Jeff Sessions to say the Russia investigation was “very unfair.”

Before the report’s release, Barr gave a news conference at the Justice Department as he sought to shape the narrative on the document’s findings.

One of a handful of people to have seen the report before its release, Barr emphasized, as he had said last month, that Mueller did not conclude there was collusion between Trump’s campaign and Moscow.

“President Trump faced an unprecedented situation. As he entered into office and sought to perform his responsibilities as president, federal agents and prosecutors were scrutinizing his conduct before and after taking office and the conduct of some of his associates,” Barr said.

Barr seemed to offer cover for Trump’s actions by saying the report acknowledges that “there is substantial evidence to show that the president was frustrated and angered by a sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency, propelled by his political opponents, and fueled by illegal leaks.”

Mueller’s team did not issue a subpoena to force Trump to give an interview to the special counsel because it would have created a “substantial delay” at a late stage in the investigation, the report said.

It said Mueller accepted the longstanding Justice Department view that a sitting president cannot be indicted on criminal charges, while still recognizing that a president can be criminally investigated.

The report also cited Mueller’s repeated efforts to convince Sessions to resume oversight of the probe after he had recused himself because of his own prior contacts with Russia’s ambassador to the United States.

Mueller said evidence he collected indicates that Trump intended to encourage his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, not to cooperate with the investigation and that the evidence supports the idea that Trump wanted Manafort to believe that he could receive a presidential pardon.

The report said the special counsel’s team determined there was a “reasonable argument” that the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., violated campaign finance laws, but did not believe they could obtain a conviction.</s>The 2020 presidential hopefuls lambasted Attorney General William Barr’s news conference Thursday before the release of the redacted Robert Mueller report, saying Barr behaved like a spokesperson for the president instead of the top law enforcement officer he is.

“It's a disgrace to see an Attorney General acting as if he's the personal attorney and publicist for the President of the United States,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., tweeted Thursday morning.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., said in a statement that the news conference was “an embarrassing display of propaganda on behalf of President Trump.” Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Rep. Eric Swalwell, D.-Calif., criticized Barr’s “spin.”

“Yet again Attorney General Barr has tried to spin the Mueller report before providing the actual report or the evidence underlying it,” Booker tweeted. “This is undermining the independence of this entire process.”

Swalwell later called for Barr's resignation in a tweet, saying the attorney general acted as President Donald Trump's "defense attorney."

On MSNBC’s "Morning Joe," South Bend, Indiana, Mayor and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg called the news conference “really disturbing.”

“If I were advising a president at a moment like this, I would advise being as transparent as you can,” he said. “And instead it sounds like what they want to do is describe this thing and then hand it over.”

The report’s redactions were a cause of concern among 2020 candidates, who said the redacted version of the report was not enough for Congress to “conduct meaningful oversight” over the investigation into the 2016 presidential campaign. Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Gillibrand called for special counsel Mueller to testify in front of Congress, as did Republican 2020 candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld.

“It is essential that Special Counsel Bob Mueller come before Congress and address the validity of his report that has been redacted and released. Is this the report he issued?” Weld tweeted in a statement.

Noticeably reticent on the report were Democratic frontrunners Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and former Vice President Joe Biden, who has yet to announce his candidacy but is widely suspected to be running. Former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke was also tight-lipped when a reporter asked him about it.

“I don't have enough information to share,” O’Rourke said. “But I'm glad that it's being released.”</s>Attorney General William Barr delivers a press conference at the Justice Department ahead of the expected release of special counsel Robert Mueller's report on Russian interference in the 2016 election.

A redacted version of the report is expected to be released on Thursday.</s>President Donald Trump and his team celebrated the publication of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report Thursday despite a wealth of damaging new details.

“I’m having a good day,” Trump said at a Wounded Warrior event in the East Room of the White House less than an hour after the report was released. “It’s called no collusion, no obstruction.”

Mueller’s report did not find evidence that Trump or any members of his campaign conspired with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 election. Mueller did not render a judgment on whether Trump obstructed justice despite probing a host of possible examples. Attorney General William Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein then determined there wasn’t sufficient evidence to establish that he did.

Members of Trump’s legal team made a few surprising decisions that demonstrated their willingness to let the report speak for itself. In recent days, White House lawyers made the unusual determination not to assert executive privilege over any aspects of the report, Barr confirmed Thursday.

Then, after spending months preparing a rebuttal to the report, members of Trump’s personal legal team decided not to release it on Thursday, attorney Jay Sekulow confirmed to TIME. It’s not clear if they will release it in coming days; another of Trump’s personal lawyers Rudy Giuliani was talking about the counter-report as recently as Thursday morning.

The actions by White House officials and allies on Thursday were the culmination of two years of Trump repeatedly proclaiming “no collusion,” and weeks of Trump insisting that he wanted the public to see the full report.

Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., kept his celebration simple in a tweet: “TOLD YA!!!”

Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s former campaign manager and now counselor at the White House, told reporters in the White House driveway on Thursday that this was “really the best day since he got elected.”

“It’s time to move on, total exoneration, the President’s in a great mood,” Conway said, adding that the president spent part of the morning watching Barr’s press conference and talking to his lawyers, as members of the White House went through the more than 400-page report “bit by bit.”

The lengthy report is far from the “total exoneration” that Conway and other members of the White House claim. The investigation turned up numerous encounters and actions that range from politically embarrassing to potentially highly damaging for the President and his allies.

The document details a vast web of connections between the Trump campaign and Russia: Trump associates met with Russians more than 100 times. There are numerous instances in which Mueller’s team caught Trump aides or allies lying to the public about aspects of the investigation. At one point, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders acknowledged to investigators that when she told the press after Trump fired former FBI Director James Comey that she had heard from “countless” FBI agents who had lost faith in Comey, those comments “were not founded on anything.”

Mueller also detailed multiple instances of Trump pressuring those around him in regard to the investigation. “The President’s efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful,” according to the report, “but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests.”

When asked about this assertion, Conway said, “That’s punditry. That’s actually not a sophisticated legal analysis.”

Some members of Congress have a different view, and Democratic House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler illuminated in a statement why this portion of the report could still be dangerous for Trump. “The Special Counsel made clear that he did not exonerate the President,” Nadler said. “The responsibility now falls to Congress to hold the President accountable for his actions.”

“Whether these acts are criminal or not,” Democratic House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said later in the day, they are “dishonest, unethical, immoral and unpatriotic.”

For the White House, allowing these details to come out without attempting to redact them under claims of executive privilege or immediately rebut them may have been in service of the larger defense. It would have been “difficult for [the White House] to make heavy redactions and to assert the executive privilege widespread over the report while saying that this is a complete exoneration and there’s nothing to see here,” Molly Claflin, chief oversight counsel at American Oversight, told TIME before the report was released.

As Trump put it in a tweet with graphics inspired by the television show “For the haters and the radical left Democrats— Game Over.”

Trump will spend Easter weekend at his Florida property Mar-a-Lago with a close circle of aides, including White House counsel Pat Cipollone. He emerged from the White House holding hands with the First Lady and the two boarded Marine One just after 4:15 pm, without stopping to take questions from the press.</s>WASHINGTON (AP) — It may be special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation report, but the spotlight belonged just as much to the attorney general who made it public.

The report had not yet been released when William Barr took the Justice Department podium to face questions about the now-concluded probe. He was there not only to detail the main conclusions of Mueller's investigation but also to explain his handling of the report following a reputation-bruising month that has fueled skepticism from Democrats about whether Barr is a Donald Trump loyalist.

At his press conference, Barr stressed a half-dozen times that Mueller didn't find evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. He acknowledged that Mueller closely scrutinized Trump for obstruction of justice but said he disagreed with some of Mueller's legal theories.</s>WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump and his attorney general are distorting the facts when it comes to special counsel Robert Mueller's report in the Russia investigation.

Trump and his team continue to insist that he was exonerated by the two-year investigation. That's not true. The report specifically declines to clear the president on possible charges of obstruction of justice.

And in remarks Thursday at the Justice Department, Attorney General William Barr suggested he was not really supposed to be publicly releasing the two-volume report but, on the other hand, it was "long-standing" practice to share such types of confidential information with the White House. He's wrong.

A look at the claims:

TRUMP: "As I have been saying all along, NO COLLUSION - NO OBSTRUCTION!" — tweet Thursday.

VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: "Today's release of the Special Counsel's report confirms what the President and I have said since day one: there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia and there was no obstruction of justice."

KELLYANNE CONWAY, White House counselor: "What matters is what the Department of Justice and special counsel concluded here, which is no collusion, no obstruction, and complete exoneration, as the president says."

THE FACTS: No. The special counsel specifically leaves open the question of whether the president obstructed justice.

"If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment," the report states.

The report identifies 10 instances of possible obstruction by Trump and said he might have "had a motive" to impede the investigation because of what it could find on a multitude of personal matters, such as his proposal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.

"The evidence does indicate that a thorough FBI investigation would uncover facts about the campaign and the President personally that the President could have understood to be crimes or that would give rise to personal and political concerns," the report states.

In explaining its decision, Mueller's team said reaching a conclusion on whether Trump committed crimes would be inappropriate because of Justice Department guidelines indicating that a sitting president should not be prosecuted. It nevertheless left open at least the theoretical possibility that Trump could be charged after he leaves office, noting that its factual investigation was conducted "in order to preserve the evidence when memories were fresh and documentary material were available."

"Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him," the report states.

BARR: "These reports are not supposed to be made public."

THE FACTS: He's not going out on a limb for public disclosure.

Justice Department regulations give Barr wide authority to release a special counsel's report in situations it "would be in the public interest." Barr had made clear during his Senate confirmation hearing in January that he believed in transparency with the report on Mueller's investigation into Russian election interference during the 2016 campaign, "consistent with regulations and the law."

BARR, saying it was "consistent with long-standing practice" for him to share a copy of the redacted report with the White House and president's attorneys before its release: "Earlier this week, the president's personal counsel requested and were given the opportunity to read a final version of the redacted report before it was publicly released. That request was consistent with the practice followed under the Ethics in Government Act, which permitted individuals named in a report prepared by an independent counsel the opportunity to read the report before publication."

THE FACTS: Actually, Barr's decision, citing the Ethics in Government Act, is inconsistent with independent counsel Ken Starr's handling of his report into whether President Bill Clinton obstructed and lied in Starr's probe.

On Sept. 7, 1998, Clinton's attorney David Kendall requested that Starr provide him an opportunity to review the report before it was sent to Congress. Starr quickly turned him down.

"As a matter of legal interpretation, I respectfully disagree with your analysis," Starr wrote to Kendall two days later. Starr called Kendall "mistaken" regarding the rights of the president's attorneys to "review a 'report' before it is transmitted to Congress."

Starr's report was governed by the ethics act cited by Barr as his justification for showing the report to the president's team. It has since expired. Current regulations governing Mueller's work don't specify how confidential information should be shared with the White House.

Starr's report led to the impeachment trial of Clinton in 1999.

For complete coverage of the Mueller report, go to https://www.apnews.com/TrumpInvestigations

EDITOR'S NOTE _ A look at the veracity of claims by political figures</s>After nearly two years of waiting, America is about to get some answers straight from Robert Mueller— but not before President Donald Trump's attorney general has his say.

The Justice Department on Thursday is expected to release a redacted version of the special counsel's report on Russian election interference and the Trump campaign, opening up months, if not years, of fights over what the document means in a deeply divided country.

Even the planned release of the nearly 400-page report quickly spiraled into a political battle Wednesday over whether Attorney General William Barr is attempting to shield the president who appointed him and spin the report's findings before the American people can read it and come to their own judgments.

Barr scheduled a 9:30 a.m. news conference to present his interpretation of the report's findings, before providing redacted copies to Congress and the public. The news conference, first announced by Trump during a radio interview, provoked immediate criticism from congressional Democrats.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Barr had "thrown out his credibility & the DOJ's independence with his single-minded effort to protect" Trump. And Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said, "The process is poisoned before the report is even released."

"Barr shouldn't be spinning the report at all, but it's doubly outrageous he's doing it before America is given a chance to read it," Schumer said.

Hours before Barr's press conference, Pelosi and Schumer issued a joint statement calling for Mueller to appear before Congress "as soon as possible."

They said his "partisan handling" of the report has "resulted in a crisis of confidence in his independence and impartiality."

For his part, Trump repeated what has become a near daily refrain of criticism of the Russia investigation. "PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT!" he tweeted. He also said without evidence that federal agents committed crimes as part of the probe.

Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said Thursday that Barr would address the department's interactions with the White House over Mueller's report, whether executive privilege was invoked and the process Barr used to black out portions of the document.

He was to be accompanied by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversaw the investigation after Mueller's appointment in May 2017. Mueller and other members of his team were not attending, special counsel spokesman Peter Carr said.

After the news conference, the report was to be delivered to Congress on compact discs between 11 a.m. and noon and then posted on the special counsel's website.

Barr formulated the report's roll-out and briefed the White House on his plans, according to a White House official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. The White House declined to comment on an ABC News report that it had been briefed on the contents of Mueller's report beyond what Barr has made public.

At a later date, the Justice Department also plans to provide a "limited number" of members of Congress and their staff access to a copy of the Mueller report with fewer redactions than the public version, according to a court filing Wednesday.

The report was expected to reveal what Mueller uncovered about ties between the Trump campaign and Russia that fell short of criminal conduct. It was also to lay out the special counsel's conclusions about formative episodes in Trump's presidency, including his firing of FBI Director James Comey and his efforts to undermine the Russia investigation publicly and privately.

The report was not expected to place the president in legal jeopardy, as Barr made his own decision that Trump shouldn't be prosecuted for obstruction of justice. But it is likely to contain unflattering details about the president's efforts to control the Russia investigation that will cloud his ability to credibly claim total exoneration. And it may paint the Trump campaign as eager to exploit Russian aid and emails stolen from Democrats and Hillary Clinton's campaign even if no Americans crossed the line into criminal activity.

The report's release provides a test of Barr's credibility as the public and Congress judge whether he is using his post to protect Trump.

Barr will also face scrutiny over how much of the report he blacks out and whether Mueller's document lines up with a letter the attorney general released last month. The letter said Mueller didn't find a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russian government but he found evidence on "both sides" of the question of whether the president obstructed justice.

Barr has said he is redacting grand jury and classified information as well as portions relating to ongoing investigations and the privacy or reputation of uncharged "peripheral" people. But how liberally he interprets those categories is yet to be seen.

Democrats have vowed to fight in court for the disclosure of the additional information from the report and say they have subpoenas ready to go if it is heavily redacted.

House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said Wednesday he will "probably find it useful" to call Mueller and members of his team to testify after reading the version of the report Barr releases.

Nadler also criticized the attorney general for trying to "bake in the narrative" of the report to the benefit of the White House.

Late Wednesday, Nadler joined the chairs of four other House committees in calling for Barr to cancel his news conference. But Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, defended Barr and accused Democrats of "trying to spin the report."

Collins said Barr has done "nothing unilaterally," saying he had worked with Rosenstein and Mueller's team "step by step."

Mueller is known to have investigated multiple efforts by the president over the last two years to influence the Russia probe or shape public perception of it.

In addition to Comey's firing, Mueller scrutinized the president's request of Comey to end an investigation into Trump's first national security adviser, his relentless badgering of former Attorney General Jeff Sessions over his recusal from the Russia investigation and his role in drafting an incomplete explanation about a meeting his oldest son took at Trump Tower with a Kremlin-connected lawyer.

Overall, Mueller brought charges against 34 people — including six Trump aides and advisers — and revealed a sophisticated, wide-ranging Russian effort to influence the 2016 presidential election. Twenty-five of those charged were against Russians accused either in the hacking of Democratic email accounts or of a hidden but powerful social media effort to spread disinformation online.

Five former Trump aides or advisers pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate in Mueller's investigation, among them Trump's campaign chairman, national security adviser and personal lawyer.

Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick, Lisa Mascaro and Zeke Miller in Washington and Jonathan Lemire and Jennifer Peltz in New York contributed to this report.</s>WASHINGTON (AP) - The Latest on special counsel Robert Mueller's report on Russia and President Donald Trump (all times local):

The Justice Department says it will provide Congress with a second version of special counsel Robert Mueller's report that has fewer redactions in the coming two weeks.

Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd said in a letter to lawmakers Thursday that the Justice Department will make the report available to House and Senate leaders, as well as the top Republicans and Democrats on the judiciary and intelligence committees. Each lawmaker can also have a staff member present.

Boyd says the report will be provided in a secure reading room at the Justice Department next week and in a secure room in the Capitol the week of April 29.

The unredacted material will include classified information and material involving private citizens who were not charged. It won't include secret grand jury information.

Special counsel Robert Mueller's report has finally been released to the public, and it spells out how President Donald Trump tried to seize control of the Russia probe and choke off the investigation of possible obstruction of justice.

Trump is claiming vindication, but Mueller said the president was thwarted only by the refusal of some of those around him to follow his orders.

Mueller laid out multiple episodes in which Trump directed others to influence or curtail the Russia investigation after the special counsel's appointment in May 2017.

The report says those efforts "were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests."

The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee says he'll be issuing a subpoena for the full special counsel report and the underlying materials.

New York Rep. Jerry Nadler says the report "outlines disturbing evidence" that President Donald Trump engaged in misconduct.

A redacted version of Robert Mueller's report was released on Thursday.

Nadler says the attorney general's decision to withhold the full report from lawmakers is "regrettable, but no longer surprising."

He says it's now up to Congress to hold the president accountable for his actions in the Russian probe.

The chairman has asked Mueller to testify before the panel by May 23.

Congress' two top Democrats say the special counsel's report "appears to undercut" Attorney General William Barr's assertion that it lacked sufficient evidence to conclude that President Donald Trump obstructed justice.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer say there's a big difference between Barr's description of Robert Mueller's report and what the 448-page document actually reveals. Their joint statement suggests that Democrats are prepared to press the obstruction issue even as the presidential election season approaches.

Barr described the report to journalists before the Justice Department released it. His remarks were largely positive toward Trump, saying Mueller found no cooperation between the Trump campaign and Russia's interference in the 2016 election.

Pelosi and Schumer say the "differences are stark" between Barr's account of the report's findings and the report itself.

Attorney General William Barr says a version of special counsel Robert Mueller's report with fewer redactions will be made available to a small group of lawmakers.

In a letter to Congress on Thursday, Barr says the second version of the report would be given to the "Gang of Eight," the top-ranking House and Senate lawmakers from both parties who can view sensitive classified information. The chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate judiciary committees will also receive it.

Barr said all redactions would be removed from that version of the report except those relating to grand-jury information.

The attorney general said, "I do not believe that I have discretion to disclose grand-jury information to Congress. Nevertheless, this accommodation will allow you to review the bulk of the redacted material for yourselves."

President Donald Trump's personal lawyer is suggesting the president was ensnared in some kind of "counterintelligence frame-up."

Rudy Giuliani is responding to the release of special counsel Robert Mueller's report.

Giuliani is suggesting, without evidence, that the idea of collusion between Trump's campaign and Russia began earlier than was outlined in Mueller's report.

He's says it, "Sounds like a counterintelligence trap to me."

Giuliani also says that, throughout the investigation, Trump was trying to avoid the "perjury trap" that he claims others fell into.

Giuliani says he and other members of the president's legal team read the full report in a secure room at the Justice Department earlier this week. He insists it doesn't contain a "single surprise."

He spoke Thursday on Fox News Channel after the report's public release.

Special counsel Robert Mueller says President Donald Trump's efforts to influence the Russia investigation "were mostly unsuccessful," but that was because the people surrounding the president "declined to carry out orders to accede to his requests."

Mueller's report details instances by several officials, including former FBI Director James Comey, former White House counsel Don McGahn and former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, ignoring or refusing Trump's requests to interfere in the investigation.

The Justice Department released a redacted version of Mueller's report on Thursday.

President Donald Trump's lawyer is defending him after the special counsel's report said Trump tried to seize control of the Russia investigation.

Rudy Giuliani, speaking to Fox News, said Trump "did not have a guilty motive."

A redacted version of Robert Mueller's report was released Thursday. The incidents scrutinized by Mueller's team include Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey, the president's directive to subordinates to have Mueller fired and efforts to encourage witnesses not to cooperate.

Giuliani did not dispute the facts of those incidents, but said Trump was an innocent man reacting normally in the face of what he said was a heavily biased investigation. The former New York City mayor said the efforts were "an attempt not to get framed."

Three House Republican leaders say the special counsel's report on President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign and Russian interference in that election have vindicated the president.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy says the report by Robert Mueller shows it's time to move on from Democrats' effort to "vilify a political opponent." The California lawmaker says the report lacks "imaginary evidence" incriminating Trump that Democrats have sought.

No. 2 House GOP leader Steve Scalise says Trump didn't cooperate with Russians or obstruct investigators. The Louisianan says Democrats should apologize for "this smear campaign."

The top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee is Georgia Rep. Doug Collins, and he says Democrats' claims that Trump obstructed the probe were unfounded.

Top Senate Republicans were more cautious, praising the investigation but saying they looked forward to learning the report's details.

The spokesman for Vladimir Putin says it's not yet clear if the Russian president will be informed in detail of the special counsel's report on his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Dmitry Peskov spoke to state news agency Tass shortly after the report was released in Washington on Thursday.

He said, "First we will have to leaf through it and understand if there is something deserving analysis."

The Mueller report appears to be most heavily redacted in its first section, which covers Russia's meddling in the 2016 election and examines contacts between Russian representatives and the Trump campaign. The report concludes there was no criminal culpability by Trump aides.

Several pages in that first section are almost entirely blacked out. The report's second section, examining possible obstruction by President Donald Trump, appears more lightly redacted.

The Justice Department's careful excisions begin as early as the fourth page of the report.

Barr said he was withholding grand jury and classified information as well as portions relating to ongoing investigation and the privacy or reputation of uncharged "peripheral" people.

In referencing an oligarch who headed up a team of Russian tech experts who used U.S. social media to exploit American political controversies, Justice officials blacked out details about the man's ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Special counsel Robert Mueller found that contacts between Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak and Trump campaign officials in April 2016 and at the 2016 GOP convention were "brief, public, and non-substantive."

Mueller's assessment came as part of his investigation into potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Mueller's report adds that his office "did not establish" that efforts to alter the GOP platform's language on Ukraine at the convention were done at the behest of Trump or Russia.

Additionally, Mueller did not establish that a conversation between Kislyak and then-Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions in September 2016 included "any more than a passing mention of the presidential campaign." Sessions later served as Trump's attorney general.

Two of the Senate's top Republicans are praising Attorney General William Barr for releasing the special counsel's report on the 2016 election. But they're stopping short of joining Barr in proclaiming that the report vindicates President Donald Trump.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says in a written statement, "I look forward to carefully reviewing the report."

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham says his panel is studying the report. The South Carolina Republican says he's eager to hear Barr's May 1 testimony to his panel.

Both lawmakers issued their statements minutes after the Justice Department released a redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller's report.

Barr told reporters earlier that Mueller found that Trump's campaign did not cooperate with Russians who interfered in the election and that there was insufficient evidence to say Trump obstructed investigators.

Donald Trump's legal team says the results of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation are a "total victory for the president."

The lawyers say in a statement that Mueller's report is "nothing more than an attempt to rehash old allegations." The statement came as Mueller's report was publicly released.

Mueller found no criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russia government to interfere in the 2016 election. He did not exonerate Trump on the question of whether he committed obstruction of justice.

Special counsel Robert Mueller's team was dissatisfied with written responses from President Donald Trump, but decided against issuing a subpoena for an interview.

In Mueller's report released Thursday, prosecutors call Trump's answers "inadequate." They considered issuing a subpoena for Trump, but decided against it after weighing the likelihood of a long legal battle.

Prosecutors also said they had enough information from other sources to draw "relevant factual conclusions on intent and credibility."

Mueller's team investigated contacts between Trump's campaign and Russia and whether the president obstructed justice. The written answers did not cover obstruction of justice.

President Donald Trump says he's "having a good day" following the release of special counsel Robert Mueller's report.

And he says that no president should ever have to go through what he did again.

Speaking at an unrelated White House event, he says, "It was called no collusion, no obstruction." And add, "there never was, by the way, and there never will be."

Trump is also renewing his calls for an investigation into the origins of the inquiry, saying "We do have to get to the bottom of these things."

He says: "this should never happen to another president again, this hoax."

Trump is speaking an event honoring the Wounded Warrior Project's Soldier Ride, a multi-day bike ride for wounded veterans and service member.

Special counsel Robert Mueller's report on the Russia investigation is two volumes and 448 pages long including attachments.

The report's first volume details Russian election interference and the second relates to whether President Donald Trump obstructed justice.

Special counsel Robert Mueller's report reveals how Trump repeatedly sought to seize control of the Russia probe.

The 10 episodes scrutinized by Mueller include Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey, the president's directive to subordinates to have Mueller fired and efforts to encourage witnesses not to cooperate.

The president's lawyers have said Trump's conduct fell within his constitutional powers, but Mueller's team deemed the episodes were deserving of scrutiny to determine whether crimes were committed.

Democrats vying for their party's 2020 presidential nomination are condemning Attorney General William Barr for acting like a defender of President Donald Trump.

Barr held a news conference on special counsel Robert Mueller's report before it was released. He said it found no cooperation between Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and Russians interfering in that election.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren tweeted that it was "a disgrace" for Barr to act like "the personal attorney and publicist" for Trump.

New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand called Barr's news conference "a farce and an embarrassing display of propaganda" for Trump. And New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker said, "The American people deserve the truth. Not spin from a Trump appointee."

California Sen. Kamala Harris tweeted that Barr's news conference was "a stunt, filled with political spin."

The Justice Department has provided Congress with a redacted version of the report. Democrats want the full report released.

Trump's responses are being released by Attorney General William Barr without redactions and comprise 12 pages.

Trump told Mueller he had no recollection of several key events in Mueller's probe, including a 2016 meeting at Trump Tower between top aides and a Russian lawyer offering aid to his campaign. Trump also told Mueller he had no recollection that he was told that Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to aid his campaign or hurt Hillary Clinton's 2016 effort, or that any foreign leader wanted to help his candidacy.

Special counsel Robert Mueller's report says President Donald Trump reacted to his appointment by saying it was the "end of his presidency."

Mueller investigated multiple instances of Trump attempting to curtail the special counsel probe as part of determining whether the president committed obstruction of justice.

Robert Mueller's report reveals President Donald Trump's efforts to seize control of the Russia probe and force the special counsel's removal.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says Attorney General William Barr is involved in a "staggering public effort" by the Trump administration to put a positive face on special counsel Robert Mueller's report.

The California Democrat is referring to Barr's morning news conference, where he said the report found no cooperation between Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and Russian interference in that election. Pelosi is also citing Barr's statement that he gave Trump's personal attorney an early look at the report, before its public release.

Pelosi says it is "more urgent than ever" that Mueller testify before Congress. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler has formally invited Mueller to testify as soon as possible.

A redacted version of Mueller's report is due to be released later Thursday morning.

The Senate's top Democrat is mocking Attorney General William Barr's news conference on special counsel Robert Mueller's report as a "campaign press conference" for President Donald Trump.

The tweet by New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer also says it is time to release Mueller's report on his investigation into the Trump 2016 presidential campaign and Russian interference in the election. Schumer is Senate minority leader.

Barr told reporters at a news conference that the report found no cooperation between the campaign and Russia and no effort by Trump to thwart investigators.

The Justice Department planned to release the report later Thursday morning. Barr says portions of it will be blacked out to protect national security secrets, grand jury investigations and other sensitive information. Democrats have said they want the full report released.

Attorney General William Barr says he and deputy Rod Rosenstein disagreed with some of special counsel Robert Mueller's "legal theories" pertaining to obstruction of justice, but that didn't influence their decision that President Donald Trump didn't commit a crime.

In a press conference ahead of the report's expected release, Barr says Mueller reviewed 10 episodes as part of his investigation into whether Trump committed obstruction of justice. Barr says he and Rosenstein "felt that some of the episodes examined did not amount to obstruction as a matter of law."

The attorney general maintains that they set their feelings on the matter aside and accepted Mueller's "legal framework for purposes of our analysis" when they determined that the evidence gathered by Mueller was "not sufficient to establish" that Trump had violated the law.

A Republican Ohio congressman who's been one of President Donald Trump's staunchest defenders is hailing Attorney General William Barr's statements that the special counsel's report has concluded there is no evidence that Trump's campaign conspired with Russia to influence the 2016 election or that he tried thwarting investigators.

Rep. Jim Jordan is tweeting, "No collusion! No obstruction! Complete cooperation from the President. No executive privilege asserted."

Jordan issued his remarks shortly after Barr spoke to reporters. The report was expected to be released later Thursday morning.

The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee is asking special counsel Robert Mueller to testify before his panel as soon as possible about his report on the Trump campaign and Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Chairman Jerrold Nadler released a three-sentence letter to Mueller requesting his appearance, minutes after Attorney General William Barr ended a news conference in which he described the special counsel's report. The New York Democrat tweeted that Congress and the public need to hear directly from Mueller to "better understand his findings."

Nadler wrote in his letter that he wants Mueller to testify by May 23 and asked for his "prompt attention" to the request.

Barr said at his news conference that he did not object to Mueller testifying.

Attorney General William Barr says he will allow Congress to view special counsel Robert Mueller's report with nothing redacted other than grand jury information.

Barr says three other categories of information also were redacted in the publicly released report, including information pertaining to ongoing prosecutions and sensitive intelligence sources and methods.

Barr says he hopes that giving Congress access to the less redacted report and his upcoming testimony on Capitol Hill "will satisfy any need Congress has for information regarding the special counsel's investigation."

Barr spoke Thursday at a news conference with reporters shortly before the report's release.

Attorney General William Barr says he has "no objection" to special counsel Robert Mueller testifying before Congress about his investigation.

Barr says: "I have no objection to Bob Mueller personally testifying."

Mueller remains a Justice Department employee, and Barr could have blocked Mueller from speaking to Congress. Democrats have discussed calling Mueller to testify but have yet to formally ask.

Attorney General William Barr says President Donald Trump did not exert executive privilege over any information included in special counsel Robert Mueller's report.

He said the White House counsel reviewed a redacted version of the report before Trump decided not to invoke executive privilege.

Barr said "no material has been redacted based on executive privilege."

Attorney General William Barr says special counsel Robert Mueller's report recounts 10 episodes involving President Donald Trump that were investigated as potential acts of criminal obstruction of justice.

Barr says Mueller did not reach a "prosecutorial judgment" and that he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein concluded the evidence was not sufficient to establish the president committed an offense.

For complete coverage of the Mueller report, go to https://www.apnews.com/TrumpInvestigations</s>WASHINGTON (AP) — After nearly two years of waiting, America will get some answers straight from Robert Mueller— but not before President Donald Trump's attorney general has his say.

The Justice Department on Thursday is expected to release a redacted version of the special counsel's report on Russian election interference and Trump's campaign, opening up months, if not years, of fights over what the document means in a deeply divided country.

Even the planned release of the nearly 400-page report quickly spiraled into a political battle Wednesday over whether Attorney General William Barr is attempting to shield the president who appointed him and spin the report's findings before the American people can read it and come to their own judgments.

Barr will hold a 9:30 a.m. news conference to present his interpretation of the report's findings, before providing redacted copies to Congress and the public. The news conference, first announced by Trump during a radio interview, provoked immediate criticism from congressional Democrats.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Barr had "thrown out his credibility & the DOJ's independence with his single-minded effort to protect" Trump. And Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said, "The process is poisoned before the report is even released."

"Barr shouldn't be spinning the report at all, but it's doubly outrageous he's doing it before America is given a chance to read it," Schumer said.

A Justice Department official confirmed Barr's plan to speak and answer questions about his "process" before the report's public release. He will be accompanied by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversaw the investigation after Mueller's appointment in May 2017. Mueller and other members of his team will not attend, special counsel spokesman Peter Carr said.

After the news conference, the report will be delivered to Congress on CDs between 11 a.m. and noon and then be posted on the special counsel's website, said the official, who wasn't authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Barr formulated the report's roll-out and briefed the White House on his plans, according to a White House official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. The White House declined to comment on an ABC News report that it had been briefed on the contents of Mueller's report beyond what Barr has made public.

At a later date, the Justice Department also plans to provide a "limited number" of members of Congress and their staff access to a copy of the Mueller report with fewer redactions than the public version, according to a court filing Wednesday.

The report is expected to reveal what Mueller uncovered about ties between the Trump campaign and Russia that fell short of criminal conduct. It will also lay out the special counsel's conclusions about formative episodes in Trump's presidency, including his firing of FBI Director James Comey and his efforts to undermine the Russia investigation publicly and privately.

The report is not expected to place the president in legal jeopardy, as Barr made his own decision that Trump shouldn't be prosecuted for obstruction. But it is likely to contain unflattering details about the president's efforts to control the Russia investigation that will cloud his ability to credibly claim total exoneration. And it may paint the Trump campaign as eager to exploit Russian aid and emails stolen from Democrats and Hillary Clinton's campaign even if no Americans crossed the line into criminal activity.

The report's release will be a test of Barr's credibility as the public and Congress judge whether he is using his post to protect Trump.

Barr will also face scrutiny over how much of the report he blacks out and whether Mueller's document lines up with a letter the attorney general released last month. The letter said Mueller didn't find a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russian government but he found evidence on "both sides" of the question of whether the president obstructed justice.

Barr has said he is withholding grand jury and classified information as well as portions relating to ongoing investigation and the privacy or reputation of uncharged "peripheral" people. But how liberally he interprets those categories is yet to be seen.

Democrats have vowed to fight in court for the disclosure of the additional information from the report and say they have subpoenas ready to go if it is heavily redacted.

House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said Wednesday he will "probably find it useful" to call Mueller and members of his team to testify after reading the version of the report Barr releases.

Nadler also criticized the attorney general for trying to "bake in the narrative" of the report to the benefit of the White House.

Late Wednesday, Nadler joined the chairs of four other House committees in calling for Barr to cancel his news conference. But Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, defended Barr and accused Democrats of "trying to spin the report."

Collins said Barr has done "nothing unilaterally," saying he had worked with Rosenstein and Mueller's team "step by step."

Mueller is known to have investigated multiple efforts by the president over the last two years to influence the Russia probe or shape public perception of it.

In addition to Comey's firing, Mueller scrutinized the president's request of Comey to end an investigation into Trump's first national security adviser; his relentless badgering of former Attorney General Jeff Sessions over his recusal from the Russia investigation; and his role in drafting an incomplete explanation about a meeting his oldest son took at Trump Tower with a Kremlin-connected lawyer.

Overall, Mueller brought charges against 34 people — including six Trump aides and advisers — and revealed a sophisticated, wide-ranging Russian effort to influence the 2016 presidential election. Twenty-five of those charged were Russians accused either in the hacking of Democratic email accounts or of a hidden but powerful social media effort to spread disinformation online.

Five former Trump aides or advisers pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate in Mueller's investigation, including Trump's campaign chairman, national security adviser and personal lawyer.

Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Zeke Miller in Washington and Jonathan Lemire and Jennifer Peltz in New York contributed to this report.
The redacted version of the report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller is released by U.S. Attorney General William Barr. The investigation did not find any conspiracy between President Donald Trump and the Russian government regarding the accusation that they collaborated to win the 2016 presidential election. The report did not rule out if the Trump administration committed obstruction of justice. The Department of Justice also stated some members of Congress will receive a less-redacted version of the report in the near future.