President Donald Trump Joshua Roberts | Reuters The Mueller report is in — but we haven't heard the whole story yet. Only a summary of special counsel Robert Mueller's highly anticipated report on Russian election interference, obstruction and possible Trump-campaign collusion has so far been released by Attorney General William Barr. But that four-page document, shared by Barr on Sunday with the leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary committees, has already been touted by President Donald Trump and his supporters as a "total and complete exoneration." Barr wrote that Mueller's final report "did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated" with Russia — a massive political victory for Trump that lends credence to his long-asserted refrain of "no collusion." Mueller also made no determination on whether Trump himself obstructed justice, according to the summary. But Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who received Mueller's report on Friday and reviewed it over the weekend, concluded that the special counsel's evidence was "not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense." The Financial Times' Edward Luce said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that the summary's revelations made Sunday "the best day of Trump's presidency." But while Barr's summary did provide answers on some of the key questions dogging Trump since the presidential election, it leaves many more unanswered. Here are five remaining questions in the wake of Barr's letter: How long is the report, and what will the public see? Barr's brief letter to Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., and Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., includes quotations from Mueller's report but no full sentences. It also says nothing about the length of the report or the level of detail it provides. Democrats and Republicans alike had called on Barr to publicly release the report. "The American people have a right to the truth," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement Friday. "The watchword is transparency." Graham, in a press conference Monday, said "my desire is for the public to get as much of the report as possible." Barr said the same in his letter — but noted that "the report contains material that is or could be subject" to federal rules imposing "restrictions on the use and disclosure" of testimony from Mueller's grand jury. For now, it remains unclear when the report will be made publicly available and how much of it may be redacted or otherwise kept confidential. Why didn't Mueller interview Trump? According to the summary, Mueller's team of 19 lawyers and about 40 FBI agents interviewed "approximately 500 witnesses" over the investigation's nearly two-year duration. Trump wasn't one of them. The president's lawyers had resisted letting Trump sit down for a face-to-face interview with federal investigators, saying it would be a "perjury trap" designed to manipulate him into lying. John Dowd, Trump's former lawyer, said in February that he had advised Trump against sitting for an interview, explaining that "what I was worried about is that he really couldn't do it. He couldn't do it." CNN, citing a source familiar with the matter, reported Monday that the special counsel and Justice Department officials had deliberated "at length" about subpoenaing Trump for an interview but ultimately decided against it. After a monthslong tug-of-war, the special counsel ended up submitting a written list of questions to Trump's attorneys, which were answered in late November. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said in an ABC News interview Sunday, "It was a mistake to rely on written responses by the president." Congressional ethics and investigations attorney Andrew Herman said it is "unsurprising" that Trump was never interviewed in the probe. "The office of the president is special, and he has special privileges," Herman told CNBC. "No one else has a memo in the Department of Justice files that says 'you can't indict this person while they're sitting in office.'" What about the existing investigations? Mueller's probe, launched days after Trump fired former FBI Director James Comey in May 2017, is now technically complete. But many of the cases lodged by Mueller are far from finished. Less than two weeks before filing his report, Mueller wrote in Washington, D.C., court that Rick Gates, the longtime partner of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, "continues to cooperate" in several ongoing investigations. Gates still has not been sentenced. The trial date for Roger Stone, the self-described political dirty trickster and confidant of Trump who was arrested in late January on charges of lying to Congress and witness tampering, has recently been set for Nov. 5. Stone has pleaded not guilty to the charges, which revolve around statements he made to Congress about his alleged efforts to have WikiLeaks release material hacked by Russian agents from Democrats, including Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, during the 2016 campaign. Trump's first national security advisor, Michael Flynn, has yet to be sentenced in his cases on a charge of lying to FBI agents about his conversations with Russia's then-ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak. The still-pending cases appear to have been transferred to proximate U.S. attorneys' offices. A spokesman for the special counsel confirmed to CNBC that control of Gates' and Stone's cases had been handed over to the U.S. attorney's office in Washington. The Washington U.S. attorney's office had been part of Stone's case "from the outset," the spokesman added. That office has also been involved in the case of Concord Management and Consulting, the company accused of backing a Russian "troll farm" meant to influence the 2016 presidential election, CNN reported Saturday. The outlet also reported that plans to transfer Flynn's case, as well as the pursuit of grand jury testimony from Stone associate Andrew Miller, have not been finalized yet. What will Democrats do? Even before Mueller submitted the Russia report, Democrats in the House had opened a sweeping probe into Trump, his administration and dozens of his associates. That probe has three main points of focus: alleged obstruction of justice by Trump and others and the "alleged cover-up of violations of the law"; alleged corruption in areas including violations of the Constitution's emoluments clause "and other criminal misuses of official positions for personal gain"; and alleged abuses of power, such as attacking the press and misusing the presidential pardon power. It's unclear how the trajectory of that probe might be altered in light of Barr's determination that there was insufficient evidence to lodge an obstruction-of-justice offense against Trump. Nadler said early in March that he believes Trump has "very clearly" obstructed justice. On Sunday, Nadler said, "We will ask the attorney general to testify before the House Judiciary Committee. We will demand the release of the full report." Rep. Eric Swallwell, D-Calif., another member of the Judiciary Committee, said Friday on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" that "we're going to subpoena" Mueller to testify, as well. In the meantime, Swallwell and other Democrats have made clear that they aren't sold on Barr's summary alone. Swallwell TWEET Until we hear from Mueller, call it the Barr Report. What will Republicans do?<doc-sep>The Special Counsel obtained a number of indictments and convictions of individuals and entities in connection with his investigation, all of which have been publicly disclosed. During the course of his investigation, the Special Counsel also referred several matters to other offices for further action. The report does not recommend any further indictments, nor did the Special Counsel obtain any sealed indictments that have yet to be made public. Below, I summarize the principal conclusions set out in the Special Counsel's report. Russian Interference in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. The Special Counsel's report is divided into two parts. The first describes the results of the Special Counsel's investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The report outlines the Russian effort to influence the election and documents crimes committed by persons associated with the Russian government in connection with those efforts. The report further explains that a primary consideration for the Special Counsel's investigation was whether any Americans – including individuals associated with the Trump campaign – joined the Russian conspiracies to influence the election, which would be a federal crime. The Special Counsel's investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election. As the report states: “[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”1 The Special Counsel's investigation determined that there were two main Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election. The first involved attempts by a Russian organization, the Internet Research Agency (IRA), to conduct disinformation and social media operations in the United States designed to sow social discord, eventually with the aim of interfering with the election. As noted above, the Special Counsel did not find that any U.S. person or Trump campaign official or associate conspired or knowingly coordinated with the IRA in its efforts, although the Special Counsel brought criminal charges against a number of Russian nationals and entities in connection with these activities. The second element involved the Russian government's efforts to conduct computer hacking operations designed to gather and disseminate information to influence the election. The Special Counsel found that Russian government actors successfully hacked into computers and obtained emails from persons affiliated with the Clinton campaign and Democratic Party organizations, and publicly disseminated those materials through various intermediaries, including WikiLeaks. Based on these activities, the Special Counsel brought criminal charges against a number of Russian military officers for conspiring to hack into computers in the United States for purposes of influencing the election. But as noted above, the Special Counsel did not find that the Trump campaign, or anyone associated with it, conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in these efforts, despite multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign.<doc-sep>At a press conference Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi criticized Attorney General William Barr for releasing a 4-page summary of the Mueller investigation rather than the special counsel's entire report, calling it "condescending" and "arrogant." "No thank you Mr. Attorney General. We do not need your interpretation. Show us the report and we can draw our own conclusions. We don't need you interpreting for us. It was condescending, it was arrogant and wasn't the right thing to do. The sooner they can give us the information, the sooner we can make a judgment about it." The big picture: Pelosi's comments come amid reports from the New York Times and other outlets that the Mueller report is more than 300 pages. Six House Democratic chairmen have demanded that Barr release the full report by April 2, but Barr told Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler yesterday that he's unlikely to meet that deadline. Pelosi also commented on news that all 9 Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee have called for Chairman Adam Schiff to resign for promoting "a demonstrably false narrative" about the Trump campaign colluding with Russia. "I'm so proud of the work of chairman Adam Schiff, in stark contrast to the irresponsible, almost criminal behavior of the previous chair of the committee. So what is the president afraid of? Is he afraid of the truth, that he would go after a respected chairman of a committee in the Congress? I think they're just scaredy cats. ... It's their own insecurity, their own fear of the truth."<doc-sep>
Read: What Mueller leaves behind “As described by Barr, at least, Mueller’s report was very focused on criminal-law standards and processes,” said David Kris, a founder of Culper Partners, who served as the assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s National Security Division under former President Barack Obama. “We won’t know for sure if that is the case, and if it is the case, why Mueller confined himself in that way, until we see the full report.” Kris noted, however, that “there is no question that a counterintelligence investigation would have a wider aperture than a strict criminal inquiry as applied here, and would be concerned, for example, with the motivations and any sub-criminal misconduct of the principal actors.” A counterintelligence probe, he added, would ask more than whether the evidence collected is sufficient to obtain a criminal conviction—it could provide necessary information to the public about why the president is making certain policy decisions. “The American people rightly should expect more from their public servants than merely avoiding criminal liability,” Kris said. A spokesman for the House Intelligence Committee said in a statement on Monday that in light of Barr’s memo “and our need to understand Special Counsel Mueller’s areas of inquiry and evidence his office uncovered, we are working in parallel with other Committees to bring in senior officials from the DOJ, FBI and SCO to ensure that our Committee is fully and currently informed about the SCO’s investigation, including all counterintelligence information.” Read: The House’s latest move could be a big threat to Trump’s presidency In May 2017, just after Trump fired former FBI Director James Comey, the FBI launched a full counterintelligence investigation into the president to determine whether he was acting as a Russian agent. “We were concerned, and we felt like we had credible, articulable facts to indicate that a threat to national security may exist,” former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe explained to me last month. It’s still not clear what became of that counterintelligence probe after Mueller was appointed, and Barr did not indicate in his four-page summary how far the special counsel pursued it. Read: Andrew McCabe couldn’t believe the things Trump said about Putin Jeremy Bash, who served as chief of staff at the Defense Department and the CIA under Obama, said he believes Mueller’s “core focus” was to determine whether or not federal criminal laws were violated. “If Mueller interpreted his mandate as a criminal one, the decision to pursue the investigation as such is something he will have to explain to Congress,” Bash said. Mueller’s mandate, given to him by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, empowered him to investigate not only any “coordination” between the campaign and Russia, but any “links” between them as well. Barr’s summary does not describe how Mueller investigated or came to explain the many interactions the campaign had with various Russians during the election.