So what did we really learn about Trump, Russia and the power of the presidency? Some of the nation’s top legal minds unpack the document of the decade.

By POLITICO MAGAZINE

April 19, 2019

From the instant Robert Mueller’s report landed yesterday, a nation of legal experts and analysts began tearing into its 432 pages, skipping past the heavy black ink of redactions, and weighing the special counsel’s findings and conclusions against the president’s claims about his campaign’s behaviour with the Russians.

What surprises lurked in the two thick volumes released by the Department of Justice? And, given Attorney General William Barr’s decision not to pursue any charges, which of Mueller’s findings will end up mattering the most for the remainder of Donald Trump’s presidency? POLITICO Magazine went to some of the brightest legal minds in America for the answers.

We’d already seen plenty of detail through the 199 criminal charges, and 37 criminal indictments and plea deals that emerged from Mueller’s investigations, and in the countless news stories issued in the 100 weeks since Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel. But there were still surprises, depending on what you were looking for—from Robert Mueller’s under-argued case for publishing an obstruction report at all to the sharp contradiction—noted by many of our experts—between Barr’s public statements and what Mueller’s team actually found. Here are their responses:

Continue reading The Surprises in the Mueller Report