Attorney General Bill Barr said Thursday that the special counsel’s 23-month Russia investigation showed that neither President Trump nor anyone else on his team colluded with Russia’s efforts to meddle in the US election.

“The special counsel’s report states that his, quote, investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities,” Barr said at a news conference at the Justice Department, hours before the report was released publicly.

“As the special counsel report makes clear, the Russian government sought to interfere, but thanks to the special counsel’s thorough investigation, we now know that the Russian operatives who perpetrated these schemes did not have the cooperation of President Trump or the Trump campaign or the knowing assistance of any other American for that matter,” he continued.

“So that’s the bottom line. After nearly two years of investigation, thousands of subpoenas, hundreds of warrants and witness interviews, the special counsel confirmed that the Russian government-sponsored efforts to illegally interfere with the 2016 presidential election, but did not find that the Trump campaign or other Americans colluded in those efforts.”

Trump celebrated on Twitter, with a Game of Thrones-like image showing him walking toward a wall of fog.

“No Collusion. No Obstruction. For the haters and the Radical Left Democrats, GAME OVER,” he wrote.

But Barr said there were 10 instances of possible obstruction that special counsel Robert Mueller scrutinized, which means new revelations are likely.

The AG also said that no one from the Trump campaign assisted the WikiLeaks dump of Democratic emails stolen from Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

And he said that Trump’s actions to fight back against the report stemmed from his anger and frustration over what he believed was a bogus probe, and that there was no criminal attempt to obstruct the investigation.

“In assessing the president’s actions discussed in the report, it is important to bear in mind the context. President Trump faced an unprecedented situation,” said the AG, who acknowledged that Justice had provided the White House with the redacted copy of the report earlier in the week.

“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. At the same time, there was relentless speculation in the news media about the president’s personal culpability, yet as he said from the beginning, there was, in fact, no collusion,” he continued.

“As the special counsel’s report acknowledges, there is substantial evidence to show that the president was frustrated and angered by his sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency, propelled by his political opponents and fueled by illegal leaks.”

Barr also defended himself, saying he was committed to the greatest possible degree of transparency under the law.

And he thanked Mueller for his work to expose Russian election meddling, and said he had no objection to Mueller testifying publicly.

Criticism was swift, with Democrats and analysts saying that Barr was spinning the report to make Trump look good and demanding the release of the full report.

“Now that President @realDonaldTrump’s campaign press conference is over: It’s time for Congress and the American public to see the #Mueller Report,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer tweeted.

“AG Barr’s opening statement is coming across as a press release from Sarah Sanders,” tweeted Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s non-partisan Center for Politics.

The Justice Department later released a redacted version of Mueller’s nearly 400-page report on Russian election interference , opening up months, if not years, of fights over what the document means in a country split by passionate partisanship.

Trump himself was in a high state of apparent agitation ahead of the report’s release, launching a constant barrage of criticism of the Russia investigation using his favored Twitter account. “PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT!” he wrote.

Barr was accompanied by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversaw the investigation after Mueller’s appointment in May 2017.

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.

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 former FBI director James 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, among them Trump’s campaign chairman, national security adviser and personal lawyer.

With Post wires