Long-awaited document to be released on Thursday could shed light on details of evidence gathered during two-year Trump-Russia investigation

Almost two years after Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel to investigate potential ties between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia, the American people will finally read his report on Thursday – albeit in redacted form.

The public release of the 400-page Mueller report marks a significant moment for a country on tenterhooks over what the former FBI director has uncovered. It marks the first time that US citizens and members of Congress will be able to hear from the special counsel directly rather than through the lens of his Department of Justice (DoJ) bosses or the media.

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In the lead-up to the report’s release, the White House was in a defensive crouch. Justice department officials provided lawyers close to Trump with briefings on the content of the report in advance of its release, the New York Times reported Wednesday, assisting the White House in the preparation of a rebuttal to a document that Trump previously claimed had “totally exonerated” him.

The redacted report will be delivered to Congress by the Department of Justice some time between 11am and noon US east coast time, in the old-style form of CDs, and then released generally on the DoJ website after that. True to the controversy that has dogged the report since its inception, William Barr, the attorney general, has infuriated Democrats by announcing that he will hold a news conference before they lay hands on the document, at 9.30am ET.

Jerrold Nadler, the Democratic chairman of the House judiciary committee, called a news conference late Wednesday to criticize the multi-step rollout and to accuse Barr of attempting to prejudice the public reception of the report in favor of the White House.

“The fact that the attorney general is not releasing even the redacted report to Congress until after his press conference will again result in the report being presented in his own words, rather than in the words of special counsel Robert Mueller,” Nadler said.

“The central concern here is that attorney general Barr is not allowing the facts of the Mueller report to speak for themselves, but is instead trying to bake in the narrative about the report to the benefit of the White House.”

Trump could emerge to make public comments on the report at any time on Thursday. He has one public engagement at 10.30am in Washington and later in the day is due to travel to his private resort club, Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida, with his wife, Melania, for a long weekend over Easter.

Mueller was appointed in May 2017. How revelatory the document is will depend on the extent of its redactions.

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Since the report was handed on 21 March to the recently appointed US attorney general, he has been busily obscuring parts of it from public and congressional view.

Barr has insisted the redactions are necessary for legal reasons involving material gathered secretly by a grand jury and evidence in other continuing criminal cases. According to the Washington Post, the redactions are likely to be “light”.

But Democrats remain suspicious, given the fact that Barr was handpicked by Trump to head the justice department and the speed with which he rushed out a four-page summary of the Mueller report – a summary that was generally favorable to the president.

One of the most important questions that will be raised by Thursday’s release is whether Barr’s brief summary is true to Mueller’s original report.

Democratic leaders in Congress are unlikely in any case to be satisfied until they have seen the complete, unredacted version. Nadler has indicated that he will subpoena the justice department for the full document potentially as soon as Friday.

As an indication of how far the wrangling is from being over, the Democratic leaders in Congress, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, expressed their determination to call Mueller himself to Capitol Hill for questioning about his report and its handling. They said: “We believe the only way to begin restoring public trust in the handling of the Special Counsel’s investigation is for Special Counsel Mueller himself to provide public testimony in the House and Senate as soon as possible.”

There will be much riding on what emerges from the report. Criminal charges have been ruled out after Barr said that he and his deputy, Rod Rosenstein, had decided there was insufficient evidence to establish that Trump had committed obstruction of justice.

It remains a possibility, though unlikely, that Democratic leaders in the House will see material in the report that merits the framing of impeachment charges against the president.

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The Mueller report could still provide political ammunition against Trump as the president seeks re-election in next year’s presidential contest.

White House lawyers have been preparing for days for Thursday’s publication. Though it is understood that no copy of the report has been seen in advance, according to the New York Times justice department officials have been briefing the legal team on its conclusions.

The White House is expected to issue its own report as a riposte to the official one some time soon.

The Mueller report is expected to fall into two clear sections.

The first will look at Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential race and the question of any involvement in that effort by the Trump campaign.

The second part will deal with obstruction of justice allegations.