As it turns out, Attorney General William Barr's March letter summarizing the principle conclusions of the Mueller report wasn't an attempt to soften the future blow against Trump of the report's full release, or spin the story before more damning details later emerged. Instead, Barr affirmed today that special counsel Robert Mueller did indeed find "no evidence" whatsoever that President Trump or anyone associated with his campaign conspired with Russian actors to collude or cooperate in attempting to interfere with the 2016 election.

Unless Barr just outright lied to the entire nation, that determination came directly from Mueller himself, not an extrapolation from the Department of Justice.

With regards to the actions of the Internet Research Agency, the Kremlin-backed troll army that attempted to sow dissent and disinformation online, Barr quoted Mueller as writing, "the investigation did not identify evidence that any U.S. persons knowingly or intentionally coordinated with the IRA’s interference operation."

[ Related: Trump didn't claim executive privilege, Barr says]

Then Barr summarized Mueller's findings of Trump's lack of involvement with the Russian government's hacking attempts:



But again, the Special Counsel's report did not find any evidence that members of the Trump campaign or anyone associated with the campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its hacking operations. In other words, there was no evidence of Trump campaign 'collusion' with the Russian government's hacking



This undermines a favorite talking point of the liberal media, where commentators leaned on a distinction between the idea that Mueller "did not find" collusion and "found no evidence" of collusion.

"One thing we know with certainty is that Mueller is not bringing a criminal case based on the collusion set of issues," Jeffery Toobin asserted to the Washington Post. "But that doesn’t mean there’s no evidence of collusion. It only means there’s not a prosecutable case. There’s a world of difference between ‘no evidence’ and not enough evidence to bring an actual case."

In fact, Toobin asserted that Mueller would never say anything like "no evidence." "A former federal prosecutor, Toobin noted that people in this line of work don’t traffic in terms such as 'no evidence,'" the Washington Post reported.

Well, unless Barr just lied through his teeth, Mueller used that exact term.

"No evidence."

Twenty-two months, 19 lawyers, 2,800 subpoenas, 500 search warrants, 13 requests to foreign governments, 500 witness interviews, 230 orders for communications records, and 50 orders authorizing use of pen registers later, there was no evidence of collusion whatsoever.