The Department of Justice has not tipped its hand yet on the question everyone has been asking for months: How much of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report will the public get to see? | Alex Wong/Getty Images Mueller Investigation Robert Mueller's Russia investigation is officially complete The attorney general may disclose Mueller's "principal conclusions" as soon as this weekend.

Special counsel Robert Mueller has concluded his investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election — marking the end of a probe that has gripped the nation for two years and loomed over Donald Trump's entire presidency.

A Justice Department official said the special counsel had submitted a report of his findings to Attorney General William Barr on Friday. Now, Barr and his team will begin the process of reviewing the report and creating a summary document that will be sent to Congress — and perhaps publicly released.


In a one-page letter sent to congressional leaders, Barr said he may be able to advise lawmakers of Mueller's "principal conclusions" as soon as this weekend, which DOJ expects to release to the public. Barr also noted that he would determine "what other information from the report can be released to Congress and the public consistent with the law."

One thing is for sure, though. Mueller was never told, "no." Barr is required to tell Congress if DOJ leaders ever refused a Mueller request on a major step. The attorney general headed off such speculation Friday, telling Congress "there were not such instances during the Special Counsel's investigation."

And a senior Justice Department official put to rest rampant speculation about any forthcoming indictments from Mueller: “The special counsel is not recommending any further indictments."

Essentially, DOJ's message was: Mueller is done, and he was allowed to follow every lead.

Barr dove into the report right after receiving it, reading by himself in his fifth floor office into the early evening, DOJ spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said.

Barr’s confirmation that Mueller’s nearly two-year old probe had reached its end — even without detailing yet what the special counsel’s investigators had found — represents a significant mile-marker for Trump’s tenure and will certainly add more fuel onto the already heated congressional debate over whether to impeach the president.

But for now, there’s nothing of substance to digest. No answer to whether Trump and his presidential campaign conspired with the Kremlin to win the White House. No answer to whether the president obstructed justice to stop a probe into that conspiracy.

The department wouldn't discuss the precise format or length of the report.

“It’s comprehensive,” Kupec said.

DOJ also did not tip its hand yet on the question everyone has been asking for months: How much of Mueller’s report will the public get to see?

And so we wait.

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Under DOJ regulations , the special counsel at the end of his work is required to submit his confidential findings to the attorney general. The document spells out the decisions made to prosecute some people but not others. From there, Barr has the full authority to release as much — or as little — of the report as he wants.

Plans at the DOJ are to keep the report close to the vest until Barr decides what can be disclosed.

“Very few people have seen it,” Kupec said, refusing to provide a specific number.

Lawmakers are hoping to change that. Almost immediately after Friday's announcement was made, both Democrats and Republicans called on DOJ to release Mueller's report as quickly as possible. Eighteen state attorneys general even banded together to make the report public. "The American people deserve to know the truth," they said in a statement that echoed many lawmaker pleas.

The report was delivered to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s office early Friday afternoon by a security officer from Mueller’s office, Kupec said.

“Within a matter of minutes,” Rosenstein sent it to Barr’s office, she added.

White House deputy counsel Emmet Flood was notified of the development just after 4:30 p.m., Kupec said.

Rosenstein called Mueller Friday afternoon to thank him for his work, she added.

Barr's letter to congressional leaders was hand delivered to the House and Senate Judiciary committees around 5 p.m. by Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs Stephen Boyd, according to Kupec.

The department emailed the notification to other committee chairs and ranking members, she added.

The White House said it had not yet "received or been briefed on the Special Counsel’s report," according to press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

"The next steps are up to Attorney General Barr, and we look forward to the process taking its course," she said.

Kupec declined to say whether some or all of the report will be shared with the White House in the coming days.

Regardless of what the public ultimately gets, Mueller’s probe has already left a footprint on American politics that will not soon fade.

Trump and his team have had to repeatedly confront serious questions about the president’s relationship with former associates and aides who Mueller charged with federal crimes. And after Mueller accused Moscow of orchestrating an expansive disinformation campaign during the election to help the reality TV star — confirming the findings of American intelligence agencies — the White House has had to answer constant queries about the president’s personal indebtedness to Russia.

Together, those revelations have created political and legal challenges for the Trump White House that will last beyond Mueller’s eventual report, no matter what it says.

The next steps are up to Attorney General Barr, and we look forward to the process taking its course. The White House has not received or been briefed on the Special Counsel’s report. — Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) March 22, 2019

Trump’s personal lawyers in a joint statement kept their message concise.

“We’re pleased that the Office of Special Counsel has delivered its report to the Attorney General pursuant to the regulations. Attorney General Barr will determine the appropriate next steps,” said the attorneys, Rudy Giuliani and Jay Sekulow.

In an interview shortly before 5 p.m., as he went to a downtown Washington, D.C., stationary store to repair a fountain pen, Giuliani told POLITICO he wasn’t expecting to say much until the document itself came out. “Nothing really to comment on other than we’re glad that they did it and let’s hope they get it over with quick,” he said.

Giuliani also laughed off the reasoning for putting out the document at the tail end of the work week.

“If all they’re doing is announcing they delivered the report, it’s not going to have much of an impact on the markets,” the former New York mayor said with a laugh.

Mueller’s report will hardly serve as the last word on the matter. Federal prosecutors in New York are examining Trump’s inauguration and campaign spending. States have launched probes into Trump’s real estate projects and personal finances. And House Democrats have demanded documents from a plethora of people in Trump’s personal, political and business orbit.

Even the special counsel still has unfinished business. Longtime Trump associate Roger Stone is set to go to trial on Nov. 5. The Mueller team is locked in a legal fight with a Russian company that the special counsel said was at the epicenter of Moscow’s online disinformation campaign. And an unidentified state-owned foreign company has asked the Supreme Court to rule on whether it must comply with a Mueller subpoena.

Those cases expected to be largely handed off to federal prosecutors in several U.S. attorney offices.

In the interim, though, lawmakers will be pressing Barr to release the entire Mueller report.

The House voted unanimously 420-0 in March on a non-binding resolution demanding the full release of Mueller’s report. And Democrats, who now control the House, have said they plan to issue subpoenas to obtain the special counsel’s underlying investigative materials, minus classified and grand jury information. They may even force the special counsel’s to deliver public testimony.

Mueller’s investigation launched in May 2017, just days after the president fired FBI Director James Comey

The probe quickly snagged a number of high-profile Trump associates.

In October of that year, Mueller dropped his first bombshell indictments, accusing ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his longtime deputy Rick Gates of spending years dodging taxes, defrauding banks and illegally working for pro-Russian Ukrainian officials.

A few months later, Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about conversations he had with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

The special counsel also has nabbed guilty pleas from former Trump campaign staffer George Papadopoulos for lying to the FBI about his election-year knowledge of Russian election meddling efforts, and longtime Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen for misleading Congress about his efforts during the 2016 election to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.

Manafort eventually received 7.5 years in prison for his crimes, while Papadopoulos received 14 days and Cohen got three years. Gates pleaded guilty and testified against Manafort during his trial. He hasn’t been sentenced yet, and neither has Flynn.

Separately, Mueller laid out the scope of Moscow’s election meddling efforts in several novelesque indictments. One told the story of 12 Russian intelligence officials who Mueller says hacked the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign, pilfering internal emails and dumping them online through third parties like WikiLeaks and the online persona “Guccifer 2.0.” Another exposed the alleged “troll farm” housed in Russia’s Internet Research Agency that saturated social media platforms with posts that vilified Clinton and supported Trump.

In total , at least 34 people and three companies have been charged to date in the Mueller probe. Notably, however, none of the allegations have dealt directly with the core question of a conspiracy between Trump’s campaign and Russia.

Mueller has also stayed silent on several key figures in Trumpworld that have faced scrutiny over their election-year contacts with Russians. Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., for instance, eagerly accepted a meeting in the summer of 2016 with Russians promising “dirt” on Clinton. Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, also met on at least two occasions with Mueller’s investigations, first in late 2017 to discuss Flynn and then again in April 2018 to cover a range of topics.

Mueller’s work has come with costs to all involved. In December, DOJ reported spending more than $25 million during the first 16 months of the Russia probe, a total that included money that would have also been spent even if the special counsel’s efforts weren’t happening.The Trump campaign last October also reported it had spent $5.9 million on legal expenses since the president launched his 2020 reelection bid, though that totals also covers a broad array of lawyer fees and not just attorneys for people involved in the Mueller probe.

Trump has made Mueller and the Russia probe a frequent target of his ire, including more than 180 mentions on Twitter alone complaining about the “Witch Hunt” and also ordering up the special counsel’s firing in 2017 before backing down amid a resignation threat from then-White House counsel Don McGahn.

Mueller’s probe has also turned Trump officials against each other, with the president, his lawyers and former aides using media interviews, social media posts and court filings to snipe at each other in the interest of protecting themselves and their reputations.