Trump 'did not conspire with Russia'

Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report on Moscow's meddling in the 2016 election found no evidence of conspiracy by President Donald Trump's campaign to collude with Russia, the US Justice Department said yesterday.

Mueller declined to rule on whether evidence showed Trump obstructed justice, according to a summary submitted to Congress by Attorney General Bill Barr.

"While this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him," Barr cited Mueller's report as saying.

It was not immediately known what Mueller's report says about another strand of inquiry: whether Trump committed obstruction of justice to hinder the Russia investigation by acts such as firing FBI Director James Comey in 2017.

There might be no more criminal charges against Trump associates on the issue of whether the Trump campaign conspired with Russia to help the real estate magnate beat Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 White House race. US intelligence agencies concluded shortly before Trump took office in January 2017 that Moscow meddled in the election.

Barr, the top US law enforcement official, spent nine hours on Saturday studying the report. He had said he hoped to hand over a summary of its "principal conclusions" by the end of the weekend.

Mueller brought charges against 34 people and three companies during his investigation, with prison sentences for some of Trump's former aides such as campaign chairman Paul Manafort and longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen.

None of those charges, however, directly related to whether Trump's campaign worked with Moscow.