A 4-page summary of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report signed by U.S. Attorney General William Barr was released Sunday afternoon, but what we know about the report itself so far has done little to affect the nation’s entrenched partisan divide.
Outside Trump Tower on Sunday afternoon, New Yorkers and tourists who supported the President said they were vindicated by Barr’s letter, while his detractors said they wanted further investigations into Trump’s potential wrongdoing.
“There's nothing there. They would have found something already,” said Frank Kocielski, 29, a truck driver visiting Trump Tower from Delaware. “It was just a waste of two years and tax money. Now they can get back to doing what they should be doing.”
Mario Laboy, 74, an enthusiastic supporter wearing a MAGA hat and waving a “Trump 2020: Keep America Great!” banner said he was delighted by Barr’s letter, but not surprised.
“I always believed in Donald J. Trump,” he said. “Let’s move forward. To have that hate against our President; it’s not beneficial for no one, regardless of your affiliation... We have to move ahead.”
But President Trump’s opponents were unconvinced by Barr’s 4-page summary of Mueller’s report.
“We don’t even have the document, do we?” said Gary Bradley, an editor for television, speaking in Washington Square Park Sunday afternoon. “We’d all like to see the document because, really, Barr doesn’t seem like a person whose summary we want very much.”
Maria Martello, a 31-year-old gardener from Westchester, was walking past Trump Tower Sunday afternoon and said she wanted to see further investigations into the President and his business.
“He's guilty of something,” she said. “I think It'll come out eventually.”
Diana Matthews, 75, from Forest Hills, Queens said she wished the report had proved something.
“I want this man out of office as fast as possible,” she said. “I just pray that something happens.”
According to Barr’s letter to Congress, Mueller’s investigation didn’t establish that members of Trump’s campaign had conspired with Russian operatives and doesn’t provide enough evidence to bring an obstruction of justice charge against President Trump. However, the letter quotes the report as saying, “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”
President Trump tweeted “No Collusion, No Obstruction, Complete and Total EXONERATION. KEEP AMERICA GREAT!” in response to Barr’s letter on Sunday.
Rep. Jerry Nadler, who is the Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, on the Upper West Side (Gwynne Hogan / WNYC)
At a hastily-called press conference in the Upper West Side part of his district Sunday night, Congressman Jerrold Nadler, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, vowed to press the Justice Department to release the full report and to continue to investigate the President more broadly than Mueller did.
“Congress must step in to get the truth and provide full transparency to the American people,” he said, to a scrum of reporters, and a handful of onlookers gathered in Verdi Square outside the 72nd Street subway stop.
“The president has not been exonerated by the Special Counsel, yet the Attorney General has decided not to go further or apparently to share those findings with the public. We cannot simply rely on what may be a hasty, partisan, interpretation of the facts.”
But even as he spoke, the partisan divide was apparent; with two passersby heckling the Congressman.
“You guys lose again,” one shouted. “Trump 2020 all day.”
Gwynne Hogan is an associate producer at WNYC. You can follow her on Twitter at @GwynneFitz.
