News Roundup

Late last week U.S. Attorney General William Barr publicly released a redacted copy of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report of his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.  The full report is more than 400 pages long and is divided into two volumes.  Keep reading for further discussion of the report and for more news. Volume I.  Volume I of the Special Counsel report focuses on Russian efforts to interfere with the 2016 election and finds that Russia did interfere through two operations – “a social media campaign that favored presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and disparaged presidential candidate Hillary Clinton” and a computer hacking effort that targeted the Clinton Campaign. The executive summary for that portion of the report says that there “was not sufficient evidence to charge that any member of the Trump Campaign conspired with representatives of the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 election.” Volume II.  Volume II of the report focuses on whether President Trump obstructed justice in connection with the Russia investigation.  The executive summary for that portion of the report says that if the Special Counsel team had confidence that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice then they would state that conclusion but that the evidence “presents difficult issues that prevent us from conclusively determining that no criminal conduct occurred.” CMPD Shooting.  An officer-involved shooting in Charlotte that occurred late last month was in the national news this week following the release of body camera footage of the [...]