Special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia report is 448 pages long, but within an hour of it being released Georgia lawmakers signaled it's unlikely to change their minds about whether Donald Trump's presidential campaign conspired with Moscow or obstructed subsequent investigations into its activities.
Within minutes of the redacted report being released, U.S. Rep. Rick Allen, R-Evans, said the document “shows us what we already know: there was NO Russian collusion in our 2016 Presidential election.”
“As a nation, it is time for us to move forward, put partisan politics aside, and focus on addressing the issues at hand, rather than wasting taxpayer dollars to undermine President Donald J. Trump,” the three-term lawmaker tweeted.
Gainesville Congressman Doug Collins, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, said he's still reviewing the report but that Mueller's investigation "found no Americans conspired with Russia to interfere in our elections and Democrats' accusations of criminal obstruction are unfounded."
“I look forward to examining the mountain of facts supporting the principal conclusions the attorney general and deputy attorney general shared last month: no collusion, no obstruction,” he said.
In the hours before the document’s release, Democrats signaled they were deeply unhappy with the Justice Department’s handling of the process.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer scolded Attorney General William Barr for holding a press conference before the report even released. They accused Barr of trying to shape public perception of the bill ahead of time, as well as being for insufficiently transparent by redacting portions of the document.
That sentiment was amplified by Lithonia Democrat Hank Johnson, another member of the House Judiciary Committee.
“Attorney General Barr carefully parsed his words about whether people close to @realDonaldTrump helped Russia disseminate hacked material. #ReleaseTheFullReportNOW,” he tweeted.
In an interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution following a campaign stop in Atlanta, 2020 presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., said the public deserves “full transparency” and that the Justice Department should “let’s let the report speak for itself.”
“I don’t need a CliffsNotes version written by a Trump appointee,” he said.
A recent AJC poll suggested Barr's recent summary of the investigation did little to shape Georgia voters' perception of the president: nearly three-quarters said it had no effect on whether they supported Trump.
Read more: Trump's Ga. allies take victory lap after Mueller finds no collusion with Russia
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