Collusion, obstruction of justice, redactions: How the Mueller report uses these legal terms
After more than a year of an investigation followed by weeks of awaiting its release, special counsel Robert Mueller's 448-page report on Russian interference in the 2016 election has been released.
Throughout the course of the investigation, several terms have been used in the course of the political football surrounding President Donald Trump's possible connection to Russia. And it's led to some confusion about the actual definitions of some legal jargon.
Here are three of those terms and how they're used in the Mueller report.
Collusion
Merriam-Webster defines the word simply, calling it a "secret agreement or cooperation especially for an illegal or deceitful purpose." In more detailed terms, this is how the People's Law Dictionary defines the term:
n. where two persons (or business entities through their officers or other employees) enter into a deceitful agreement, usually secret, to defraud and/or gain an unfair advantage over a third party, competitors, consumers or those with whom they are negotiating. Collusion can include secret price or wage fixing, secret rebates, or pretending to be independent of each other when conspiring together for their joint ends. It can range from small-town shopkeepers or heirs to a grandma's estate, to gigantic electronics companies or big league baseball team owners.
Simply put, it means two groups of people developing a plan to gain the advantage of a separate group. In the case of Trump, the allegation was that as a presidential candidate, he was in cahoots with the Russian government.
Attorney General William Barr said in a news conference prior to the Mueller report's release that the investigation "did not find that the Trump campaign or other Americans colluded in those schemes."
The full Mueller report has since just been released. The investigation stated that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election "sweeping and systematic" fashion and that members of Trump's 2016 campaign showed interest in benefitting from those efforts.
But investigators did not use the concept of "collusion" in their assessment of potential criminality as "collusion is not a specific offense or theory of liability found in the United States code," the report stated.
Instead, investigators examined whether or not Trump "coordinated" with the Russians on election interference, a theory they said they lacked evidence to prove.
"The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian Government in its election interference activities," the report stated.
448-page report: Read special counsel Robert Mueller's full report into President Trump, Russian interference
Obstruction
An "obstruction of justice" is a way of preventing the power of the law to take root. The People's Law Dictionary defines that full term as such:
n. an attempt to interfere with the administration of the courts, the judicial system or law enforcement officers, including threatening witnesses, improper conversations with jurors, hiding evidence or interfering with an arrest. Such activity is a crime.
Attorney General William Barr said in a news conference prior to the Mueller report's release that the president wasn't involved in obstruction so much as expressing frustration that the investigation was creating a constraint on his presidency.
“The president took no act that deprived the special counsel of the documents and witnesses necessary to complete his investigation,” Barr said.
The report stated that some of Trump's aides "lied" to the special counsel and Congress about the interactions with the Russian government, impairing their investigation. Several questions submitted to Trump came back with answers that were "incomplete or imprecise," Mueller wrote.
However, steps by the administration to hamper the investigation were not deemed to be illegal.
"We viewed the written answers to be inadequate," the report stated. "We determined that the substantial quantity of information we had obtained from other sources allowed us to draw relevant factual conclusions on intent and credibility."
A closer look: Trump's anger over Russia probe may have saved him from obstruction charge
Barr said Mueller's investigation looked into 10 different incidents involving possible obstruction by Trump. Barr said he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein “disagreed” with some legal theories advanced by Mueller, but declined to elaborate earlier today.
"The deputy attorney general and I concluded that the evidence developed by the special counsel is not sufficient to establish that the president committed an obstruction of justice offense," Barr said.
Redacted
The 400-page Mueller report is full of many of these. Redactions are obscured or removed pieces of "sensitive information" in a file, according to Merriam-Webster. The practice is relatively common upon the release of documents to the public by government entities, so much so that the People's Law Dictionary does not bother to define the term.
A closer look: The definition of "redaction" and what it means for the Mueller report
In the week before the report's release, Barr told Congress that four kinds of information in the report would be redacted: grand jury information, classified information, information related to ongoing investigations, and information that would infringe on the privacy of “peripheral third parties.”
This story will be updated with additional details on possible connections to the term later today.
USA Today contributed to this story.
Nate Chute is a producer with the USA Today Network. Follow him on Twitter at @nchute.
This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Collusion, obstruction of justice, redactions: How the Mueller report uses these legal terms
