"I was surprised to hear there was anything negative in the Mueller report at all about President Trump," Trump voter Cathy Garnaat said during a town hall meeting in Michigan last May. "I hadn’t heard that before. I’ve mainly listened to conservative news and I hadn’t heard anything negative about that report and President Trump has been exonerated."
Considering the bias of a certain news outlets, and the "total exoneration" lies pumped out by Donald Trump on Twitter, it's understandable that some Americans are misinformed about the results of the Mueller report. It's also understandable that some Americans haven't taken time to read it. At 448 pages, it's not exactly a light beach read.
In an effort to make sure the public is educated on the Mueller investigation, a star-studded cast will perform a live-reading of The Investigation: A Search for the Truth in Ten Acts. Robert Schenkann, a Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwright, screenwriter and actor, wrote the project, which is based on the Mueller report. The reading will be in front of a live audience and livestreamed at 9pm ET by Law Works.
Deadline reports that the cast includes Annette Bening, Kevin Kline, John Lithgow, Frederick Weller, Ben McKenzie, Michael Shannon, Noah Emmerich, Justin Long, Jason Alexander, Gina Gershon, Wilson Cruz, Joel Grey, Alyssa Milano, Kyra Sedgwick, Alfre Woodard, Piper Perabo, Zachary Quinto and Aidan Quinn, with additional participation by Sigourney Weaver, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Mark Hamill.
Live Works is an organization that says it works with "bipartisan voices and educates the public on the importance of the rule of law, the role of the special counsel in the justice system, and the integrity of our judicial institutions." In case you can't wait until their stream of the reading starts, here's a summary of the report. (Spoiler alert!)
After a two-year FBI investigation, Special Counsel Robert Mueller concluded that Russian interference occurred "in sweeping and systematic fashion" during the 2016 US presidential election. The 400-page report "identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign," and resulted in criminal charges for 34 individuals, including Trump's former national security adviser (Michael Flynn), campaign chair (Paul Manafort) and attorney (Michael Cohen). But ultimately, Mueller's report did not establish that the Trump campaign "coordinated or conspired with the Russian government in its election-interference activities."
The FBI also investigated whether or not President Donald J. Trump committed obstruction of justice, and did not reach a judgment. The report chronicles at least ten attempts by Trump to obstruct justice, but states these "efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful...largely because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests." As a result, the report "does not conclude that the President committed a crime, [but] it also does not exonerate him."
Mueller cited a Justice Department policy that precludes indicting a sitting president, meaning that charging Trump was never an option. However, he noted that Congress can investigate Trump, if they so choose.