The Victory Lap

The end of the special counsel’s probe gives Donald Trump one of the biggest wins of his presidency

- Brian Bennett

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP HAD FINISHED A ROUND OF Sunday golf and repaired to his private quarters at his Palm Beach, Fla., club when the news arrived. After 22 months, the findings of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation were in.

Moments before, around 3 p.m. on March 24, Trump’s White House lawyer Emmet Flood received a call from Attorney General William Barr’s chief of staff, Brian Rabbitt. The Department of Justice official said that after more than 2,800 subpoenas, nearly 500 search warrants and a similar number of witness interviews, Mueller had not established that the Trump campaign or its associates conspired with Russia during the 2016 election. In addition, Mueller declined to draw a conclusion about whether Trump had obstructed justice in the aftermath. Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein immediately cleared the President.

Aides were elated. “This is very good,” Trump said, according to an official present. Back at the White House, staff crowded into press secretary Sarah Sanders’ office to toast the result with a bottle of sparkling wine. Within hours, Trump’s 2020 campaign was making money off the news, texting supporters that Democrats had “raised millions offa lie.” Greeting reporters on a Florida tarmac, Trump claimed “complete and total exoneration.”