President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he had yet to see the full report drawn up by special prosecutor Robert Mueller into his election campaign's allegedly suspicious links to Russia.
"I have not seen the Mueller report, I have not read the Mueller report," he said at the White House. "As far as I'm concerned I don't care about the Mueller report. I've been totally exonerated," Trump said.
The two-year probe into Trump and his team's interactions with Russians caused huge controversy. According to a brief summary released by Trump's attorney general, Bill Barr, Mueller found no evidence of deliberate collusion between Trump and Russia.
However, Mueller did not come down on whether Trump obstructed justice during his continuous and fierce opposition to the probe. Barr said that in his judgement there was no obstruction — a finding that opposition Democrats quickly questioned.
The full report -- barring sections blacked out for legal or security reasons -- is expected to be released within days, promising to fuel intense political battles ahead of the 2020 presidential election. Trump is attempting to divert attention from any potentially embarrassing revelations about his own activities to a full-frontal attack on what he says was the illegal launching of the probe in the first place.
