The reasons cited in the short letter include:
- “the President was [not] involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference”;
- he did not act “with corrupt intent”; and
- there was no “nexus” with the president’s conduct “to a pending or contemplated proceeding.”
https://thehill.com/opinion/crimina...enstein-likely-made-correct-legal-decision-on
I dunno if it is quite representative of Barr's letter -
Barr states that the first bullet point is "not determinative" of obstruction occuring and just bears upon proving intent - the second bullet point.
Barr then says "the report identifies no actions that, in our judgment, constitute obstructive conduct, had a nexus to a pending or contemplated proceeding, and were done with corrupt intent."
So it isn't stated he didn't do those second two, it just wasn't with the same action beyond reasonable doubt.
I wish he addressed whether executive constitutional power was considered when assessing 'obstructive conduct', because if so that statement is entirely consistent with "He had corrupt intent with nexus to ongoing proceedings, but the president can fire whoever and tell people to stop investigating whoever the fuck they want, and therefore constitutionally protected conduct isn't obstructive"
Only the full report can tell.
There's also the bit of the letter that says the special counsel investigated “a number of actions by the president — most of which have been the subject of public reporting.”
Will be really interesting to see what Trump actions got investigated that weren't publicly reported.
