WASHINGTON (Reuters) - US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that Special Prosecutor Robert Muller's report on Russia's intervention in the US presidential election in 2016 "completely cleared him" while Democrats demanded that the inquiry be fully publicized.
"No collusion, no obstruction, complete and comprehensive acquittal, let us keep America great," Trump said in a tweet on Twitter.
Trump told reporters before leaving Florida on the presidential plane that it was shameful that the president of the United States had been forced to undergo an investigation into possible collusion between his campaign team and Russia or the possibility of seeking to obstruct justice.
"Frankly, it is shameful that your president has had to submit to this, which began even before my election," Trump said, adding that the investigation was "an illegal and destructive attempt that failed."
In a four-page letter to Congress, Justice Minister William Barr revealed the summary of Muller's two-year investigation. Mueller's report concluded that Trump had not committed a crime, but did not acquit him.
According to the report's summary, Muller found no evidence that the Trump campaign had coordinated with Moscow, despite numerous offers by individuals associated with Russia.
Muller said he would leave the justice minister to decide whether a crime had been committed.
A political battle
The summary is likely to spark a new political battle in Washington as the Democrats seek to push Bar to publish the full report, while Trump will insist on the results as a justification for his near-daily assertions that he is the victim of a long-standing "persecution campaign."
This result reflected satisfaction in the White House, because not recommending further charges meant that people close to the president - including his son Donald Trump Jr. and his son-in-law Jared Kouchner - were not charged.
But the head of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, told ABC that Mueller, even if he did not recommend new charges in his report, "hardly seems to be acquitted."
"We know that there is collusion," Judy Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, told CNN. "We do not know why there is no (recommendation to direct) charges."
Schiff and Nadler are the most prominent faces of the Democratic Party demanding the publication of Muller's report in full, and not just the summary of the Attorney-General appointed by Trump.