Fox News legal analyst Mercedes Colwin said Thursday that after looking at Robert Mueller’s redacted investigative report, it looked like the special counsel struggled to find a crime that wasn't there.
“What Mueller struggled with there wasn't an evidence of an underlying crime. Usually, when you have obstruction of justice, the reason someone tampering with the investigation is because they are guilty of a crime. Here, you don't have that,” Colwin said on “Shepard Smith Reporting.”
“Which is one of the things that Mueller even talks about at the very beginning of the executive summary. Usually, that's not how it plays out. Usually we have a crime that is trying to be covered up but we don't have a crime.”
After two years, Mueller’s report was released Thursday showing investigators did not find evidence of collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia but revealed an array of controversial actions by the president that were examined as part of the investigation’s obstruction inquiry.
According to the report, Trump allegedly told his White House counsel in June 2017 to inform the acting attorney general that Mueller had conflicts of interest and "must be removed.”
Trump also fumed over the original appointment -- lamenting it would mean the "end of my presidency" -- first telling then-DOJ leader Jeff Sessions he should resign, and later trying to get Sessions to take back control of the probe.
Colwin said that Thursday’s release is the beginning of the next chapter of the Russia collusion investigation, noting that the Southern District of New York was known to be more aggressive.
The attorney also pointed to what she said was the benefit of the doubt Trump was given in the investigation.
“As defense attorney, I hope that some of my clients that are facing these type of charges get the benefit of the doubt that the president was given. Because frankly, when you see the list of actions that Mueller identified in his executive summary ... all of these overtures to staff members, you almost read it and it was like, 'OK, they're going to conclude there had been something that had been wrong,’” Colwin said.
Fox News' Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
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