John Oliver thinks Mueller's Trump report is plenty damning, despite the oddly favorable headlines

John Oliver didn't have too much to say about Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report on Russian election meddling and possible malfeasance by President Trump's campaign, mostly because almost nobody has seen that report. "We only know what Trump's own attorney general thinks we need to know," he said on Sunday's Last Week Tonight, and William Barr is a suspect source. Despite the ostentatious victory lap by Trump's supporters and Fox News friends, however, there's plenty of bad news even in Barr's four-page summary.

Mueller's "report did not establish a criminal conspiracy between Russia and Trump's campaign, which is undeniably good news for the president," Oliver said. But "Trump was not completely exonerated. In fact, the report literally says it 'does not exonerate him.' The only way Mueller could have been clearer on that point is if he put hand-clap emojis between every word." Ordinarily, such news "might prompt headlines like 'President May Have Obstructed Justice,'" he said, but news organizations, like Trump's supporters, took "one piece of good news and rounded it up to two."

"Even if the investigation didn't conclude that Trump conspired with the Russians, that doesn't mean the whole thing was a waste of time," Oliver said. "Just for a moment, try and imagine that it all came out at once, and there was a single headline that said: 'Russia Confirmed to Have Interfered in Election, and President's Campaign Manager, Lawyer, Multiple Advisers Convicted of Crimes, and Trump and His Team Lied About Business With Russia, Contact With Russians, and Trump May Have Committed Campaign Finance Violations to Cover Up Affair With Adult Film Star Shortly After His Wife Gave Birth, and Which He Also Attempted to Continue But Ended Up Sitting Next to the Adult Film Star in a Hotel Room and Watching Shark Week.' Because all of that happened. And we know it one way or another as a result of Mueller's investigation." Watch below. Peter Weber

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