The esteemed Mueller’s report very clearly stated there was no collusion between the Russians and the Trump campaign.
It very clearly did not state this at all. It stated that there was insufficient evidence to pursue a charge.
And no, they do not mean the same thing.
It could not be any more clear.
This part actually is true.
Mueller is on the record saying
Mueller’s only “on the record” statement is the report.
that nothing in the law prevented him from outlining obstruction charges in his report.
The report, Mueller’s only on the record statement, says the opposite of this. See images below.
William Barr is the only one on record saying anything contradictory to this and he said that Mueller told him that there might come a time when a special counsel decided to disregard the OLC opinion, but this wasn’t it. Again, no, they don’t mean the same thing.
He didn’t, presumably because he doesn’t feel there is enough evidence to do so.
Because everything above is wrong, this presumption is invalid. There is actually evidence to support the inverse presumption:
Mueller explicitly found in the collusion/conspiracy section that there was insufficient evidence to bring a charge. Nothing was stopping him from stating that conclusion.
He then stated in the obstruction section that if the evidence supported a finding that the president had engaged in no wrongdoing, they would say so. They didn’t say so. I believe there was also a statement that has the evidence been insufficient, they would have said so, but I’m less certain of that.
The report itself contains evidence of obstruction. Mueller’s analysis of at least two and as many as five instances of conduct fits the elements of the obstruction statute. This is where the opinion of 900 former federal prosecutors becomes significant.
Finally, there is also a common law rule of statutory construction known as the presidential plain statement rule. This rule holds that in the absence of an express statement of applicability to the president, a court will not hold apply it to the president if the statute could be read to burden his article II powers.
The Mueller report addresses and disposed of this issue, but since your current presumption isn’t faithful to the contents of the report with respect to the OLC opinion, this is no worse than an equally plausible explanation for why Mueller would decline to bring charges.
So I ask again: how do you explain your misunderstanding of the contents of the report if there has been no misinformation campaign?
(I think the attached images are relevant as I’ve quoted them in past discussions on here, but I can’t enlarge them so hopefully they are.)