DISINFO: Mueller report contains no evidence of Russian meddling in 2016 US election

Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative denying Moscow's interference in the 2016 US presidential election and, by extension, other well-documented instances of such meddling in Western democracies (see the "Electoral Interference" tab). Like multiple earlier claims made by pro-Kremlin outlets regarding the 2016 US election, the present story muddles the distinction between "meddling"/"interference" on the one hand and "collusion" on the other. By the time the Mueller report was published, Russian meddling in the 2016 poll had been established by the US intelligence community. The report itself concluded that Moscow had carried out this effort "in sweeping and systematic fashion" (p. 1). Yet, collusion is "not a specific offense or theory of liability found in the United States Code, nor is it a term of art in [US] federal criminal law," (p. 2) and therefore gathering evidence of it fell outside the scope of the Special Counsel investigation. The aim of the probe was not merely to ascertain contacts between the Trump Campaign and Russia-linked individuals during the election period, but to establish whether these interactions were deliberate enough on the part of Trump Campaign officials to sustain charges of conspiracy (ibid). The report explicitly identifies "numerous links between individuals with ties to the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign" (p. 9).