Swiss media consider Mueller report fallout

United States President Donald Trump feels exonerated by the Mueller report, but major Swiss newspapers are not so sure.

The 448-page redacted document came after a 22-month enquiry by US Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who was appointed to investigate alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign.

It was released to great fanfare on Thursday and has been widely reported on in the Swiss media, with several main outlets offering editorials or analysis.

The Mueller report said that the president did not collude with the Russians, but it did not reach a firm conclusion on the issue of obstruction of justice. Trump’s legal team has said the report exonerates the president and Trump himself has tweeted, also again on Friday, his strong views on the issue (Game Over, says a tweet pinned to the top of his feed).

Not over yet

For the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, the Mueller text delivers important insights, but it would be foolish to believe that the never-ending discussion about Russian interference was now over.

“The expectation that the special counsel in the Russia affair would wash away the charged political atmosphere like a storm was wrong,” it said a commentary on Friday.

Le Temps’ US correspondent Valérie de Graffenried agreed, saying Trump was not “washed of all suspicion” and that the report left “many questions unanswered”. The opposition Democrats would increase the pressure, but the party was not mentioning impeachment as it was aware that this had no chance of succeeding, she wrote.

The Tages-Anzeiger, writing on Thursday evening, discussed what the Democrats, which have a majority in the House of Representatives, would do. It would be too risky to try to indict Trump in some way because there were not enough voices to support this in the Republican majority Senate.

Barr’s role

The newspaper also looked at the role of US Attorney-General William Barr, saying that his efforts to protect Trump – he held a news conference before the report was issued in which he backed the president – ended up doing the president a “huge disservice”. Barr’s move “would only serve to strengthen the Democrats appreciate for further explanation”, the editorial said.

On Friday, Congressional Democrats issued a legal demand to see all of Mueller’s Russia probe evidence, arguing that the redacted version left them in the dark.