That just isn't unusual here.

The crazy part is the AG stepping in the way and making a decision.

not trump. The Russians worked it so trump wouldn't get caught.

In this instance.
He had so many investigators, so many really smart people in his stable and could not make a conclusion.
Weird. Bizarre. How?

So, he gathered all his facts and evidence of obstruction like the Watergate special prosecutor did and the Clinton independent counsel did and prepared them for submission to congress.

Barr pounced and intercepted.

Unfortunate.

Is it really possible that Trump and Trump alone colluded with the Russians to influence the 2016 election?

I think you're missing something: you have to feel you have the ability to prove beyond a reasonable doubt to indict someone. Some prosecutors say roughly 95% confidence. If you lack that, you don't indict.

But you could for example have a preponderance of the evidence that they committed a crime, not indict for that but charge for obstruction of justice if they've got enough evidence the perpetrator was doing that.

That is part of the BS Barr spins in his letter and why I suspect it is disingenuous. He points to the lack of a conviction for conspiracy as a reason why he should not be convicted for obstruction. That ignores the possibility that his obstruction successfully hid enough evidence that they could not get a conviction. Everybody was lying their heads off. It's pretty naive to expect they didn't scrub data, throw out papers, etc.

You do not have to have a provable crime to indict for obstruction of justice. The evidence in the media alone justified a special prosecutor looking into the Trump Campaign and Russia. Lots of lying. Many contacts - eventually over 100 with the Russians. Firing of Comey and saying why in the Holt interview. There was lots of evidence "collusion" (conspiracy) was going on. Therefore, the motive to cover it up existed. Trump lied about the Trump Tower meeting with the Russians for example.

Don Jr lied to Congress about the Trump Tower meeting. Why wasn't he indicted like Michael Cohen? Stone is nearly as old as Manafort. As tough as he tries to sound, they might have flipped him. What about Corsi? Manafort has a year before they finalize his sentence - if Trump doesn't pardon him, he might as well flip. The Trump kids could be charged and flipped. There's tons of stuff that was redacted that hasn't come to light. But the investigation is over? The way to get the top guy is to go through his lieutenants. Didn't happen. They stopped climbing the responsibility tree, charging people and pressing them to flip. Why? You cannot say there wasn't evidence of conspiracy - there was lots of it - maybe not enough yet to convict. So you keep going up the management tree.

What about the NRA money from Russia and Ms. Butina? And her boyfriend Erikson? What about Deutsche Bank? What about Cambridge Analytica? What about the foreign company in the Supreme Court? What about Andrew Miller fighting testifying? What about Alfa Bank servers/data in the Trump Tower? What about the indictment of Julian Assange? What about the terabytes of data they snatched in the Stone raids - how could they have possibly got through that by now? etc

All those loose ends are figured out and put to bed or delegated out a few weeks after Barr assumes control?

I'm having a hard time believing that. I think Barr pulled the plug on Mueller's budget and shut him down. Mueller laid out the obstruction evidence for congress like previous obstruction cases against the President and Barr cut him off to protect Trump.

I can't prove the above. I don't have the evidence or Mueller's report. But something like that is what I think has gone on. Above is some reasoning on why I feel that way. Hopefully, somehow, someday, we'll find out one way or the other.

privacy and perhaps a little more information redacted because the means used to obtain that information are classified. When (if) that happens it should answer most of your questions, at least to the extent that we're speculating what Mueller looked into, how much he dug, and what his recommendations were based on what he found. Sadly, what I suspect is that he looked into many of the things you mentioned above and didn't come up with anything he could prosecute successfully. Maybe that's because witnesses weren't cooperative, but we know that he wasn't afraid to lean on witnesses with perjury charges if he thought he could get more out of them.

Personally, I have a hard time believing Barr outright lied in his summary (or obscured that Mueller recommended prosecution for anyone), since Barr must know that the report will eventually get out. If it's not made public through regular channels, someone will leak it by the end of the year.

to consider was given to congress under seal ... and never leaked. It was just released recently

Barr, Rosenstein & Muller are the only three we know have seen this report. A very few others who support them would have seen it. It has classified information in it. It had grand jury testimony in it. The White House will ague it has executive privileged information in it. It will have information about others who were not charged in it - DOJ protects those not charged with a crime by not publishing things about them. None of those four things can be released to the public under DOJ policy and the laws.

Congress got approval from a court to have the grand jury testimony released to it for Watergate. Mitch McConnell going to go along with that? Good luck with that.

We're going to see a heavily redacted fraction of the report at best - like some of the court filings to date. Many big holes and completely blank sections in the text with probably no evidence. We'll learn a little more but it will be like trying to comprehend a book with missing chapters. It will leave too many questions.

One of my best friends is a retired white collar prosecutor. We've been discussing the law for decades - since college and this case roughly weekly. He hated Hillary and voted for Trump - with regrets now. From the outset, we both felt conspiracy and obstruction would be hard to prove beyond reasonable doubt. And even if they did, they'd never get the GOP to go through with impeachment unless it was politically advantageous to the GOP (for example: where he was so unpopular, the GOP would want to dump him).

I think they initiated looking into many of the things I mentioned above and completed some or many. But I do not think they got through them all. Watergate was a little burglary. This was a multinational, clandestine crime perpetrated by some folks who have never set foot in the America. Conspiracy with other governments is far more complex to prove than a simple burglary where five burglars got caught in the act.

Whittaker may have initiated pulling their budget.

I don't think Barr outright lied. I think he helped shut Mueller down. And I think he usurped what Mueller intended - to pass his findings to congress - by rendering his biased decision on obstruction. Mueller will tell us he intended his efforts to go to congress. Barr will say he exercised his duties as AG to shutdown the investigation and make his decision on obstruction.

There is absolutely nothing I would put past the Trump crime family.

Mueller was threatened.

Barr ordered Mueller to drop the case.

Mueller was always in on the coverup.

Muller DOES implicate Trump and Barr is covering it up.

Lets tie this all up into one neat little tinfoil covered package!

If Trump or the AG threatened him, he would immediately hold a press conference on live TV and tell all about the threat. Even Trump wouldn't be that stupid.