President's closest aides say they are confident Robert Mueller's report will ...

On the night that special counsel Robert Mueller delivered his final report from his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election to Attorney General William Barr, President Donald Trump's closest advisers called it a win.

Mueller has not recommended any new criminal indictments at this time, according to a senior Justice Department official, deflating what some Democrats hoped would be a bad-news day for the White House. 

Barr indicated it was possible that key members of Congress could know the report's bottom line by the end of the weekend.

'This is a grand slam for President Trump,' Joe diGenova, a former U.S. attorney who has advised Trump on the probe, said.

'If Barr says he can brief Congress by this weekend, that means he has nothing.' 

Trump attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Jay Sekulow told Fox News on Friday that they are 'pleased that the Office of Special Counsel has delivered its report.' 

Even with all the apparent joy over recent developments, Giuliani also said on Friday that Trump's legal team would like to see the report before any portions of it are made public, while members of Congress have urged Barr not to allow it.

If there are no more indictments filed with federal courts, that means the president, his inner circle of present and former confidants and his family members are out of immediate legal jeopardy.  

'This marks the end of the Russia investigation. We await a disclosure of the facts,” Giuliania said. 

'We are confident that there is no finding of collusion by the president and this underscores what the president has been saying from the beginning -- that he did nothing wrong.' 

Without charges filed against additional people, the biggest pelts on Mueller's wall will remain former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates, along with former Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen and former National Security Advisor Gen. Michael Flynn. 

The news of Mueller's final official actions swept through Washington in the flash of thousands of tweets just before 5:00 p.m. Friday, launching a political battle over what's in the report and how much will be made public.

The Justice Department notified leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees before announcing the end of a 22-month-long saga focused on still-unproven allegations that Trump's 2016 campaign colluded with agents of Russia to improve his chances in the election. 

Trump, according to White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders, has not seen any results from Mueller's investigation. White House lawyers Pat Cipollone and Emmet Flood were with the president at his Mar-a-Lago resort club in Palm Beach, Florida when news wires lit up.

'The next steps are up to Attorney General Barr,' Sanders wrote in a tweet, 'and we look forward to the process taking its course.'

'The White House has not received or been briefed on the Special Counsel’s report,' she added.

Despite the reports Mueller would bring no additional indictments, there remained the possibility of indictments already sealed, or that another body such as the Southern District of New York wold bring indictments.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, told https://twitter.com/politicususa/status/1109228468515102722?s=21 there was a 'high probability' that could happen.  

'I think there is a strong possibility of additional indictments, including president Trump's family,' Blumenthal said Friday evening. 

'Maybe not by the Department of Justice, main Justice. But by other offices. I know that you want to stick to the Mueller report. But the Mueller report cannot be viewed in isolation,' the former prosecutor and Trump nemesis continued. 'Any more than an investigation, even though it may end, cannot lead to additional investigative leads and actions. And so I think there's a high probability of additional indictments.'

The president himself said Friday morning as he left Washington for Florida that he had no information about when Mueller might finish his work.

'I have no idea about the Mueller report,' he said, adding his standard assurance that 'there was no collusion,' between Trumpworld and the Kremlin, and that 'there was no obstruction' of justice in the White House.

'Everybody knows it. It's all a big hoax. ... I call it the witch hunt,' he said.

The 'highly respected' Barr, he added, 'ultimately will make a decision.'

Trump has said for more than two years that the Mueller probe was a politically motivated operation inspired by an unverified opposition-research dossier funded by the Democratic National Committee and his 2016 rival Hillary Clinton's campaign. 

The special counsel's office has filed nearly 200 charges against 34 individuals — including six former Trump advisers and 26 Russians.

Seven of them have pleaded guilty to federal crimes. Judges have sentenced five of them. 

The Mueller report promises to be the year's biggest partisan football in a city known for for tribal mudfights.

Senate Intelligence Committee ranking Democrat Mark Warner of Virginia pointed a finger at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and warned that '[a]ny attempt by the Trump Administration to cover up the results of this investigation into Russia's attack on our democracy would be unacceptable.' 

Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, a Trump ally who chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee until two months ago, said Friday that the Mueller report should end speculation about whether or not the president's campaign partnered with the Kremlin to deny Clinton the presidency.  

'[T]hroughout this prolonged investigation, which cost tens of millions in taxpayer dollars and included aggressive surveillance tools, we still haven’t seen any evidence of collusion,' Grassley said.

He also called on Barr to 'provide Congress and the American people with the findings to finally put an end to the speculation and innuendo that has loomed over this administration since its earliest days.' 

On Wednesday Trump told reporters that he would have no objection to the public release of Mueller's findings.

'I don't mind,' he said.

'Let it come out,' Trump declared. 'Let people see it.'

In his letter to Judiciary Committee chairs and ranking minority members, Barr said he is 'committed to as much transparency as possible.'

'I am reviewing the report and anticipate that I may be in a position to advise you of the Special Counsel's principal conclusions as soon as this weekend,' he wrote.

Barr added that he plans to consult with Mueller and Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein to decide what information 'can be released to Congress and the public.'

The president's lawyers said they were happy to see Mueller bring the Trump administration's longest nettling saga to an end.

'We're pleased that the Office of Special Counsel has delivered its report to the Attorney General pursuant to the regulations. Attorney General Barr will determine the appropriate next steps,' Giuliani and Jay Sekulow said.

Mueller's report followed a series of signals that his expansive probe, which accumulated costs of $25 million through the end of 2018, was entering its final stages.

As Trump ramped up his rhetorical war on his own Justice Department, Mueller's prosecutors had begun to hand off critical cases to other jurisdictions, including the Southern District of New York and the District of Columbia — both of which can continue their work long after Mueller's office is shuttered.

Andrew Weissmann, one of Mueller's top prosecutors, took a job at New York University. The special counsel's office confirmed that Assistant U.S. Attorney Zainab Ahmad, another key Mueller deputy, had concluded his detail. And the senior FBI agent that was part of the team, David Archey, took a job overseeing the FBI field office in Richmond.

Rosenstein, who had planned to leave his post in mid-March, decided to remain a 'little longer.'

Mueller, a former FBI director, has been a quiet force in Washington since accepting the mission from Rosenstein in May 2017.

Rosenstein was the top DOJ official empowered to appoint him: Jeff Sessions, who was then the attorney general, unexpectedly recused himself from the Russia matter shortly after taking office because he had been a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign.

Trump shoved Sessions out the door in November.

Barr, who was previously the attorney general in the George H.W. Bush administration, took the reins of the Justice Department barely five weeks ago.

He now has the momentous responsibility of deciding which portions of Mueller's output can be released in a way that's consistent with federal law.

Mueller, a DOJ employee, is obligated only to submit his report to Barr. Congressional Democrats have consistently said they want to see his work in its entirety, however.

It's possible Barr could delicately thread a political needle by sending an executive summary to Capitol Hill and keeping the rest private.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell framed the Mueller probe as a broad look at Russia's documented attempts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election, and sidestepped possible implications for the White House on Friday.

'Many Republicans have long believed that Russia poses a significant threat to American interests. I hope the Special Counsel’s report will help inform and improve our efforts to protect our democracy,' he said.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, both Democrats, were more aggressive.

'It is imperative for Mr. Barr to make the full report public and provide its underlying documentation and findings to Congress,' they said in a joint statement.

'Attorney General Barr must not give President Trump, his lawyers or his staff any "sneak preview" of Special Counsel Mueller's findings or evidence, and the White House must not be allowed to interfere in decisions about what parts of those findings or evidence are made public.'

'The American people have a right to the truth. The watchword is transparency,' they said.

Schumer told reporters that since 'the president himself has called without qualification for the report to be made public, there is no reason on God’s green earth why Attorney General Barr should do any less.'

Asked if Democrats will owe the president an apology if Mueller hasn't found any evidence of improper election-year behavior, Schumer hedged.  

'I think we should wait for the full report to be made public before jumping to any conclusions,' he said.