I swear people here haven't even read the Mueller Report and the Senate Intel Report on this matter. For example, the quote you used came from the Mueller Report. Why did you cite a press article about it? Because what you actually cited was a summary from AG Barr which I think (and I'm not the only one, see below) intentionally and misleadingly left out the first part of that sentence. Here is the full sentence, emphasis added on the part you left out.
"Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not
establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian
government in its election interference activities."[1]
Note, "collusion" and "conspiracy" are different things. Conspiracy is used in the legal sense here and requires a meeting of the minds between Trump and the Russian Government (i.e. Putin). That didn't happen, and even some of the most ardent pushers of the collusion idea didn't believe that happened. But collusion is a more nebulous term (not a legal term) that, for many, was used to indicate a tacit agreement between the two groups to arrive at a mutual goal - electing Trump. That is absolutely what happened. When we say there was "collusion" and you point out there was no "conspiracy", therefore we are wrong, that's a straw man.
Also note that while this says the investigation did not establish the Trump Campaign coordinated with the Russians, this is not entirely accurate. Trump did put out public statements to the Russians (famously "Russia, if you're listening"), and the Mueller report found that, in fact, there was direct response from Russian hackers to that call in the form of attempted hacks on Hillary Clinton. The Special Counsel didn't consider that "coordination" because it was in public, but.... I mean the evidence is there.
A final note, there is stark difference between "the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign..." and "the investigation established that members of the Trump Campaign did not...". The former is not a conclusive statement. You seem to be basing your opinions as if the report contains the latter statement.
Remember, Bill Barr put out the second half of that sentence and held back the full Mueller Report from the press so that part would cycle around to news orgs and people would repeat it ad infinitum. A federal judge characterized Bill Barr's summary and public statements as a "misleading" and "lacking candor" (so when you repeat what the AG did by leaving out the first half of that sentence, which really changes the tone and impression left on readers, perhaps take note of how this reflects on you).
"The speed by which Attorney General Barr released to the public the summary of Special Counsel Mueller’s principal conclusions, coupled with the fact that Attorney General Barr failed to provide a thorough representation of the findings set forth in the Mueller Report, causes the Court to question whether Attorney General Barr’s intent was to create a one-sided narrative about the Mueller Report — a narrative that is clearly in some respects substantively at odds with the redacted version of the Mueller Report"
"The inconsistencies between Attorney General Barr’s statements, made at a time when the public did not have access to the redacted version of the Mueller Report to assess the veracity of his statements, and portions of the redacted version of the Mueller Report that conflict with those statements cause the Court to seriously question whether Attorney General Barr made a calculated attempt to influence public discourse about the Mueller Report in favor of President Trump despite certain findings in the redacted version of the Mueller Report to the contrary." [2]
Remember, this is a person who has seen more of the report than you or I have, and he seems to think what Bill Barr wrote is "substantively" inconsistent with what's written behind those black boxes.
Oh, and the other thing you left out is the entire second half of the Mueller report. The first half concludes that the investigation was incomplete due to obstruction from the Trump campaign in the form of lying, destruction of evidence, witness tampering, dangling pardons, and trying to fire the investigators themselves. You can't cite the Mueller Report as a conclusive authority without also acknowledging the Trump campaign and Trump specifically obstructed the investigation repeatedly.
> Many of you in this thread likely still believe the lie that Trump colluded with the Russians.
Can you blame us? The Republican lead Senate released a report which shows that Trump Campaign manager was funneling internal campaign data to a Russian Intelligence Officer [3], while the GRU were busy hacking Trump's opponents. The Mueller report showed that Trump's family was meeting with a Russian spy at Trump's home and Trump lied about it. We also learned from Michael Cohen that Trump was attempting to build a Trump Tower Moscow with a penthouse dedicated to Vladimir Putin, and Trump lied about that as well after telling us he had 0 business in Russia and his campaign had 0 contacts with Russians (there were over 100 contacts). What conclusion are people supposed to draw?
As soon as this bit of info from the Republican lead Senate Intelligence Committee gets cleared up, I'd love to hear how the Trump campaign was completely innocent in 2016:
> The Senate Intelligence Committee assessed that Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort's "high-level access and willingness to share information with individuals closely affiliated with the Russian intelligence services" was a "grave counterintelligence threat". The foremost individual was Manafort's employee Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian. The committee identified Kilimnik as a "Russian intelligence officer"; describing that Manafort and Kilimnik had a "close and lasting relationship" even through the 2016 election. Manafort repeatedly tried to "secretly share internal Campaign information with Kilimnik", including "sensitive internal polling data or Campaign strategy".
> The Senate Intelligence Committee introduced a new allegation regarding Kilimnik, that he "may have been connected" to the Russian military intelligence's hack and leak of Democratic Party material. However, the report's discussions on this topic are redacted. Manafort's connection with the Russian hack and leak operation is "largely unknown", but possible, given "two pieces of information" the committee found; the details of such information were also redacted. [4]
[1] https://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2019/images/04/18/mueller-report-sea... (The actual Mueller Report)
[2] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6796353-barr-ruling....
[3] Senate Intelligence Committee report on Russian interference in the 2016 United States presidential election, Volume V.
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_Intelligence_Committee_...