Rudy Giuliani declares ‘clear victory’ after AG Bill Barr downplays Trump obstruction at press conference

Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani on Thursday declared a "clear victory" for the president after Attorney General William Barr held a press conference to get ahead of the release of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation.

"We're very happy. A clear victory," Giuliani told Fox News host Bret Baier. "[Mueller] said we can't conclude the president committed a crime but we can't exonerate him. Nobody is asking him to exonerate him. The reality is that the overarching principle of obstruction law is very, very, hard to make an obstruction case when there is no proof there is an underlying crime. You have to assume the president is innocent, which he is."

"They got everything they want," he continued. "Nothing was obstructed. They can't point to a single thing that was obstructed in the investigation. So now you are talking about a purely theoretical crime."

Giuliani revealed that he had at least "two nights" to review Mueller's report before it was given to Congress.

"The big victory is no collusion with the Russians," the president's attorney added. "I don't think you could be any clearer. You can read that collusion 200 pages as much as you want. Believe me, I was up two nights going through it. You won't find a darn thing that shows that President Trump or anybody on his campaign had any kind of connection with whatever the Russians were doing."

"You’re going to find out over the ensuing 4 to 5 months they were framing him," Giuliani later said. "This is a deliberate plan to plant this idea. Do you really believe this all started with that stupid little statement from [Trump campaign staffer George] Papadopoulos?"

Watch the video below from Fox News.