The Mueller report promises a dramatic day on Capitol Hill this week

According to reports, some of Robert Mueller’s investigators say the report’s findings were far more troubling for President Trump than William Barr indicated

“No obstruction, no collusion” has been the steady drumbeat from the White House since Donald Trump’s attorney general summarised the Mueller report in a letter to congress last month. Today, we find out the whole truth.

William Barr’s four-page summary was anti-climactic, and sucked the wind from the sails of Democrats and other Trump opponents. Many had been pushing a vivid narrative of a Trump World deal made in smoke-filled back rooms with Putin’s men to place a Manchurian candidate in the Oval Office. They had imagined the findings may give cause for impeachment.

Needless to say, a hand-picked Trump official had every motivation to play down findings of the sprawling probe which included 2,800 subpoenas, nearly 500 search warrants, and 13 requests to foreign governments for evidence. That’s why the world seeing the details of the 400-page report today is so important.

As journalists, there’s a simple question we need to answer: what’s in it? As well as the main breaking lines, and analysis of what it means from our correspondents, we’ll be parsing the report line-by-line from the moment it drops, posting every key fact and claim into our liveblog. We aim to make it the most thorough, spin-free look at the report on the web.

The political world’s response to the report will also form part of the tapestry of storytelling on the day: do Democrats see anything that has whet their appetite for impeachment; are Trump’s surrogates rattled by the report or jubilant; and is Fox News and the far-right media ignoring the report, or trumpeting it?

While it’s clear there’s a full plan in place for what we’re expecting, that’ll be torn up if there are any major surprises or twists on the day — and writers and reporters are on standby in Russia, London and both coasts of America for all of the fallout.

According to reports, some of Robert Mueller’s investigators say the report is far more troubling for President Trump than William Barr indicated, leaving open the possibility of a dramatic day of developments on Capitol Hill.

In a bureau on the other side of the world from the UK, we have, for the past few months, sat in the shadow of Brexit. Today the spotlight shines on Washington.

Yours,

Dave Maclean

Acting US news editor