At his first rally since the Mueller report was submitted, Donald Trump railed against his political opponents and reiterated his claim that the report was a “total exoneration”.
The report found no evidence of Russian collusion but did not exonerate Mr Trump of obstruction of justice.
In a typically free-form, 90-minute speech, Mr Trump used crude language to deride the investigation.
He was speaking at a rally in Grand Rapids in the state of Michigan.
“After three years of lies and smears and slander, the Russia hoax is finally dead. The collusion delusion is over,” the president told a cheering crowd of thousands.
Former FBI director Robert Mueller was appointed to head an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election almost two years ago.
His team have charged 34 people – including six former Trump aides and a dozen Russians – as well as three companies. None of those charges directly related to the allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow.
In his speech on Thursday night, Mr Trump called the investigation “a plan by those who lost the election to try and illegally regain power by framing innocent Americans – many of them, they suffered – with an elaborate hoax”.
Mr Mueller’s report was submitted on a week ago to the US Attorney General William Barr. After two days, Mr Barr released a four-page summary of the more-than 300-page report.
According to Mr Barr’s summary, Mr Mueller’s team did not establish that Trump campaign members colluded with Russians – a significant political victory for the president, who has lived for two years under a cloud of suspicion about alleged collusion.
