THE Donald Trump campaign knew Russia’s Vladimir Putin was working to put their candidate in the White House, according to explosive details from independent prosecutor Robert Mueller.

A full report of an investigation in to alleged collusion between Mr Trump’s team and the Kremlin was published Thursday, sparking

For some 200 pages Mr Mueller and his colleagues catalogue efforts by the Russian Government and its agencies and proxies, including hackers, to interfere in the 2016 president election.

And for more than another 200 they describe how the new White House tried to undermine their investigation in to claims of co-ordination between Republicans and Russians.

Mr Trump for some time has been claiming that the Mueller report - published in redacted form on Thursday morning - had cleared him of what he calls the “Russian Hoax” or the “Collusion Delusion”.

His attorney-general, William Barr, who released the document, said its “bottom line” was that it showed “no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government hackers”.

Mr Mueller and his team did not find evidence to suggest a criminal conspiracy under which Trump aides, a number of whom have been convicted or charged with offences, colluded with the Putin Kremlin and its intelligence and propaganda might.

However, critics and observers on Thursday describing the report as “devastating” for the Trump presidency, not least because his campaign thought Russian efforts to undermine opponent Hillary Clinton would help them.

The report said: “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 efforts.”

In America, the political debate on Thursday firmly focused on evidence that Mr Trump had tried to underline Mr Mueller.

The report has revealed that Mr Trump tried to seize control of the Russia probe and force Mr Mueller’s removal to stop him from investigating potential obstruction of justice by the president.

The report said that in June 2017, Mr Trump directed White House counsel Don McGahn to call the acting attorney general and say that Mr Mueller must be ousted because he had conflicts of interest.

Mr McGahn refused - deciding he would rather resign than trigger what he regarded as a potential Saturday Night Massacre of Watergate firings fame.

For all of that, Mr Mueller said in his report that he could not conclusively determine that Mr Trump had committed criminal obstruction of justice.

Mr Mueller evaluated 10 episodes for possible obstruction of justice, including Mr Trump’s firing of FBI director James Comey, the president’s directive to subordinates to have Mr Mueller fired and efforts to encourage witnesses not to cooperate.

The president’s lawyers have said Mr Trump’s conduct fell within his constitutional powers, but Mr Mueller’s team deemed the episodes deserving of criminal scrutiny.

However, crucially, Mr Mueller made clear that he could neither charge nor clear Mr Trump over obstruction of justice.

His report said: “If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment. ... Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”