Pedestrians pass in front of Trump Tower in New York City on Dec. 19, 2018. Photo: Allison Joyce/Bloomberg 

Donald Trump Jr.'s enthusiastic response to securing potential dirt on Hillary Clinton offered by a Russian government supportive of his father's then-presidential campaign was reviewed for possible criminal charges by Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office, the report, made public in a redacted version Thursday, indicated.

Mueller's team found the series of events—beginning with Trump Jr.'s email featuring the phrase “love it” regarding the possibility of getting Clinton material, and leading to a meeting that included top members of Trump's campaign and officials with connections to the Russian government at Trump Tower in June 2016—supported “an inference” that the campaign anticipated getting damaging information on Clinton “from official Russian sources that could assist candidate Trump's electoral prospect,” the report stated.

The report states that Mueller's team felt the campaign's actions “could implicate” campaign members' violation of two separate federal laws. The first was a ban on contributions and donations by foreign nationals, which the special counsel's office said evidence “supports the inference” that Trump Jr., then-campaign executive Paul Manafort, and the president's son-in-law Jared Kushner were aware that the purpose of the Trump Tower meeting was to accept “helpful information to the campaign from Russian sources.”

Additionally, the office considered whether the evidence could establish a conspiracy to violate the foreign contributions ban. Mueller's office found “reasonable arguments” that the information promised to the campaign could constitute a thing of value, even if it was only a promise as such. However, the office said it declined to pursue criminal charges for two specific reasons.

First, the office “did not obtain admissible evidence” that would meet the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the campaign officials acted with general knowledge about the illegality of their conduct. Second, the office expected it to be difficult to similarly prove that the value of the promised information “exceeded the threshold for a criminal violation” of $2,000 for a criminal violation and $25,000 for a felony punishment.

The special counsel's office explained that a number of authorities, including the Federal Election Commission, would support the view that campaign-related opposition research handed over to a campaign for the purposes of influencing an election's outcome “could constitute a contribution to which the foreign-source ban could apply.”

However, the report states, “no judicial decision has treated the voluntary provision of uncompensated opposition research of similar information as a thing of value that could amount to a contribution under campaign-finance law.”

Mueller's office said such an interpretation had the potential to go beyond the foreign-source ban to raise First Amendment questions. As it was “uncertain how courts would resolve those issues,” the special counsel's office decided, for these and other reasons, not to pursue charges due to the uncertainties that could be encountered prosecuting the campaign officials.

Similarly, the special counsel's office found it would be a challenge to prove that the participants “had general knowledge that their conduct was unlawful,” making it difficult to prove they willfully broke the law.

Spokespeople for Trump Jr., Manafort and Kushner did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

A spokeswoman for the DOJ also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.