WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson says some of his fellow Congressmen and the news media need to apologize after the Mueller Report was unable to find any collusion between Russia and President Trump or his campaign.

“Month after month, many mainstream media journalists and elected Democrats, including some of my House colleagues, have been out spinning a false narrative to advance their political agenda. They should apologize,” he said, in a news release issued Sunday afternoon.

“Not a single American was charged, indicted or convicted for conspiring with Russia to influence the 2016 election — not one! Like many of you, I’ve maintained all along this would be the case. It was simply and obviously a fabricated hoax perpetrated by those who could not accept the fact that Donald Trump won the 2016 election fair and square,” said the Marietta Republican, whose district includes all of Columbiana County.

Johnson said the scary thing is had Trump lost, the country would never have learned what was going on “behind the scenes,” such as “the shady FISA warrant, wiretapping or extreme bias in the Justice Department and at the FBI. We simply must get to the bottom of this, and those responsible for dragging this country through this mess, knowing it was all untrue, must be held accountable.”