The Mueller Report is out. It’s been “lightly redacted,” and from what I can tell, the redactions are mostly for ongoing investigations and cases which Mueller and his team already passed off to other jurisdictions. Most likely, the investigations and cases which are still ongoing are being handled by the Southern District of New York, but yes, we don’t know for sure. Amazon is selling hard copies of the Mueller Report, but you can read the entire PDF copy of the report here through NPR.
So, what have we learned? I mean… we learned that Robert Mueller is a cautious man who had enough evidence to prosecute Donald Trump, but was told that sitting presidents cannot be indicted. We learned that Mueller has a lot of faith in the system of government, and he believed he was handing over a solid case for impeachment – for high crimes and misdemeanors – to Congress. Like the Republican-controlled Senate will do sh-t to Trump, I think not. I witnessed an argument on MSNBC about whether Mueller was too cautious about who he indicted, and the commentators made the argument that there was absolutely enough evidence to indict Don Jr, but that Mueller did not.
The report is more than 400 pages long, so it’s tough to summarize here in one blog post, but suffice to say… Mueller gathered tons of evidence of Donald Trump’s lies and Trump’s attempts to obstruct justice. That’s what gets me: Mueller had clear evidence of “attempted obstruction of justice,” meaning that Mueller had Trump dead to rights trying to order underlings to obstruct, but Mueller seemed to reason that because the underlings didn’t follow through on the orders, it doesn’t count? Conspiracy to commit a crime is still illegal, yo.
AG Bill Barr is also basically acting as Trump’s lawyer now, not the attorney general for the country. His press conference before the report’s release was a craven political act for an audience of one: an unhinged fascist who was sweating bullets all week.
Clintonworld is upset too – the core of this mess is that Trump and his people really did f–king collude with Russia, g–damn it. We’ve known that the whole f–king time. Anyway, all of your angst and yelling are welcome here.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red and Backgrid.
American government, while previously imperfect, is broken forever. I mean, Jimmy Carter had to give up his peanut farm. And now here we are.
Jimmy Carter is a good, moral, ethical man who didn’t need to be told the right thing to do. Unlike the lowdown, motherfvcking, scumbag, every last one a piece of shit trump crime family. I wish I believed in karma or some kind of afterlife retribution.
2020. 2020. 2020. Take back the Senate, increase the House and deal with these shitheads. Hopefully, we won’t all be dead from their aggressive destruction of the environment by then.
THIS!!!
We are the employers of all these elected officials. Our vote is more critical now, than ever.
I could get on a soapbox regarding Jimmy. He is a decent person who has been painted as “worst” (projection, much?) since the start of the “Saint Ronnie” era. Gaslighting the public has been in full swing for nearly 40 years.
yes!!
I told my BF last night:
I will be away a lot during 2020. I am going to be volunteering, canvasing, donating money, possibly going out of state to volunteer.
This is a fight for survival, folks. We all need to go all in to protect our democracy.
Kick out damn Turtle McConnell–who is Agent Orange’s partner in crime in destroying this country!
I still can’t wrap my brain around the fact that his team expected help from Russia, received help from Russia to steal the election, lied about it, tried to cover it up and still nothing happens to this guy…. so depressing.
I wanted to feel happy that I live in Canada but then Alberta elected a super right-wing ,anti-everything wingnut as their Premier so, we are going down the same road too 🙁
Trump is only getting away with it because GOP is letting him, he’s the distraction while they dismantle the Constitution and US democracy.
I want McConnell, Rand, and Graham investigated within an inch of their lives. McConnell has been serving some other master for at least a decade.
@Lightpurple. Re: McConnell, we just need to look no further than his wife to see who his real master is. Isn’t her father a shipping magnate who ships its alleged brings in illegal drugs into the US from China? Its not the Russians pulling his strings, its the Chinese.
Don’t forget Devon Nunez and Bill Barr who is one of the gang of eight who is on a select committee that gets private and secret information, not to be shared, and went over to the White House and gave secrets to the president.
Yes to all this and McConnell for sure has some mess he’s hiding and I want to know what it is! He’s the worst!
@Digital Unicorn, doesn’t his wife head the Department of Transportation? I assumed she’d gotten the job because she’s McConnell’s wife, but at least she has background knowledge on the subject, unlike so many of the nepotistic appointments. But with that background, I have to wonder about how she has security clearance. Wait, no I don’t.
Diseased McTurtle’s income suspiciously went from $2.5M to over $30M; Butt Kisser Graham’s campaign has now been found to have taken over $800K from Russian Oligarchs and the NRA (and isn’t it funny how he did a 180* after that one-on-one golf game with the Mar-a-Lardo in Chief?). Nunes, the idiot extraordiaire, is SUING A TWITTER COW ACCOUNT! lol Yes, he is, and I’m actually getting the T-Shirt to prove it! It’s called: “I Stand with Devin Nunes’ Cow” T-shirt. And of course, still unanswered: Why did Justice Kennedy retire so abruptly? What role did his son’s job at Deutsche Bank play? Who paid off Brett KavaNOPE’s $92,000 country club fees plus his $200,000 credit card debt plus his $1.2 million mortgage, and purchased themselves a SCOTUS seat?
For the life of me, I don’t know/understand how this happened! I feel like has to be an episode of The Twilight Zone.
I was so disappointed about the Alberta election too. To be honest though, I wasn’t surprised. I grew up in Calgary so I know people’s focus on their pocket books and only their pocket books isn’t new. And remember, this is the province home of Stephen Harper, who people tend to forget what a racist POS he really was. And that hold Ralph Klein up for sainthood even though he was an alcoholic, abusive mess. It makes me so bloody sad. So I can’t look down my nose at trumplestilskin either. If the premier had his way he’d do the same.
Ontario elected a dump like moron in Doug ford who doesn’t tweet, but is corrupt in every other way. He tried to hire his friend as OPP commissioner and changed the rules because the guy didn’t have a high enough rank under the old rules. Luckily the deputy OPP commissioner didn’t stay quiet and finally the guy withdrew. But I promise you that the Ford family is trying to get side deals in any possible way. Dougie and his crack head brother were shady when they were a part of Toronto city council and Dougie will continue to do so as premier. The PCs should be forever shunned for choosing him as a leader over a competent woman like Christine Elliott. And the fools who thought that Dougie, useless rich guy who was bankrupting his dad’s business, would be able to deal with complex issues are now paying the price. Too bad the poor and middle class will pay the price directly, and many will die especially with what’s being done to health care.
Yes that’s just it … people will die.
The Ontario PC party is perfectly happy to be brought into majority power by this corrupt, moronic figurehead. Christine Elliott may be competent, but she is competently slashing and burning public services along with the rest of them.
The province is being flung backward so far and so fast it will make our heads spin. And beyond the deaths (public health cuts – remember Walkerton?), we will have a generation of under-educated children and neglect of democracy-supporting institutions such as public libraries.
Lala I suspect NS will go the same way. Probably because half the guys leave high school and head out west for easy money.
I’m hoping some of the anti Trudeau sentiment is the same sentiment that spreads regardless of who’s leading not doing exactly what the idiots want and not indicative of it being a sure thing.
Ontario resident here stuck with Doug Ford and his Conservative asshats so I feel your pain. 🇨🇦
I have faith that Congress will do its job – it has to. They have to also destroy the GOP otherwise the US will never be able to move beyond this mess.
I fear for you guys next year – Trump and his GOP minions are doing whatever they can to sow distrust of the election system. If they and Trump don’t get the result they want they will use voter fraud to declare a national emergency and abandon the constitution to declare Trump Emperor. They’ve stacked the courts with GOP lackeys and put GOP loyalists in senior positions with the DOJ and military. They are planning a coup, they are planning to turn the US into an authoritarian republic run from Moscow. They will do whatever is necessary to cling to power, they have their money and hides to protect.
These are definitely our fears, Digital 🦄. Sucks like shit in a can.
The Mueller Cop out. I already knew nothing would be done. And handing it over to congress is cowardly. The cop out. They can’t even agree over what needs to be done to run our country.
Oh sure there are more ongoing investigations but 45 and his rotten spawn won’t be touched until, Maybe he leaves office. And this will distract the dems from what they need to be doing and that is coming together to give us a presidential candidate who can unite us and get 45 out. The democrats are just milling about like sheep right now. We need to concentrate on the election not impeachment. Lost cause.
Mueller is a coward. The End
Somewhere along the way I forgot Mueller is a republican and as complicit as the rest of them.
I don’t think he is a coward, not with this footnote:
MUELLER, p. 390, footnote 1991: “A possible remedy through impeachment for abuses of power would not substitute for potential criminal liability after a President leaves office.”
Pelosi sent her invitation to Mueller yesterday. They are scheduling his testimony, his public testimony. The wheels of justice grind slowly but they are grinding.
And she’s coming for Barr too.
Mueller: “With respect to whether the President can be found to have obstructed justice by exercising his powers under Article II of the Constitution, we concluded that Congress has the authority to prohibit a President’s corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice.”
Pelosi: “Challenge accepted.”
Trump is acting so crazy today, I am worried an open hearing with Mueller may provoke him to do something really stupid, like start a war with Iran.
He will start a war with Iran eventually anyway. Best to get him out, ASAP.
Mueller is the status quo what made anyone think he will be for the people. The American government is a corporation, and it’s public the consumers. You want an example of a government the closest you will get to are Scandinavian countries.
Come on, SDNY!
I read what someone wrote yesterday that makes sense. The House should vote to start impeachment proceedings to get the Grand Jury Testimony unsealed. And while it will never get 67 votes in the Senate to impeach, it will but pressure on Senators from states that can turn things around in 2020.
I thought that was dead on and should be done, but it won’t.
Thank you! Even if you don’t get impeachment, Dems can use the issue to cause as much damage as possible to the republicans. Force each Senate candidate to defend Trump and his clear corruption. Use trump to damage the entire Republican Party.
The republicans would have used this issue as a massive weapon – like a nuclear bomb even – against the Democrats, but then they’re much more politically savvy and ruthless.
They definitely would have used this to their advantage, if the parties were in reverse. One thing about the Repubs that is tried and true — they know how to play a hardball political / public opinion game. They just cannot actually govern effectively.
So what about all those headlines and tweets about Trump having the best day of his presidency when the Barr summary was released a few weeks ago? Do those still stand?
LOL. We are so f**ked with the 2020 election. The media learned NOTHING.
The media are useless. I have to come to a celebrity gossip blog for news ffs. Can Kaiser get booked on CNN please.
I know. I get news from Celebitchy and Stephen Colbert. What a bonkers world we live in
Seth Meyers and his writers have been reporting really good as well, his “Closer look” segments are great.
This site and Seth/Amber are supplying my political news, and I don’t even watch the Closer Look segments anymore because they’re so depressing even Seth can’t rescue it for me.
I was just about to say that Seth Meyers and his closer look segments get watched religiously in my house! That’s where I get a lot of my news. which is sad.
We are only f*cked if we sit back and do nothing.
Seriously people, volunteering MAKES A DIFFERENCE. Everyone has something they can contribute, and it doesn’t mean you have to go door to door. Whether it is data entry, donating money, making calls, registering people to vote, helping arrange childcare services or transportation on election day, we CAN make a difference.
I volunteered during the Obama campaign. It was a little out of my comfort zone, but NOTHING make me feel more productive and less worried about the future. And it made a difference…his ground game was powerful. This same country that elected Trump also elected Obama. Our “better angels” are there, if we just take the effort to appeal to them.
So we’re saying corrupt government is Corrupt. Corrupt president is corrupt. The orange menaces family are corrupt. AND?? Crickets? Not a US citizen but it seems to be they’ll limp along till the election-which he won’t run in if he thinks he can’t win and he can’t without help from his corrupt cronies. Did i mention corrupt??
Mueller is a disgusting coward. I’m so tired of people claiming caution out of respect for the Office. That ship has sailed. We have a lying, thieving, rage tweeting, want to be dictator who has turned the presidency into an absolute farce. Mitch McConnell and whatever demon he carries around in that neck pouch have destroyed the congress as a coequal check and balance. The 40% of Americans who still support trump are absolute garbage people or so stupid and gullible as to be useless anyway. We might actually get to see history made in the form of some sort of revolution or civil war in our lifetime. I’m picturing Ken Burns’ great great granddaughter panning over screen shots of trump’s tweets read by Alec Baldwin’s great great grandson.
Amen. And true respect for the office would aim to toss him out as fast as possible. He’s using the presidency as a shield to avoid prosecution for a lifetime of criminal activity.
IMO, you are not looking at what was in the report yesterday. Mr Mueller wrote the report with a roadmap for Congress to follow to impeach the president. Congress may not want to start the impeachment process because the Senate will not vote to impeach the Con man. IMO, they should hold open hearings for us to see and hopefully most of the voters will be so sick of seeing a lying and thuggish person living in the Whitehouse that they will vote him out.
I fully expected this to be the result, so I’m mostly numb about it. Sad that Mueller would have been naive to believe that Barr and the GOP would have done their actual job instead of doing exactly what we all knew they would do, which is ignore it. This is why it is funny/sad to me that 45 gets himself all worked about this shiz. Nothing sticks to this asshole and nothing is going to.
What DOES make me mad are two things – thinking back to 2016 and the insufferable arguments and self righteous moralizing from people who just couldn’t make themselves vote for Hilary Clinton, so they threw their votes away (if they bothered to vote at all). I wonder if they still feel like they’re on some moral high ground about that and still like to act like there was no difference between her and this fascist? The other thing is the lack of spine and leadership in this party – I see a lot of hand wringing and fear. They’re so busy attacking each other that I still see no clear vision for the 2020 election and we’re almost halfway through 2019.
IMO, Barr should be impeached. He’s compromised and cannot be trusted with telling the truth and as the head of the Justice Department this cannot be accepted.
The process of electing our AG needs to be overhauled. As long as that person is hand-picked by the President, it will be a one-sided relationship.
Another thing from 2016 that infuriates me is remembering Charles Schumer explaining the strategy the Democrats were employing for the election:
“For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.”
When I think that Democrats appointed this man as Senate Minority leader….well, the writing was on the wall about what kind of opposition they were going to be.
I read lots of that report. Is conspiracy that hard to prove? Because what Trump and his kids and his campaign did should be illegal in regards to accepting and even seeking help from a communist country to help him win the election.
Mr muller found about 10 times when he conspired, but because the president cannot be indicted so he’s leavint that up to the Congress to Imprach the Con man.
Yeah, my understanding was that he was saying you can’t indict a sitting president and since you can’t its unfair to accuse when he has no legal means to defend himself (ie via a trial)… however, he won’t always be president and because of that, he can be tried later. When that happens, here is the evidence you will need, then he laid it all out.
@Doodle, BINGO !!
The U.S. may never recover from this. We may be at the tipping point…the point of no return where we can’t come back and undo the damage done by Trump’s crime family and the complicit GOP. THe evidence is there in the report and Trump should be impeached for obstruction…but we all know, nothing will happen.
And Bill Clinton got impeached for lying about a blow job?
Yeah, exactly. The double standard is beyond infuriating. I saw a clip yesterday of a younger, guyliner-wearing Lindsay Graham talking about how even if what Clinton did wasn’t technically a crime he should still be impeached because his conduct wasn’t befitting the POTUS.
And Clinton actually allowed himself to be interviewed. Bozo has now set a precedent that you just bide your time, and maybe give written answers that are basically different wording of “I don’t recall”.
Mr. Greatest Memory Ever apparently couldn’t remember a darn thing, even after having months to think about the topics and answers. Seems like that could be used to prove he is unfit to serve (mental capacity).
Fortunately Trump is thankfully the biggest lazy as* we have ever had in the WH. He hasn’t made a dent in major laws and is too lazy too do his actual job. Can you imagine the destruction if Cheeto lard as* was motivated?
I will never understand why we can’t indict a sitting president. The president, above all others, should be someone obeying the law and setting an example. He needs to be impeached.
I wonder the same thing. The rationale, that it would be too distracting from the job of POTUS, is insane to me. Why tf would we want someone accused of criminal conduct to continue in office? In no way, shape or form did Trump or his associates behave as if he was innocent. And in any other job that person would be fired.
And let’s get real here. 45 isn’t actually doing the job of POTUS, he’s got lots of time on his hands for distractions, like watching Fox News, tweeting, and golfing. I think his busy schedule would accommodate impeachment proceedings.
He needs to be removed. Kellyanne Conway’s husband called him cancer and he’s right.
His wife is feeding the cancer. I believe she tells her husband what’s going on at her work and he’s telling us what he was told.
Where is Eric?
I know! I am worried about him 😔
I feel so stupid. You guys all warned me not to have hope about this report ‘doing anything’ and you were right.
This is also what I don’t get: Orange turd’s staff didn’t do everything he told them to do, reining him in a bit (a miracle). But it’s like saying “well yeah we helped the pyromaniac to burn a few sheds but stopped him from burning the big building, so we didn’t really do anything that bad.” Yes you did! They are all guilty! This is unbelievable.
Trump: I’m vindicated by this Mueller report. No crimes!
Also Trump: This crazy Mueller report is fabricated BS.
This whole thing is a mess. Hopefully, Mueller testifies and Congress acts. But I’m doubtful. I don’t think justice is coming till he is out of office.
I really want Congress to publicly ask Mueller whether he was told to end the investigation before he was ready. It was supposed to last several more months, but then the Flintstone AG shows up and it’s wrapped up within a few weeks.
As Flintstone bellowed yesterday, Mueller “works for me!” If Mueller was told to shutter it, he had little choice but to go with what his team had (even if incomplete).
I’m about 50 pages into the report. I plan on spending tomorrow getting super high (4/20 baby!) and finishing it. So far pretty much every paragraph gives me the impression of blatant Russian collusion done by various Trumps and Trump minions, and yet, no collusion? No fucking way.
They pursued the wikileaks emails throughout the campaign and the report paints a very good timeline for everything that happened. I forgot about this but a huge batch of the stolen emails dropped right after Pussygate, like the day after. No fucking way that wasn’t done intentionally! Like we’re all so god damn stupid that we don’t know these tricks and games they’re playing. The GOP has to, HAS to hate this country. This is beyond greed. They are actively trying to hurt people.
It’s up to congress now. I do have some faith in the Freshman batch but I’m less confident in Pelosi. I don’t care if impeachment fails, take the shot.
Impeachment might not fail; conviction would, but who the hell cares – this isn’t a courtroom, it’s the United States Congress and the political inquiry is absolutely necessary to ensure widely televised hearings exposing absolutely everything and demonstrating that the rule of law comes above the president and not the other way around.
The Republicans in the Senate can then hang on their votes should it come to that.
In the meantime, do the right thing.
“In the meantime, do the right thing.” YES, PLEASE! For the love of everything good please do the right thing and start the impeachment process as soon as possible!
Can we PLEASE stop using the word “collusion?” It’s Trump’s word that he uses to distract. Mueller was not looking for collusion. Collusion is not a crime. Mueller had a very narrow scope to investigate whether Russia attempted to tamper with our election. Dozens have been indicted. Members of Trump’s inner circle are in prison with more awaiting trial. Twelve investigations spun from this are ongoing. Mueller cited Ten instances when Trump tried to obstruct justice, which, unlike collusion, is a crime. Manafort’s seized assets paid for the whole thing. Collusion isn’t the issue, never was. Election fraud is.
Is conspiring a better word? I know obstruction is the big ticket crime in all of this but what’s the best way to describe what was clear, intentional, malicious interference from Russia on behalf of Trump that Trump sought out and used? Op, it just hit me, TREASON. That’s the right word for all of this.
@lightpurple, Mueller listed 10 instances of where Don the Con tried to obstruct Justice, can you imagine how many he was not told about.
Exactly. And Mueller has to work within the framework of existing law and policy. Not only has he laid out plain as day how to deal with Trump in section two of the report, he shifted out so much to other jurisdictions (like SDNY) in order to do as much as possible without Trump bring able to fight back. I feel like so many people are so anxious about what Trump is doing to this country (rightfully so) that they’re not seeing that Mueller is doing his job as meticulous as possible so there aren’t any holes. Because we all know that the Republicans in congress will do anything they can to invalidate his work.
I’m curious to see what happens when the House interviews Mueller.
He was looking at conspiracy, but noted that requires an AGREEMENT between the parties. He specifically stated that knowing about, and acting upon the actions of Russia was not enough to prove conspiracy at the criminal level.
Impeachable offenses don’t have to meet a criminal standard. They just have to be unacceptable to the American people.
Mueller’s report laid out non-debatable FACTS. Dems should use those facts to press the American people to decide what is unacceptable in clear terms. Accepting help of a hostile foreign power while knowing they are interfering in our elections is not acceptable, even if it is horrifically legal.
Basically, he tried to break the law, but couldn’t find an accomplice to help him?
And can Donald Trump Jr. have charges laid against him at a later date when he can no longer be pardoned by his father?
Yes
It’s not about his father pardoning him. According to Muller, he couldn’t tell if Trump Jr. was smart enough to know he was breaking the law by seeking help from the Russians. Muller could not prove *intent”. I think there was enough to indict. Last time I checked ignorance of the law is not an excuse.
That’s almost more infuriating than anything else in a way. We have people with fairly severe cognitive impairments who have been executed for their capital crimes, but Jr skates even a trial because he’s too dumb to know? BALONEY.
I would love to see Jr. locked up.
Yesterday somewhere I read that a conservative group has placed an anti Trump ad on Fox. Mind you, they’re still conservative but not thugs?
I think the Dems should let it go and focus on the election. Trump will always skate, he has discovered the key to getting even reasonably intelligent people to defend and cover up for him.
We cannot let it go, we have to do, we must do, two things at the same time. Hold hearings to the entire country can see the crimes being committed and focus on the election… walk and chew gum at the same time.
Give me a candidate that I can believe in and I will vote for them.
Vote for Democrats. Stop looking for candidates that “speak” to you. Get out there and volunteer. Make your beliefs known to any and all.
You’re never going to have a candidate that wants everything you want. But one thing we should all demand is honesty. Everyone lies sometimes, but few are liars. Chronic, serial, blatant liars must not be tolerated with any candidate. How can one find solutions to problems when the very claims of problems or the claim of a lack of a problem are based on a multitude of lies? There is nothing worse than a liar. Jesus called Satan “the father of lies.” I think Satan has risen again.
Warren just called for impeachment
Good. Drag it out. Get the info out there. Show how dirty the GOP is.
Burn the traitorous GOP to the ground.