Robert Mueller completed his investigation in less than two years. It was a surprise to many of us who thought Mueller had many more indictments up his sleeve in the months to come. I have no doubt that Mueller and his team know A LOT about Donald Trump’s businesses, his deals with Vladimir Putin, his ties to the American mafia, plus tons of info about the Trump kids and Trump associates. The scope of the Mueller probe was both narrow and wide, and Mueller saw every day how spineless Republicans enabled Trump’s worst impulses, and how corrupt and compromised Trump really is. And Mueller still had a childlike faith in the system. He really thought he could hand in his report to William Barr and that Congress would be sent the report and they would begin impeachment proceedings. I have no doubt that Mueller truly and naively believed that his report would be handed to everyone quickly, and that Barr would not mischaracterize Mueller’s findings or blatantly lie. Mueller was wrong. And he has no one to blame but himself. But…
Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III wrote a letter in late March complaining to Attorney General William P. Barr that a four-page memo to Congress describing the principal conclusions of the investigation into President Trump “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of Mueller’s work, according to a copy of the letter reviewed Tuesday by The Washington Post.
At the time Mueller’s letter was sent to Barr on March 27, Barr had days prior announced that Mueller did not find a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russian officials seeking to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. In his memo to Congress, Barr also said that Mueller had not reached a conclusion about whether Trump had tried to obstruct justice, but that Barr reviewed the evidence and found it insufficient to support such a charge.
Days after Barr’s announcement, Mueller wrote the previously undisclosed private letter to the Justice Department, laying out his concerns in stark terms that shocked senior Justice Department officials, according to people familiar with the discussions.
“The summary letter the Department sent to Congress and released to the public late in the afternoon of March 24 did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this office’s work and conclusions,” Mueller wrote. “There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation. This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations.” The letter made a key request: that Barr release the 448-page report’s introductions and executive summaries, and it made initial suggested redactions for doing so, according to Justice Department officials.
Justice Department officials said Tuesday that they were taken aback by the tone of Mueller’s letter and that it came as a surprise to them that he had such concerns. Until they received the letter, they believed Mueller was in agreement with them on the process of reviewing the report and redacting certain types of information, a process that took several weeks. Barr has testified to Congress previously that Mueller declined the opportunity to review his four-page memo to lawmakers that distilled the essence of the special counsel’s findings.
Barr has clearly been corrupt from the start, or else why would he even want to be Trump’s AG. Believing that Barr would suddenly play fair and NOT misrepresent Mueller’s report is like believing in Santa Claus. It’s like having the audacity to be shocked that a corrupt despot would behave corruptly. Mueller spent two years learning everything about Trump Org and the Trump administration and how both are full of liars and compromised Russian assets and Mueller is still going to pretend like he had NO IDEA that his findings were going to be buried and mischaracterized? REALLY?
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
I am surprised that Mueller was so surprised. I get that he has tremendous faith in the system, but after spending two years investigating how corrupt basically everyone connected to the Trump administration is, and after Barr was basically appointed solely to protect Trump, he’s going to be surprised? I mean come on now Bob.
I’m not so surprised because Mueller is/was a Republican who was familiar with the likes of Barr, Rosenstein, and whichever other established figures are at the DOJ. He probably figured that even with a maniac sitting in the Oval Office, these people would focus on doing right by their country. He clearly had too much faith in them.
Yeah, he thought that the top folks he’s worked with his entire life would not be biased, and that they’d be non-partisan as ordered. Some people have always lived by shortcuts to power. He has integrity, and he expected these guys not to be corrupted by the power he appears not to be so impressed with. POC coulda told him how THAT goes…
And isn’t Mueller friends with Barr in real life?
Mueller may have actually thought they would the right thing. ha.
I doubt that Mueller is naive about anything. His hands were tied by the reality that Trump wanted to fire him and was trying to shut down the investigation before it began, and that the Justice Department would refuse to indict Trump and might even have refused to indict any of Trump’s relatives. He has always had multiple contingency plans, and he is following through on them.
Mueller is going to sing like a birdie to Congress, and that was one of his contingency plans. We can be thankful that the 2018 elections made this much easier – imagine if the likes of Devin Nunes were still in control of the House.
But I am sure that Mueller would have other ways to get the truth out. He was doing “speaking indictments” all along, which did not just list charges but outlined the evidence as well. He is not a stupid man and is not easily surprised. He knows what he is dealing with. He has experience with mob bosses and organized crime.
One question is, was he allowed to finish? Or, was he ordered to hurry up once Flintstone was in charge.
Barr goes to Congress today. There is an absolute freakout of a Twitter storm happening this today, continuing yesterday’s meltdown in which he threatened Cuba. This morning, he is retweeting alleged “firemen” from Dan Bongino’s feed; quoting Lou Dobbs about how persecuted he is; reversing decommission orders for antiquated aircraft carriers; the economy; and NO ?COLLUSION. Why doesn’t he just stroke out like a normal person?
Right? I’ll trade him for John Singleton with the Grim Reaper.
Amen, ByTheSea…
LP, I ask this question every day. How is this person still alive with his obvious health issues, sh!tty diet and lifestyle, and explosive temperament? He has to have severe hypertension, right?
Also, the office of POTUS has rapidly aged pretty much every occupant, but Trump looks basically the same? Maybe fatter …
There’s something really unnatural about this situation.
He looks the same because he’s not doing any Presidential work. Tweeting and lying is not working. He spend his day yelling, lying, complaining and eating Big Mac. How can anyone in their right mind support this Con man is beyond me.
Previous occupants likely understood the gravity of the office and internalized the related stress. People wired like the current one like to stress out everyone else. They love to stir up a whirlwind and stand back and watch everyone else react to it.
Christin, great point. Gah, he’s little an oblivious little kid and clearly that somehow that offsets his other unhealthy choices. How sick is that, to be incapable of stressing about doing right by the office of the POTUS?
Also because steaming piles of $h!t don’t age so much as ripen. He’s clearly done that. The stench is noxious and he’s long overdue for a flushing.
I really don’t get it either. And lardy orange turd is still alive too. Why?
C-Shell, you are correct that this is very weird, but Trump is truly exposing to the wold what sociopathic narcissists are really like when you are exposed to their crap on a daily basis. They seem to process stress differently. They thrive on it. For them, it isn’t “stress”. They are energized by conflict, almost like a bi-polar person in a manic state. The conflict keeps them feeling relevant. Relevance is very important to them.
I’m a sociopathic narcissist slayer. Just won an 80-year DVRO last month protecting my family from my ex, who attempted to murder our kid when she was 12. She’s 18 now, and college bound. We always say that my ex is Trump without the money. Sounds just like him, though on different subjects.
@Christin, good point. Other presidents took this s**t seriously, they also (most of them) read a lot and spent time getting in-depth briefings on issues.
This guy? Watches Fox News on tv all.day.long.
And that is about it.
christina, please don’t speak on bipolar symptoms if you don’t have them yourself. i don’t know anyone, myself included, that “thrives on conflict” when in a manic state. we mainly do our damage to ourselves.
… or resigned as any decent person would do.
For a second I thought you meant Barr was having a twitter freakout, and I was like, “that seems odd that he is using all caps like that.” lol. Oh…trump.
He has already perjured himself. He lied. He should be disbarred and impeached. That is what would happen to me or anyone of us. He lied under oath about not knowing Mueller’s opinion of his “summary” (he did) he lied to the American people in his summary. He needs to be removed from office then they can set their sights on the Orange Fraud in the Oval
No wishing death on people pls.
Sorry! It’s just so tempting to make an exception for …
I meant to impeach Trump next.
snappyfish, it wasn’t your comment, it was something I said that may have (unintentionally) skated too close to the line of violating site policy. You’re off the hook!
@whoarethesepeople thanks! I re-read mine & saw I used the term “set sights” and realized that could be misconstrued. You are so sweet to let me know!!
They never should have confirmed Barr as Attorney General while he was still refusing to pledge that he would make the full report available to Congress. The right answer to that question should have been “Of course I will make sure Congress gets the full report, unredacted for those with security clearances. And Mueller will be involved in providing any redacted versions.”
When he refused to say that, it was clear that his role as Attorney General would be to bury the report under Trump’s bed. So everybody who voted for Barr was complicit in that burial attempt. They knew it would happen and they wanted it to happen.
Our problem is finding enough Republicans who are strong enough to refuse to worship Trump and to refuse to let Mitch McConnell act like Trump’s toady rather than as the Majority Leader in a separate branch of government. My guess is that McConnell is dirty, but they can’t all be. They should at least see how suicidal following Trump will ultimately be politically for themselves and the Republican Party in general.
What is driving the rest of them? Blackmail? I’ve suspected that for explaining Graham’s odd transformation since McCain died – I really think McCain was protecting him from something while still alive.
Maybe Putin has dirt on the whole Reoublican Party, maybe about their hacking the vote tallies starting back in 2004 when the machines popped up all over. I have not trusted our Presidential election results since then.
Jwoolman, what is driving them is that they are getting everything they want. The Heritage Foundation was ready with waiting lists of recommendations for people they thought a Republican President should hire, nominate, and avoid. A strong Republican President could have picked and chosen, but an incompetent president NEEDED those lists to keep the government functioning. They now have control over a lot of federal judgeships, and that is the way to keep power in the long run. This is a story of sitting tight while holding onto your principles, and then being ready the second your chance comes up. The super-conservative wing was READY TO GO AND WELL ORGANIZED when Trump needed guidance.
Basically, the country is being run by the Heritage Foundation. Donal Trump just helps them with votes by spewing “real people” language that the Heritage folks hate, but they are in charge now, so why would they care? Look at Mitch McConnell. He cleaner hates Donald Trump, but he will not admit that until he is on his deathbed, and he may not then because it’s nothing personal. It’s all business.
We Democrat’s are naive and not as strategic or organized. We are like Mueller, believing in people instead of strategizing how to win judgeships so that they can confirm our legislative priorities.
Many Republicans have received Russian money via the NRA or otherwise. They are all covering their asses.
I think the only solution is to have a majority of women as our congresspeople and senators. The men all suck. No one has any principles. They are setting women back by decades. I am furious about the whole thing.
Congress has subpoena power; why not subpoena Mueller, himself, for testimony? I’m so tired of them sitting on their hands.
Reporting last night suggested that the DoJ is allegedly stalling on allowing his testimony to be scheduled. He’s still on their payroll (which I assume is their excuse for exerting such control).
He could resign; it would be principled and allow him to testify.
He’s likely more than earned his pension by now.
+1
Wasn’t Mueller required to hand over the findings to the DOJ, no matter who was AG? He wasn’t allowed to just publish them himself, that’s not how it works, is it? I don’t think he was naive at all or that he trusted Barr. I do hope he lays it all out when he appears before Congress. And Barr lied to Congress when he was asked whether Mueller agreed with his conclusions. He said he didn’t know and this was after he’d received the letter. It is incumbent upon us to vote in a Dem Senate majority in 2020 so that arrests can commence.
https://twitter.com/repjerrynadler/status/1123378879178133504?s=21
Ok, that makes me feel better because I was starting to think that Mueller was playing both side of the fence. He’s “outraged” at the GOP handling of his report. Yet he’s enabled their outrageously corrupt and unethical behavior by essentially sitting back and doing nothing beyond releasing the report.
This. Mueller is meticulous with following law and procedure. It would have caused more problems than solved of he’d gone rogue and released them himself.
Mueller also sent several investigations to the the states, particularly the southern district of NY, to get them away from Trump and his DOJ.
They thought Mueller would stand by and watched his worked being tear apart lied about. We are watching a lying president and a lying Attorney General lie to the American people every damned day. When are they going to impeach Don the Con and his criminal cabinet. Not one of them cares about the constitution or America.
This morning the lying Con man has tweeted and retweeted 50 times this morning. Why is he losing his mind so early this morning, where is he getting the time, is he running the country or losing his mind. I’m so sick of this @#$#.
And how dare the firefighter’s union not stand by someone who believes forests should be raked to prevent forest fires and the way to deal with a fire in an ancient stone building is to water bomb it?
A clue to telling who the trolls are in those retweets? The correct term is “firefighter,” not “fireman.” And no, that’s not a newfangled “PC” term. My great grandfather was a firefighter. So was my dad. My great grandfather rang doorbells to get JFK elected to Congress. My dad voted for Hillary.
Here you go:
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/donald-trump-fire-truck-photos_n_596d263de4b010d776731e16
Trump is scared of Uncle Joe. Hence the freakout over firefighters supporting Biden. And Bigly even had the audacity to say he’s done more for firefighters than their union. Someone stop the insanity.
I want Kampala Harris, but the purple states likely won’t vote for her. I will support Biden just to get rid of Trump. They want a white “transitional” figure who makes them confortable. It needs to be a Kamala, but we are going to end up voting Biden in. It’s pragmatic.
I’m the same. Kamala is my top choice. Warren is next but I do t think she will even come close. But if I have to vote for Biden to get rid of Trump, I will do it.
Mueller needs to hold a press conference and make a statement. He doesn’t need to take questions or go into crazy detail, but he should get some truth onto the record.
Not like it will matter to the MAGAts, who aren’t interested in truth, only in supporting their leader.
I’m truly scared for our country.
No, it wouldn’t matter. They dismiss anything they don’t like or that reflects poorly on Trump as “fake” or “deep state” machinations. I’ve said this before but I honestly don’t how we will come back from this.
I don’t either. It’s terrifying.
Germany has so….
Or, at least they have created a new and better normal from the rubble of their ignorance and the associated fallout.
@Esmom, agree, it would not matter. DJT is made of Teflon, nothing sticks against him according to the only people he cares about – his beloved, and aptly named, ‘base’.
Want to know how sick it all is? Yesterday his campaign manager tweeted that DJT is a savior delivered by God to our nation. And yes LARGE SWATHS of our fellow Americans are eating that up like ice cream. And that is a big big problem.
I’m not religious but a Trump comes off more like the Antichrist than a supposed “Savior”.
I’m surprised what essentially got buried in the weight of news this weekend is that Rosenstein had a meeting w/the President soon after Comey was fired where in conclusion he begged for his job and was quoted as saying “ I can land this plane!”
( supposedly with tears in his eyes )
Everyone tied to this administration eventually is covered in their stank. There were numerous officials that felt he was staying to see ( and protect ) the investigation. So many dems have egg on their face and have been out maneuvered.
#ETTD as Rick Wilson would say.
I remember Comey being asked, after he was fired, what he thought of Rosenstein and his wording has stuck with me ever since. He said, “He’s a….survivor.” And went on to explain that the man had been there for a long time, through many different administrations, and that didn’t happen without being a “survivor”. He didn’t intend it as a compliment.
That’s eerily prosaic….
Rosenstein has always been a mixed bag. On the one hand, he did keep Trump at bay long enough for Mueller to do two years of work. On the other hand, there was that ridiculous letter he wrote for Trump pumping for firing Comey, for reasons that never made any real sense.
I think Rosenstein was surprised when Trump tried to blame him entirely for the firing when he thought his memo would just be used as unpublicized background. He may have decided Trump was not a reliable ally at that point, since I suspect he was simply angling for Comey’s job. Now he’s back to hoping for another job, which might explain some things that seem contrary to what he’s been doing for the past two years.
That’s what Comey probably meant when he said Rosenstein was a survivor. He does what he thinks he has to do to survive, rather than following an ethical path unwaveringly. Flexible ethics, basically. So sometimes he does the right thing. Comey strikes me as a straight arrow with a clear ethical framework. He can make serious mistakes, but not from malice or ambition.
In October 2016 especially, Comey was caught in the middle between Giuliani’s conspiracy with Trumpian FBI agents to spin the Wiener emails beyond all recognition and his duty to keep Congress informed (as he had promised) of any changes in evidence for the emails investigation. The Republicans blasted his letter (clearly marked CONFIDENTIAL, ironically enough) all over the media. But if he had done nothing, Giuliani was going to do the same thing with info leaked by the FBI Trumpies.
Comey’s letter in that context seemed like an attempt to say to Congress that it was no big deal, they just needed to review the emails to see if any were new. I think Comey and McCabe had decided to wait until after the election to do that official comparison because they knew it was so unlikely to be meaningful.
@Whinsigal
Oh my gosh I was repeating that statement the day Rosenstein resigned but I forgot who said it. Thanks for the reminder. Rosenstein’s resignations letter stinks of a “survivor”. Again Comey hits the nail on the head.
Rosenstein then went and hired Mueller as Special Counsel and managed to keep the investigation running for two years… but yes, lets forget those”little” details too. Without him there would be no investigation whatsoever. And “tears in his eyes” sounds like a Trumpian smear, I don’t see a person like Rosenstein crying over a job, come on.
I don’t think Mueller believes in Santa Claus, I think he’s a Republican. And I think alas that we were the ones who were naive to believe in yet one more pillar of democracy that has turned out to be hollow. I’m still not over Justice Kennedy’s decision to step down, most likely linked to DB threats/bribes. Who knows what really happened here…but certainly we saw crimes w our very own eyes so for Mueller to pretend otherwise feels like legal sophistry at its finest… So depressing…
@Sue I can’t believe how the Kennedy story has basically been forgotten. Something significant happened there and this country needs to find out what it was.
I Agree. Also, McConnell is fishy somehow and I want him exposed.
Why are people shocked about Kennedy leaving? Again, the Heritage Foundation was running the show, and supplying the candidates. Kennedy didn’t care. He said he trusted Trump’s potential to pick people. He wasn’t trusting Trump. He was trusting the Heritage Foundation.
This article in NYTimes Magazine from last year is fascinating. They were considered obsolete until Donald Trump needed them.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/magazine/trump-government-heritage-foundation-think-tank.amp.html
Mueller didn’t “pretend” that no crimes were committed, he said you can’t indict a sitting president. He listed the crimes committed and gave the ball to CONGRESS, who has the powers to deal with criminal acts committed by a president.
I wonder if Mueller is actually surprised. That’s one of the reasons he reminded Congress of their constitutional duty of impeachment, in case something happened between his turning in the report and the press having access to it. I keep thinking that he’s the kind of guy crossing all his Ts. A guest on Rachel Maddow’s show said that his writing a letter as opposed to just talking to Barr creates a paper trail which is actually important. I think he’s just a completely by the book guy who has witnessed the past two years of slander leading up to this. I could be completely naive and wrong about this…we’ll see I guess.
I agree and tried to say much the same above.
I think this is 100% what he is doing. I think he believes that if everyone goes by the book then people will have to see the truth. It’s the only strategy that has any chance of working. The GOP is completely fine with Trump’s ties to Russia as long as they have power.
Exactly. The Republicans wanted to have control, particularly after Barack Obama’s classy presidency, and now they do. They don’t care about Russia, they’ve stacked the courts, and now they want to keep the power they feel they rightfully should have.
Mueller is fighting this as fairly as he can, but his party is not having to do anything to control Trump because of Trumps lock on his base. They can just say, “…this is what the people want” with a straight face. They don’t have to acknowledge the gerrymandering or the lies their president tells.
I’m not feeling hopeful about the survival of our democracy. Elijah Cummings reminds us that as bad as this is, it actually was worse during the civil rights era, when black men were still lynched and castraighted, and Mad Men society WAS society. This is the “two steps back” after three steps forward.
This.
He’s a by-the-book lawyer. He is required to act within his jurisdiction which mandated that he provide the report to the AG. No lawyer writes that kind of letter to someone they report to unless they want a record of the concerns raised.
It has nothing to do with faith or naïveté. He did exactly what he was required to do and took the appropriate steps to protect the integrity of his work.
People crap on lawyers all the time for acting unethically (hello Rudy G). You can’t have it both ways and want Mueller to act outside of his authority when it suits you. He is not autonomous. He cannot simply ignore the rules which bind him. He does not deserve this criticism.
very well stated.
mueller was a fool to think congress is/was capable of holding this most malignant administration to account. and we should have realized that when it was revealed that he and barr and their wives are such good friends. William barr is a scumbag and contemptuous of democratic values dating back to his days of the iran contra crimes. he’s a true believer in a strong autocratic executive.
i’m disgusted by the democrats cowardice — esp Pelosi who is doing everything to thwart any moves towards impeachment. it will be interesting to see what she has to say today. so far, I’ve seen nothing re her reaction.
and what happens today when both barr and mueller claim executive privilege and refuse to respond to questions posed by committee members. because you know they will cite national security concerns in their refusals — when, in fact, they are the threat to national security.
this is one of the most dangerous moments in this country’s recent history… and keep an eye on Venezuela because dotard is desperate for a major distraction — and john Bolton is just the man to push military intervention there.
I’m very worried for friends in Cuba. Venezuela was a strong supporter, supplying low cost fuel. In Cuba eggs can pretty much only be bought on the black market and now the stores are running out of rice on the eastern end of the island. People are getting corn meal in place of their rice ration. I send money but when the stores are empty money doesn’t do much good and people have to turn to the black market to find what they can. My friend worries about another “special period”. And trump is trying to making it worse in hopes the Cubans will revolt as well.
And Trump threatened Cuba yesterday
and dotard inc also threatened maduro when there was indication he was going to fly out of the country to cuba yesterday… and i have no doubt they would have shot the plane out of the sky.
There was no indication That Maduro was going to fly to Cuba ; that’s a excuse to blame Cuba as the supporter of Maduro and impose sanctions on Cuba too. Russia gave miltary support to Maduro, but you’ll never hear a word about it from the White House because “No Collusion” and Russia doesn’t even exist!
There’s a chance that Erik Prince has sent 5 thousand mercenaries (as indicated in Bolton’s yellow notebook last January) to create havoc in Venezuela, who is paying for them?
Lika Aang, I’m very worried for Cuba now…
“There’s a chance that Erik Prince has sent 5 thousand mercenaries (as indicated in Bolton’s yellow notebook last January) to create havoc in Venezuela…”
Ooooohhhhh…..I didn’t even think about them sending Prince’s “troops”. That’s crazy!
Pelosi went after Barr on Twitter several times yesterday.
I don’t understand why she’s being singled out as the one against impeachment, either. It’s entirely possible she doesn’t have the votes to get it through, and we know damn well it won’t make it through the Senate. She’d be a fool to admit that publicly, though. My suspicion is that Pelosi is keeping her eye on 2020. Dragging an impeachment battle out that rallies his base and distracts from Democratic candidates is not going to help us.
We’re still letting Trump’s base dictate our strategy huh? I mean, I get it…because trying to predict how Trump-supporters will react to the Democratic Party’s actions and ignoring the will of Democratic constituents has worked out so well for us in the past….
Sorry for the snark (I’m in a mood) but if you think stalling on impeachment is good for the Democratic Party then I don’t know what to tell you. People are watching what they perceive to be a failure in Dem leadership and being reminded of how our two-party system is failing The People. That mindset does not bode well for voters who already feel disillusioned with same ol’ party politics. In fact, it will likely be disastrous. And before you come at me with “the majority of Americans..” I will just say this: 70% of Dems are for impeachment and 40% of Independents. And no I don’t GAF that 91% of Republicans don’t want him impeached. The Party of Trump should have no NO SAY when it comes to NECESSARY checks and balances being applied to a country they’ve helped to destroy.
IMO, and maybe this is wishful thinking, Pelosi is not making full public disclosures about her plans. I think she could very well be laying the ground work for impeachment and taking preliminary investigative steps, before she makes any kind of declaration. I think this is the best strategy.
Exposing the corruption in clear and unavoidable terms will make impeachment seem necessary, not a political choice. Mueller gave us the tip of the iceberg, the dems need to expose the danger lurking beneath.
Barr is the one who said Bob Mueller was his friend. I don’t recall Mueller confirming that or explaining how close they actually are today. They may have been friends at one time but not so close now, for all we know.
Their wives could be friends because they ran in the same social circles. People in Washington also have to separate different aspects of themselves in dealing with each other socially or else it would be chaos. It used to be common for people of very different political views to be friends. Congress has seemed much more polarized to me in recent decades, much more absolute, especially the Republicans since the Tea Partiers took over.
mycomment — I think you are entirely misreading Mueller. There is a reason why he was so highly respected by people in both Parties in Congress.
Pelosi is not opposed to impeachment. She simply thinks moving for impeachment is a waste of time until enough Republicans are willing to remove Trump from office. She is following the Watergate pattern: first have extensive public hearings on the different relevant issues, using Mueller’s report as a roadmap just as was done with the Special Counsel’s work in Watergate. This is needed to convince any uncorrupted Republican Senators as well as the general public. There is broad public support for investigations, but not yet for impeachment. In any case, it’s a waste of time if the Senate won’t conduct the trial and remove him from office.
Nixon was not actually impeached because Republicans convinced him to resign after seeing all the evidence. The grand jury wanted to indict Nixon but came up against the same obstacle Mueller did: the Department of Justice refused to indict a sitting President. And their solution was the same as Mueller’s solution: send the evidence to Congress and let them follow the Constitutional protocols. Mueller made it exceptionally clear in his report that he did not have the power to make charges against Trump, but that Congress does have that power to prosecute the President. They are not constrained by DoJ policy as he was.
But first they need to carry out more extensive investigations and hearings and I’m sure Mueller and his team will be happy to cooperate. They might need friendly subpoenas to avoid interference by Trump. But they want to testify.
Things could move faster than Trump thinks, because judges often are not happy about attempts to cover up such matters and may choose to expedite such cases. We’ve already seen that in the judge who objected to all the redactions Barr wanted to make in the report sent to Congress and ultimately made available to citizens under the Freedom of Information Act. He said he would personally go over it all and decide what was really appropriate if necessary. I think the idea of burying the report under Trump’s bed began to collapse at that point.
It’s truly amazing how the corruption finds escape hatches every frakking day. All these educated humans. All our children sitting in college classrooms being taught our history, our legal systems, our horrors and yet our hopes, and this category five shitstorm is allowed to slowly cross our country defiling everything in its path. Why doesn’t anyone in power, who knows the wrongs being committed in the name of America, have balls big enough to start rolling down hill, gather speed and crush our true enemy of freedom? Where are they? Where’s Miley’s wrecking ball of shame? It has this admin’s name on it.
Germany had an advanced educational system. Germany had public health care and public kindergarten (having invented it). Germany had a professional class and lot of highly assimilated Jews. It still happened, for a variety of well-known reasons.
People in power know the wrongs but they either support the wrongs – they agree with them – or they like the power the wrongs bring them. Racism and inequality have always been cornerstones of the American system.
It’s sickening. Playing the game shouldn’t include turning blind eyes.
I wonder how may people actually read the report before going on Mueller? Because I read the whole thing, including references. And it clear that the main crime lies in Trump’s intent to obstruct justice, while the Russia thing is yet another illustration of Trump’s ill character and his complete misunderstanding what political process is. He surrounds himself with hustlers with no boundaries, lying, scheming and with no moral compass. The russia thing shows how this president treats the Office of the President and the system that is built on the rule of law. He basically things that all means are justified and surrounds himself with people like that. There not necessarily needs to be a collusion it just works by their understanding of the common principle: all means justified, indeed. It paints a picture of how the rule of law system is being attacked as a result of the lack of character of this president and the people he surrounds himself with. However Mueller is a person who works on behalf of this system and for the system, from how he rationalise in the report why the responsibility to remove the President from the office lies with the representatives of the people is exactly what is needed now in this shit storm where Trumpers assault the system and the opposition clearly think that all means are justified only to remove Trump. Which is that the system of the rule of law and the separation of power becomes of secondary importance to everybody. So I am really irritated by all this backlash and declarations of nativity on Mueller’s part. As soon as there are no people in the system that follow the system and that does include having faith in it, the democracy stands no chance. While now in the report he outlines more than one way forward on how to fight Trump, including criminal prosecution once he leaves office. But there needs to be a political will. Just the hope that Mueller will come in and solve this mess like some superhero is just beyond me.
It makes me so happy that Mueller will not just sit by and allow his report to be misrepresented.
Barr just threw Mueller under the bus during that hearing today – he also basically dismissed the entire report and called the letter ‘snitty’ in an attempt to belittle its importance. I hope that awful man gets roasted tomorrow, seems he was setup for it today although I wonder if he will turn up tomorrow considering how things went today for him. I felt he started off thinking he could bluff his way through it but he clearly wasn’t prepared for the Dems who WERE prepared to put holes in him.
Barr got away with covering for a President before and he thinks he can do it again – I don’t think so. Fat Boy Barr is going down – he perjured himself over the letter, esp after admitting there was a conference call after he received it. He also dropped Rosenstein in it as well.
Although it looks very likely that Mueller will be testifying and won’t that be interesting.
Barr is such an asshole. Kamala Harris was awesome.
You know who was on fire today? Mazie Hirono from Hawaii — she is one badass, no nonsense Senator.
Here she goes all in on him: “The American people know that you are no different from Rudy Giuliani or Kellyanne Conway or any of the other people who sacrificed their once decent reputation for the grifter and liar who sits in the Oval Office,” Hirono told the AG.
ALSO:
“From the beginning, you were addressing an audience of one, that person being Donald Trump,” Hirono said. “That’s why before the bombshell news of yesterday evening, eleven of my Senate colleagues and I called on the department of justice inspector general, and office of professional responsibility to investigate the way you have handled the Mueller report.”
“Being attorney general of the United States is a scared trust,” she went on. “You have betrayed that trust, America deserves better. You should resign.”
And here comes Ms. Lindsay “to the rescue” of Barr/Trump: “….And you slandered this man from top to bottom,” Graham complained. “So if you want more of this, you’re not going to get it.”
“Certainly have your opinion. I have mine,” said Hirono, getting in the final say. <— BOOM! Get it Ms. Hirono!
Wow! Go Mazie!