Mueller report thread - Mueller testimony July 24

[Koharu]

I find it hilarious that people are assuming anything about the report at this point. As mentioned earlier, this is Schrodinger's report: the cat could be alive and it could be dead. We can't tell.

Anyway, I am thankful that the investigation is finishing up because now those Democrats using it as an excuse to not start on impeachment proceedings no longer have that excuse. Trump has done impeachable things in plain sight. Whether or not he is personally implicated in Russian meddling (which has already been proven to have happened, lest you forget) doesn't make him suddenly innocent of everything else.

Also, you'd better believe Trump is demanding a summary from Barr as we speak, if not within minutes of hearing of the delivery.

[Koharu]

Hysterical dems are STUNNED when 45 is vidicated!! Reelection train gaining steam

Also fdr sent the Japanese to camps, really decent man...  but we’ll move past that, dems treat Asians like the red headed stepchildren of minorities,

Posters and comments like these are the reason I don't post as much in this forum anymore.

I had wondered where you had gone to. I do understand the feeling, though.

[Koharu]

A few thoughts:

- As I've mentioned before, Trump has done enough in plain sight to necessitate impeachment. I was okay with waiting for the Mueller probe to finish to make sure there wasn't something else to add to the laundry list. It's done. Let's go.

- We still don't know what the report says. We have Barr's summary, which doesn't even carry any complete sentences from the report. It needs to be made public ASAP.

- As for those wanting to address the Russia issue, Barr does admit that Mueller found evidence Russia did indeed attempt to interfere with the election, though we already knew that via the previous indictments.

- Lawfare, once again, has an excellent take on this:

In other respects, however, Barr’s summary of Mueller’s report is ominous for the president. While Mueller did not find that Trump obstructed his investigation, he also made a point of not reaching the opposite conclusion: that Trump didn’t obstruct the investigation. Indeed, he appears to have created a substantial record of the president’s troubling interactions with law enforcement for adjudication in noncriminal proceedings—which is to say in congressional hearings that are surely the next step.

Mueller, writes Barr, did not make a “traditional prosecutorial judgment” on the subject. Instead, for each act with a potentially obstructive nexus, “the report sets out evidence on both sides of the question and leaves unresolved what the Special Counsel views as ‘difficult issues’ of law and fact concerning whether the President’s actions and intent could be viewed as obstruction.”

This is, as a preliminary matter, a striking decision on Mueller’s part. It almost certainly flows from the difficult questions that arise when one tries to imagine how one would apply the obstruction of justice statutes to presidential acts that are, on their face, authorized by Article II of the Constitution—questions we have addressed at great length on this site.

In laying out this summary, Barr’s letter reveals several new facts about Mueller’s obstruction probe. First, it notes that Mueller’s report covers several actions by Trump that could raise obstruction concerns, “most of which have been the subject of public reporting.” This confirms what has long been suspected: that Mueller believed that at least some of the president’s publicly reported actions—likely including some of his public actions—could raise obstruction problems. It also suggests that there are potentially obstructive acts that have not yet been reported. Barr’s letter thus leaves the distinct sense that Mueller’s detailed accounting of the president’s potential acts of obstruction is significant, regardless of Barr’s own judgment as to the criminality of any of those acts.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-make-bill-barrs-letter

[Koharu]

https://twitter.com/JYSexton/status/1109908684874878976

https://twitter.com/NoahShachtman/status/1110003397724377088

[Koharu]

I always enjoy watching Fox News, but I have immensely enjoyed watching it this week. #RussiaHoax

I would be embarrassed if I were a CNN or MSNBC anchor showing up for ‘work’ in recent days. The MSM’s credibility has been shattered. Lie after lie. Disgraceful.

And the corrupt DOJ officials and prominent figures around H. Clinton, herself included, are in heaps of criminal trouble.

You indeed got the biggest scandal since Watergate. The closet the US has ever gotten to an actual coup. What a disgrace.

The left still doesn’t understand why Trump won in 2016. They don’t take personal responsibility for their failings (ever) and they are currently digging a massive hole for themselves. As I said - it’s great to watch!

Always fun to hear the party that backed a pedophile for Senate, supports a President who was recorded bragging about sexually assaulting multiple women, and that fought tooth-and-nail to put an attempted rapist on the Supreme Court talk about the importance of taking responsibility for one’s failings.

Firstly, nothing against Roy Moore has been proven (although the accusation by the girl who stated that Moore forced himself on her is the worst of the allegations and the most credible). 

Secondly, Moore was elected in a primary.  He was not the GOP's organization choice (indeed, Trump supported the incumbent, Luther Strange) and large swaths of the national GOP disavowed Moore's candidacy.  (That's one major reason he lost.)

While I don't give Trump high marks for introspection, let's note how Hillary Clinton has never taken responsibility for her own poor decisions.  It's a reason she lost.  I don't expect the Left of Schiff, Jeffries, et al to take responsibility for advancing assertions about Donald Trump that they can't prove.  (Of course, he's Trump, so lying about him is OK, isn't it?)  There IS a need for greater personal responsibility taken in our society, but please don't tell me that liberals are leading the way on this.

https://qz.com/1077873/hillary-clinton-book-how-many-times-clinton-apologized-in-what-happened/

Yes, Hillary Clinton has never had any introspection or responsibility or apology for her own mistakes. Let’s please get out of here with that vicious lie.

To be fair, she really hasn’t

Dude, literally in the article whose link you quoted.

Perhaps they have not read the book. Hillary Clinton blames herself at least 35 times in What Happened. She apologizes for her mistakes, she apologizes for not apologizing, she even reports past apologies for mistakes she’d made before becoming the Democratic party candidate.

Stop with the lies.

[Koharu]

I've updated the title slightly to reflect that the released findings are from Barr's summary, not directly from the report.

Thank you.

[Koharu]

Trump won't be impeached regardless of what the House does.   The 47 Dem + indy Senators need to convince TWENTY Republican Senators that what Trump did is impeachable.

No matter what your political ideology is, anyone can see that's flat out impossible.   They'd have a difficult time getting 10 Republican Senators to vote for impeachment.

Impeachment only requires the House. Removal from office requires the Senate. Clinton was impeached, but not removed from office. It's an important distinction.

Trump should have been impeached immediately after his inauguration, but since that wasn't going to happen, the Democratic House needs to move now. They said they had to wait for Mueller. Here is Mueller, explicitly reminding them of impeachment. Time to get to work.