Mueller report thread - Mueller testimony July 24

[Badger]

Why do you guys WANT it to be true that trump colluded with russia? It is bizarre to me.

Millions of Americans are livid that their President WASN’T colluding with a foreign power

Think about that for a second. Imagine half of the country actively hoping that FDR or Truman was caught colluding with the Japanese during WW2.

It’s difficult to comprehend

FDR was a decent men]/b] while Trump is a corrupt, narcissistic ,bigoted sack of sh!t

*Wonders how FDR is a decent man*
*Looks at party label*
*Ah, now it makes sense*

FDR is overrated and his policies were really watered down socialism. Had we chosen Hoover again, Landon, Willkie, or Dewey, today, our nation would be a much better place

I'm well aware of the clown car you ride in, so I don't pay much attention to your posts.

I just feel that America would be better off, without FDR's radical expansion of government, you can disagree, but that's my view, had it even been a moderate Democrat, America would have been better off, than we were with FDR.

This explains so much

[Badger]

the Democrats outdid them with their Russian nonsense.

No, they really didn't.

[Badger]

2+ years of the Mueller investigation yields nothing, but the Ukranian AG finds tangible evidence against Hillary Clinton of collusion with a Ukranian citizen to influence the U.S. elections.

Okay.  So no collusion.  Now we pin our hopes to obstruction of justice.  A crime for which we have no concrete evidence to substantiate aside from our own opinions and emotional outbursts.  We base our allegations on body language examinations and poker psychoanalysis we conducted while Whitaker was testifying before congress. We Democrats are no more credible or detestable than Nancy Grace.  Hope we win in 2020.  All of our candidates are now toxic, but hopefully white man, I mean Biden, will save us. 

Perhaps, if we work hard enough, we can link Trump to the Jussie Smolett hoax, lol.

Please stop embarrassing yourself , fuzzy. It's genuinely embarrassing to watch.

[Badger]

2+ years of the Mueller investigation yields nothing, but the Ukranian AG finds tangible evidence against Hillary Clinton of collusion with a Ukranian citizen to influence the U.S. elections.

Okay.  So no collusion.  Now we pin our hopes to obstruction of justice.  A crime for which we have no concrete evidence to substantiate aside from our own opinions and emotional outbursts.  We base our allegations on body language examinations and poker psychoanalysis we conducted while Whitaker was testifying before congress. We Democrats are no more credible or detestable than Nancy Grace.  Hope we win in 2020.  All of our candidates are now toxic, but hopefully white man, I mean Biden, will save us. 

Perhaps, if we work hard enough, we can link Trump to the Jussie Smolett hoax, lol.

Please stop embarrassing yourself , fuzzy. It's genuinely embarrassing to watch.

That you say I'm embarrassing myself is usually a sign that I'm on the right track.

Sure. Go with that.

[Badger]

“There were NO indictments.”

You incredible lying hack.

You're such a class act. 

No further indictments is what I should have said.  The indictments of Manafort were for matters having nothing to do with Trump's campaign.  Ditto the indictments of Flynn, Stone, and Cohen.  No indictments pertaining to activities of Donald Trump.  No indictments regarding the "collusion" narrative, which was the basis of the Mueller Investigation in the first place.  No indictments of Trump's family members.  No indictments for obstruction of justice for anyone.

That's a lot of "No", don'tcha think?

And, yes, no new indictments were announced in the Mueller report.

Yes, I understood from the outset what you *meant*, but it matters that you *said* something else entirely.

I bet you're a touch of grace and class in every situation you enter into. 

In fairness, fuzzy, this doesn't change the fact that you were completely incorrect In what you posted about there being no indictments.

Incidentally, have the recent reports about The Mueller team being cheesed off at Barr for making an apparently misleading statement that there was no evidence of collusion or obstruction found? The leaks from the Mueller team indicate that it was a much closer case on both matters.

Does that matter to you at all? Or you just so buried in your Jihad against the liberal media that it all just doesn't matter?

[Badger]

You guys are pathetic.

To the irony ore mine, stat!

[Badger]

You guys are pathetic.

It's telling that this is all that you have to say.

Haha. Ok. Keep it up though, more Russiagate madness is directly in my sides best interest.

"My side" says everything.

You are proudly Trumpist jockrider first, Republican a close scond, and American a,weak third.

Abject traitor.

[Badger]

Okay this seems like what everyone figured all along (pre-memo). Trump did some light collusion but they couldn’t establish a conspiracy nor did what they did rise to the level of a a crime

Other than that whole obstruction of justice thing being a crime.

[Badger]

Donny half scoop was spared a conspiracy charge because Mueller decided he was too stupid to know what he was doing was potentially illegal. 

Any evidence that he was truly that stupid, as opposed to being so foolish and Reckless that he would do it anyway, it's thin. And yet Republicans overwhelmingly support him despite this toxic combination criminal behavior and rank idiocy. Good show guys!

[Badger]

Lester Holt and the NBC team are currently discussing the report "falling with a thud" for Democrats.

Of course, the opposite of the Atlas Forum

I was watching NBC a few minutes ago. I did not get that impression at all.

https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/kyle-drennen/2019/04/18/disappointed-nbc-mueller-report-falling-thud-democrats

There's the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_7zCmW6k1o

2:06:00 onward is Lester Holt and the gang. First off, the coverage started almost immediately after the report was released. So they were still reading during the coverage. But secondly, this coverage isnt  "democrats are disappointed, the report isn't serious". They make multiple mentions of congress and impeachment. So, your really grasping at straws here.

Don't bother. Naso is a borderline illiterate who will never read the report, and believes all sorts of things that aren't true.

[Badger]

It's pretty depressing to see how little roughly 30 - 35% of the country cares about a president brazenly obstructing justice, and instead so concerned about defending their guy that they will embrace absurd constitutional theories that basically insulate any president from any obstruction claim involving staffing decisions of the executive branch, simply by virtue of them being president.

If only Trump was a Democrat, then they would see how dangerous that road is to go down.

Disappointing but not surprising.

Nobody cares about the constitution, right or left. Or if they do, it's secondary to their actual concerns, which are really just culture wars and identity (in the broad sense of the word, not the "identity politics") issues.

Trump is popular because he's trying to deliver the goods. He's shouting about players kneeling at the anthem, he's inflicting cruelty on immigrants, he's making it easier to mine coal. Impeaching him for some loser like Pence, when that 30% of the country is as distrustful of the Republican establishment as it is, is the best way to threaten their progress.

So what is the incentive for them to actually care about the constitution? The constitution isn't (to the average voter) how to get what they want - in most cases it's actually a barrier. Nobody cares about it. So it's not surprising that people jump to defend an obviously impeach-worthy President.

This is a simultaneously spot-on and utterly depressing post.

[Badger]

1.  No collusion with the Russians.  Point blank.  What was claimed to have been some type of grand conspiracy wasn't.

The Mueller report on Volume II, page eight is clear that “Because we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment, we did not draw ultimate conclusions about the President’s conduct. The evidence we obtained about the President’s actions and intent present difficult issues that would need to be resolved if we were making a traditional prosecutorial judgment. At the same time, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state.”

You can keep saying he didn't obstruct justice, but that doesn't make it true. Trump walked because he is president and Mueller was not going to try and challenge the opinion of indicting a sitting president.

You're right about one thing though, the report does have something for everyone. Since Mueller didn't try to indict Trump, he clearly did not obstruct justice! Clearly!

Oh, except for these times I suppose:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/obstruction-of-justice-10-times-trump-may-have-obstructed-justice-mueller-report/

I didn't say that there was no obstruction.  I said that there was no collusion. 

The obstruction case is difficult, even with an arguably lower standard of being an impeachable offense.  Trump would not need to be indicted for it for it to be impeachable.  The problem is trying to sell the American public that there was an attempt at obstruction when no obstruction occurred, and when the investigator were not interfered with in any way. 

They said they couldn't prove he colluded not that he didn't.

This. Prove it Beyond A Reasonable Doubt specifically. However, there is evidence Galore of collusion with Russian sources in attempts to alter the election. Again, there was no statement whatsoever that the evidence didn't exist, merely that it could not prove an actual criminal conspiracy case Beyond A Reasonable Doubt in court.

Saying there's no evidence of collusion point blank as you did, JJ, is a flat-out falsehood. Not a difference of opinion, just two plus two equals five factually incorrect.

[Badger]

They said they couldn't prove he colluded not that he didn't.

That is all that they can do.  If there was something there, it is very likely to have been discovered. 

And. They. Did.

Lots and lots of somethings. All thoroughly documented in this report you obviously haven't read or even reviewed excerpts from in-depth. The only difference was that the report concluded the more than several instances combined we're not sufficient to prove criminal conspiracy Beyond A Reasonable Doubt.

[Badger]

I remember how well everyone here did on the Kavanaugh confirmation. 

Yes. Far far far better than you.

[Badger]

I mean, you wrote "nobody actually obstructed justice" in #4.

Obstruction would have to be with the investigators or someone at Justice.  You would actually have to interfere with the investigation.  Trump's aides did not carry that order, and Trump did not push them.

Wrong.   Success doesn't matter, intention is what matters in court of law.

This would not be a court of law; this would be an impeachment.  It is a different standard. 

 Trump didn't talk to the investigators or anyone with oversight or that could have had oversight, neither directly nor indirectly.  That is the entire problem, even from trying to make a legal case. 

In a criminal case, this would be like asking you secretary to talk to the DA, a friend of hers, and your secretary saying "no."

That's not even remotely close. But you are one of the most stubbornly, obstinately, and habitually wrong posters on this forum. So I'm just going to sit back with some chips and watch you make a blithering fool out of yourself per usual.

[Badger]

I've avoided commenting on any Russia related topics, because it has been obvious for some time what the ultimate conclusion would be. However, it was satisfying to see the Mueller report systematically destroy every conspiracy theory that people have obsessed over (Papadopolous passed on his gossip to Trump campaign, Carter Page as superspy, Michael Cohen Prague trip, Manafort-Assange rendezvous, RNC platform change, Alfa bank server, Deutsche bank Russian money laundering, Jeff Sessions as Russian agent while a US senator, honestly the list goes on and on).

But at the end of the day, most normal people have tuned out this "scandal" long ago, because of one fatal flaw. It is so incredibly *BORING*. It is full of facebook memes, FARA violations, tax law violations, obscure arguments over obstruction of justice statutes etc. Where is the illicit sex in the West Wing, the Watergate break-in, the secret recordings inside the White House? Even the big event that the obstructionists are clinging to, the Mueller firing...oh wait, he wasn't actually even fired. Where is the Saturday Night Massacre?

My prediction is that the Trump-Russia affair will quickly be relegated to the dustbin of history like Iran-Contra or Valerie Plame. There is nothing here that can capture and hold the national consciousness like the more sensational Watergate and Lewinsky scandals.

"Blatant corruption and obstruction at the highest levels of government is so BOR-ing! And there are so many words to read, and some of them are big!"

[Badger]

Atlas liberals (indeed, most of the anti-Trump left coailition) is disappointed that the Mueller report concluded that Trump and his campaign didn't "collude" with Russia.  They wanted it to be true.  They wanted sham indictments, even if they were baseless.  

When a prosecutor indicts someone, they are saying, at the time of an indictment, or of an information filed, that they are able, at trial, to prove their allegation beyond a reasonable doubt.  The idea that a prosecutor indicts someone to see what sticks is reprehensible in jurisprudence.  It's not OK just because people see examples of this on fictional TV, and the fact that it's done in real life doesn't make it right.  That's what people wanted here, even though the facts of the report say otherwise.

Donald Trump may not deserve your vote.  I'm not convinced he deserves mine for 2020, although there are lost of Democrats I can't vote for under any circumstances.  But people are so deranged over Trump that they've abandoned their own principles.  Vote the man out.  Oppose his policies.  But the idea that anyone, even a political leader you hate, should be prosecuted when the investigation doesn't even meet the standard of probable cause, is a dangerous concept that I believe many here lack the ability to appreciate.  

You really don't seem to have the slightest idea of what Mueller actually reported.

[Badger]

Atlas liberals (indeed, most of the anti-Trump left coailition) is disappointed that the Mueller report concluded that Trump and his campaign didn't "collude" with Russia.  They wanted it to be true.  They wanted sham indictments, even if they were baseless.  

When a prosecutor indicts someone, they are saying, at the time of an indictment, or of an information filed, that they are able, at trial, to prove their allegation beyond a reasonable doubt.  The idea that a prosecutor indicts someone to see what sticks is reprehensible in jurisprudence.  It's not OK just because people see examples of this on fictional TV, and the fact that it's done in real life doesn't make it right.  That's what people wanted here, even though the facts of the report say otherwise.

The special council didn't conclude there was no collusion with Russia.   The OLC made the determination that they couldn't indict a sitting president, so the special council made no statement declaring collusion.   That doesn't mean it didn't happen,  if they determined that it didn't happen they would've said so, they didn't.

Now wait a minute. Going in the opposite direction, I will concede that I thought that the Mueller report, while reporting several instances of what looked smelled and quacked a lot like collusion, felt that they could not prove a criminal conspiracy case Beyond A Reasonable Doubt? Are you sure their declining to proceed further with simply on procedural/ constitutional grounds of the issue of indicting a sitting president?

I'm almost reluctant to give those squawking automatons falsely claiming the Mueller report did not in fact find substantial evidence of both collusion with Russia and, most especially, obstruction of justice, but I'm not about to sink to their level of self-delusion.

[Badger]

The standard isn’t probable cause, it’s beyond a reasonable doubt, isn’t it? They don’t get grand juries to indict on probable cause. They get grand juries to indict on cases where they’re sure they can get a conviction at trial.

Bingo. And fuzzy, this Beyond A Reasonable Doubt standard is EXPLICITLY what the Mueller report said they couldn't get to regarding collusion, not lack of probable cause. And they didn't even say that regarding obstruction of justice.

You really really really need to review the fundamental findings of this report before posting further.

In your allegation about Mueller being a biased investigation is pure horsesh**t. Tell me why this lifelong Republican would do that.

[Badger]

Fuzzy, what is the alternative universe that you've apparently just emerged from like? I would dearly like to know all the major differences between the Mueller report issued in that world which apparently largely exonerates Trump, and the report issued in this timeline which really really REALLY doesn't.

But seriously though, man. You have got to quit being so damned stubborn about simple facts. You keep repeating things that are just simply factually untrue. This is not a matter for debate or any of it. This is not a liberal vs conservative. This is two plus two equals four not five level facts.

I strongly suggest you go back and re-read excerpts of the report and what it actually found. I would start with the concluding paragraph switch or simply a page long. That one succinct statement alone literally disproves most of the bunk you have been trying to convince yourself of.

Somehow somewhere somebody you admire told you that this was an exoneration. I know you were not one of those types to buy into what Fox News reports on hesitatingly, even if you do buy into complete crap websites warning about the Muslim danger with mostly crap stories and butchered statistics. Whatever its source, you really need to stop, reassess this from Ground Zero, and above all learn what the report actually says.

It's much easier to go on a narrative, sure. But you're better than that I think. There are certain folks on this website like Sanchez who are such died in the wall Trump supporters that he would back Trump to the nines if Jesus himself came down from heaven and told us all that Trump had colluded with Putin in person and did everything possible just like Miller reported to cover up the investigation. Heck, I'm pretty sure that's the reason he and some of his ilk DO support Trump so much. It's the Spiro Agnew and Patrick Buchanan G Gordon Liddy, attitude of " the world is a tough place so you got to have a thug in charge" neo-fascist mindset. Again, I think you're better than that, but your habitual rampant stubbornness has kind of painted yourself into a corner here. Please try to stop Andre review the reports findings with a truly open mind. You are not a literate, so I can't believe that if you do so it won't substantially change your mind.

[Badger]

...There are certain folks on this website like Sanchez who are such died in the wall Trump supporters ...

I take back all the things I've ever said about your app.  This is brilliant!

Lol! My app and over-reliance on it both suck, but something about even a broken clock being right twice a day....

[Badger]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-21/mueller-shuns-public-hearing-as-talks-stall-with-house-democrats
Mueller Shuns Public Hearing as Talks Stall With House Democrats

Robert Mueller is balking at testifying publicly before Congress, pushing for a closed-door appearance in negotiations with House Democrats, according to three people familiar with the special counsel’s position.

Mueller has told the Democratic-controlled House Judiciary Committee that he doesn’t want to be dragged into a political fight and that he’s hesitant to publicly discuss his final report, according to the people, who asked not to be identified discussing the continuing negotiations.

Putin's plan has always been to sow political discord. He surely would have loved see Mueller participating in the Democrats' partisan sh**t show.

Too bad, Mueller seems not to want to play these games of Putin's useful idiots, the Democrats. Mueller is not a "little pencil neck".

Ironic coming from one of Putin's useful idiots himself.

" please don't throw me in that Briar Patch for air Fox"

[Badger]

TOTAL EXONERATION!!!

https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1133753691796889601

Democrats need to insert that sentence into every commercial for 2020.

The whole point of stating it that way, is because if it were to go to court - Trump would win.  The "burden of proof" would not be met.

I watched his news conference and, if you do as well, you will discover that that is nearly the opposite of what Mueller said.

[Badger]

The "investigations" run by Democrats should probably get a distinct thread? They lack the Muller's credibility and fairness...

Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) announced the next hearing, titled "Lessons from the Mueller Report: Presidential Obstruction and Other Crimes," on June 10 as a way to push forward with the committee's sprawling oversight investigation into the Trump administration amid stonewalling from the White House.

Disgusting.

Shoo.

[Badger]

Boy Mueller age is really showing though

Hell, I was listening to the hearings from the start this morning on NPR, and even over the radio I commented to myself how old he sounded. Still, from what I heard is answer seemed effective, albeit short