Mueller report thread - Mueller testimony July 24

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

I wrote a long, depressed diatribe about this in the "Indictment-o-rama" thread, so if you care what I think go read that there. The Cliffnotes version of it is that I now think that Trump firing Mueller and creating a constitutional crisis for the country would have been a better result and that I was wise to temper my expectations of the report. That still didn't help that much though. I'm feeling really down right now. This may not 100% guarantee Trump's re-election but it undeniably helps him. The guy is practically invincible.

Since you apparently know what's in the report already, how about sharing it with the rest of us?

The lack of any new indictments plus my already pessimistic expectations are enough to make me think that the report will vindicate Trump.

We already know more than enough to impeach Trump. He has violated his Oath of Office and the Emoluments Clause. He actively solicited and recieved help from the Russian government to win election. And he, his family, business and campaign, sought a quid pro quo of Trump Tower Moscow for sanctions relief. These aren't things we were waiting on the Mueller report to prove, they're matters of public record. But as Pelosi has acknowledged, the GOP isn't going to do their damned job and impeach Trump while they have any alternative.

What I'm hoping is that the Mueller report will be damning enough to make continuing to enable Trump prohibitively damaging to the GOP. This has never been super-likely, but given what we already know, hoping that Mueller's investigation would produce such info is reasonable. There was never going to be an indictment of Trump from Mueller. Justice Dept procedure was very clear on that, and a by the book guy like Mueller was unlikely to violate precedent like that. I was expecting more indictments of criminals in Trump's circle, but as far as I know, there are still sealed indictments and Muller has demonstrated a pattern of handing off prosecutions not directly related to his directive.

For now, I'll wait and see. But let's be clear - the public evidence of Trump's malfeasance is already damning. There is no vindication, at most, he will not be driven from office. (The cult may claim that as a vindication, but they're deplorable to begin with.)

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

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

He did.

https://www.apnews.com/3c4bc6e9aa6c4fb18bc9603fb082af65

“Russia, if you’re listening,” said Trump, looking directly into a television camera, “I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing” — messages Clinton was reported to have deleted from her private email server.

Actually, Russia was doing more than listening: It had been trying to help Republican Trump for months. That very day, hackers working with Russia’s military intelligence tried to break into email accounts associated with Clinton’s personal office.

Unbeknownst to the public, Trump personal lawyer Michael Cohen had been trying to broker a business deal in Russia for the Republican candidate. The proposal was for a Trump Tower Moscow. A letter of intent was signed. Cohen had discussed it with Trump and his children. Cohen had even gone so far as to reach out to the Kremlin directly for help, speaking with an official about ways to secure land and financing for the project.

Trump actively solicited and received help from the Russian government to win election. And he, his family, business and campaign, sought a quid pro quo of Trump Tower Moscow for sanctions relief. These aren't "allegations". This is publicly documented reality.

Why won't Republicans acknowledge the obvious? That's what's bizarre to me. It doesn't require giving up their (professed) beliefs, changing policy, giving up political power, or doing anything differently. It just means admitting that you were wrong about one con artist.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

If Trump gets exonerated by Mueller's report is an exoneration by an illegal witchhunt really legitimate, I wonder?

Not according to FOX:

The Mueller report should be rejected and not believed – it's fatally flawed

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has finally presented his report to Attorney General William Barr, after spending almost two years and tens of millions of taxpayer dollars on the effort. But whatever the report reveals, it is the product of a process and a special counsel team that were both fatally flawed from the beginning.

As a result, the Mueller report should be rejected out of hand by every American who cares at all about the concept of fundamental fairness that our founders intended to be a primary guiding principle for our government officials.

No matter what’s in the report, Mueller has already ensured that a large portion of the public will never have confidence in it.

Remember Republicans: if the Mueller report claims Trump did not conspire with Russia, FOX News says you shouldn't believe it.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/existentialfish/status/1109829027001442305

I'm seeing conflicting positions on the report from the right.

Depending on which alt-Nazi or FOX News story I read, the report either completely and definitively clears Trump of any wrongdoing, or it's a fraudulent tissue of lies that shouldn't be believed.

I'm currently assuming that the right are busy building two incompatible narratives so that once some details emerge they can memory-hole the "wrong" one, and point back at the other one and pretend they were always saying that.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Donald Trump just won re-election.

That depends on whether Russia decides to help him again or not, now doesn't it?

But given how useful he's been to Putin, and how he and the GOP have refused to secure our elections, you're probably right that Russia will once again hand him victory.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

And it’s still illegal to cover up other people’s crimes.

Barr now appears to be desperately hoping that no one will point this out.

As he said at his confirmation hearing, "It would be a crime for president to pardon someone in exchange for their silence"

"Do you believe a president could lawfully issue a pardon in exchange for the recipient's promise not incriminate him?" Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) asked Barr during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"No, that would be a crime," Barr said.

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-floats-pardoning-paul-manafort-not-table-1235513

President Donald Trump would not rule out pardoning his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort during an interview, published Wednesday, with the New York Post.

“It was never discussed, but I wouldn’t take it off the table. Why would I take it off the table?" the president told the newspaper in the Oval Office.

https://twitter.com/foxnews/status/1032442088338731008?s=21

And that's before dealing with the donkey in the living room: Barr's letter says nothing about the various quid pro quos (dirt on Clinton, emails, Trump Tower Moscow, sanctions) revolving around the Trump Tower meeting.

One added note: I think we're going to find out that the DoJ was very... conservative when it came to defining who it counted as the "Russian government".

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Jesus Christ. Democrats you literally have a wealth of issues to attack him on. His odious economic policies, his trade war, his tax cuts for the rich, his f***ing wall, his obsession with keeping the minimum wage low.

Why do you need to attack him on Russia when you can literally attack him on any of these?

Because he's guilty.

And I would prefer to live in a nation where rule of law exists.

(Not that anyone should let up on any of the others. And don't forget his racism and bigotry, his attempted autocracy, his gross incompetence and unfitness, his pathetic self-dealing, etc.)

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Jesus Christ. Democrats you literally have a wealth of issues to attack him on. His odious economic policies, his trade war, his tax cuts for the rich, his f***ing wall, his obsession with keeping the minimum wage low.

Why do you need to attack him on Russia when you can literally attack him on any of these?

Because he's guilty.

And I would prefer to live in a nation where rule of law exists.

(Not that anyone should let up on any of the others. And don't forget his racism and bigotry, his attempted autocracy, his gross incompetence and unfitness, his pathetic self-dealing, etc.)

Even thought the report literally says they found no evidence of collusion, he's guilty? That's dangerously arbitrary.

Trump went on national TV, asked for Russian help, and immediately got it.

But setting that aside and focusing on the SC investigation, you haven't seen the report. Neither have I.

We've read a letter from Trump's handpicked Attorney General.  That letter claims* to be referencing Mueller's report when it says:

The Special Counsel's investigation determined that there were two main Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election. The first involved attempts by a Russian organization, the Internet Research Agency (IRA), to conduct disinformation and social media operations in the United States designed to sow social discord, eventually with the aim of interfering with the election. As noted above, the Special Counsel did not find that any U.S. person or Trump campaign official or associate conspired or knowingly coordinated with the IRA in its efforts, although the Special Counsel brought criminal charges against a number of Russian nationals and entities in connection with these activities.

The second element involved the Russian government's efforts to conduct computer hacking operations designed to gather and disseminate information to influence the election. The Special Counsel found that Russian government actors successfully hacked into computers and obtained emails from persons affiliated with the Clinton campaign and Democratic Party organizations, and publicly disseminated those materials through various intermediaries, including WikiLeaks. Based on these activities, the Special Counsel brought criminal charges against a number of Russian military officers for conspiring to hack into computers in the United States for purposes of influencing the election. But as noted above, the Special Counsel did not find that the Trump campaign, or anyone associated with it, conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in these efforts, despite multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign.

What's missing from this picture? Any mention of the actual quid pro quos that were offered to the Trump campaign. We know, from documents and statements already made public, that Trump & co were offered help winning the election and a apparently Trump Tower Moscow deal in return for sanctions relief. Trump and Co delivered the quid, asked for the quo (publicly) and received it, in abundance.

It doesn't matter if Trump & Manafort didn't personally directed the Russians on how to fulfill their side of the bargain. Yet that is what Barr is very carefully outlining here. Note that everything in the letter refers to direct coordination or conspiracy with either the Russian government or the Internet Research Agency. This carefully ignores any indirect coordination or conspiracy - which is how we know Trump-Russia contacts took place, using parties with existing connections to Trump and his campaign on the one hand, and to the Russian government on the other. Again, this carefully ignores the details of the quid pro quo offered to Trump and his campaign. And it carefully ignores obstruction related to those details, because otherwise the whole "we can't prove obstruction because we can't prove conspiracy" load of fertilizer goes 'poof'.

It's like giving up on a murder case against a mob boss, because the hitman didn't speak with the boss, and he didn't get his gun from the boss, so don't worry about the guy who had meetings with both of them. And certainly don't tell us what they talked about.

* Given that Barr listed a bunch of things Trump has done as criminal obstruction during his hearing, and spends this letter squirming away from them, I don't think he can be trusted to be 100% reliable.


TwoThree other points:

First, if you want to be taken seriously,  please stop saying "collusion". It's a Trumpian weasel word.  The terms in question - and used by the Attorney General - are conspiracy and coordination.

Second, and I think it's important not to forget this, the AG's letter (not the report, which we haven't seen), takes it for granted that the Russian government assisted (and as documented elsewhere, was essential) in getting Trump elected President.  In other words, Trump's defense has now been reduced to, "Russia helped me get elected, but I didn't know about it."

Third, Barr's babbling about nexus and obstruction is a load of bull. It's still obstruction even if - maybe especially if - you succeed to the point where you're not charged. That would never stand up in court if the defense tried it. It's just covering his rear for not indicting his boss. Which in turn implies whatever is in there vis a vis obstruction must be pretty bad, because otherwise he could just quote DoJ policy on presidential indictments - the way he did at his confirmation hearing -  and toss the whole thing in Congress' lap.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

This whole thing is basically the inverse of Comey clearing Clinton, with one side saying there's nothing there, and the other saying there's more.

Except for the bits where Trump publicly asked for Russian assistance and got it, while secretly making deals with Russians. Deals which he then tried to conceal with conduct that Barr previously agreed was obstruction of justice.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

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

Yep. The supposedly "liberal" and "biased" media are busy peddling an amplified version of the Trump/Barr-spin. They're eager to protect their Trump cash-cow.

The Guardian: Mueller report: Trump claims 'total exoneration' as Democrats regroup

Politico: Mueller finds no Trump-Russia conspiracy

NYT: Mueller Finds No Trump-Russia Conspiracy, but Stops Short of Exonerating President on Obstruction

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Nothing re: Trump/Russia is conclusive until the full, uncensored report is released.

Barr's summarization of the report is irrelevant and unimportant; it's meaningless.

In an ideal world, maybe.

 In the world we live in, Barr's letter has successfully spun the investigation as a vindication of Trump.


I don't know what the public perception will end up being.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

McConnell blocks resolution calling for Mueller report to be released publicly

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Monday blocked a resolution calling for special counsel Robert Mueller's report to be released publicly.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) asked for unanimous consent for the nonbinding resolution, which cleared the House 420-0, to be passed by the Senate following Mueller's submission of his final report on Friday.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

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.

Ah yes, we must've all collectively imagined those multiple convictions that came out of the Mueller investigation.

Such a dodge.  Those convictions that had nothing to do with Russian collusion.  You know... the point of the special counsel.  That was the point.  That's what Democrats stated was the point.  Were you guys lying again?  I mean, if were going to prosecute people for lying to investigators, obstruction of justice, and collusion with Ukraine, the logical starting point is Hillary Clinton.  You know, that lady that's being investigated by the Ukrainian government for collusion.  

I'm not a Democrat, nor part of the RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA crowd, nor do I think anyone involved in the 2016 election should be anywhere but behind bars. But your answer is exactly what you claim mine was--a dodge. "Nothing came of it" *points to things that actually came from it* "Oh that doesn't count because I say it doesn't" is just more of the mindless moving of goalposts that's been coming from the brainwashed Trump crowd.

This thread is about collusion and obstruction of justice.  The investigation was about the Trump-Russia conspiracy.  It was predicated on the Trump-Russia collusion to influence the election.  That is topic of the thread.  That is the topic of investigation.  Everything else is BS.  I'm glad they charged the people that lied and worked on the behalf of the Ukrainians.  In the end, this investigation was a total farce.  We convicted small timers with crimes, while the Clintons committed the crimes at the center of this investigation; collusion with the Russians and Ukrainians to influence the U.S. elections.  The Democrats are the biggest threat to democracy in the U.S. elections and their own primaries, but we have to go along with this delusional conspiracy that Trump colluded with Russians. 

LOL.
First off, this thread is about the Mueller report. Mueller was given wide authority and the investigation's scope included "any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation."
Let's not forget that six close trump campaign associates were indicted due to Mueller, and I hope they enjoy their jail time and/or other penalties.

What were those six associates indicted for?

Oh right, five were indicted for "providing incorrect information to the FBI". Their "crimes" were only meaningful if Trump really was colluding with Russia. Otherwise, you've just convicted bunch of people who either forgot about or lied about utterly innocuous information. This is the sort of thing the ACLU used to flip out about but you won't find them dead standing up for Trump associates. Regardless, I wouldn't give great odds of a conviction for anyone who hasn't (stupidly, imo) pled guilty already. My guess is that Roger Stone will be just fine now that the heat is off Trump.

The only real criminal, Manafort, was guilty of tax evasion and corruption in an entirely different country well before being hired by Trump. So this entire investigation found a single crook with a shady past in the Trump campaign. That isn't a great result, considering you could investigate literally any administration over the past 50 years and find a few crooks. Bush alone had several exposed even without a Special Prosecutor chasing him.

Even if we pretend what you're saying is true, you just happened to leave out how that "single individual" was a long-time associate of Trump's who he chose to head his campaign.

And shady past is an overly kind description of a man with established connections to Putin's inner circle and is guilty of conspiring against the United States.

Your position comes down to, "Trump is so stupid he chose a treasonous crook to run his campaign and didn't notice when that crook was selling out the US right in front of him."   That position might be credible if those supporting it also agreed Trumptey should be removed for gross incompetence, but somehow they never do.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

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.

Ah yes, we must've all collectively imagined those multiple convictions that came out of the Mueller investigation.

Such a dodge.  Those convictions that had nothing to do with Russian collusion.  You know... the point of the special counsel.  That was the point.  That's what Democrats stated was the point.  Were you guys lying again?  I mean, if were going to prosecute people for lying to investigators, obstruction of justice, and collusion with Ukraine, the logical starting point is Hillary Clinton.  You know, that lady that's being investigated by the Ukrainian government for collusion.  

I'm not a Democrat, nor part of the RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA crowd, nor do I think anyone involved in the 2016 election should be anywhere but behind bars. But your answer is exactly what you claim mine was--a dodge. "Nothing came of it" *points to things that actually came from it* "Oh that doesn't count because I say it doesn't" is just more of the mindless moving of goalposts that's been coming from the brainwashed Trump crowd.

This thread is about collusion and obstruction of justice.  The investigation was about the Trump-Russia conspiracy.  It was predicated on the Trump-Russia collusion to influence the election.  That is topic of the thread.  That is the topic of investigation.  Everything else is BS.  I'm glad they charged the people that lied and worked on the behalf of the Ukrainians.  In the end, this investigation was a total farce.  We convicted small timers with crimes, while the Clintons committed the crimes at the center of this investigation; collusion with the Russians and Ukrainians to influence the U.S. elections.  The Democrats are the biggest threat to democracy in the U.S. elections and their own primaries, but we have to go along with this delusional conspiracy that Trump colluded with Russians. 

LOL.
First off, this thread is about the Mueller report. Mueller was given wide authority and the investigation's scope included "any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation."
Let's not forget that six close trump campaign associates were indicted due to Mueller, and I hope they enjoy their jail time and/or other penalties.

What were those six associates indicted for?

Oh right, five were indicted for "providing incorrect information to the FBI". Their "crimes" were only meaningful if Trump really was colluding with Russia. Otherwise, you've just convicted bunch of people who either forgot about or lied about utterly innocuous information. This is the sort of thing the ACLU used to flip out about but you won't find them dead standing up for Trump associates. Regardless, I wouldn't give great odds of a conviction for anyone who hasn't (stupidly, imo) pled guilty already. My guess is that Roger Stone will be just fine now that the heat is off Trump.

The only real criminal, Manafort, was guilty of tax evasion and corruption in an entirely different country well before being hired by Trump. So this entire investigation found a single crook with a shady past in the Trump campaign. That isn't a great result, considering you could investigate literally any administration over the past 50 years and find a few crooks. Bush alone had several exposed even without a Special Prosecutor chasing him.

Even if we pretend what you're saying is true, you just happened to leave out how that "single individual" was a long-time associate of Trump's who he chose to head his campaign.

And shady past is an overly kind description of a man with established connections to Putin's inner circle and is guilty of conspiring against the United States.

Your position comes down to, "Trump is so stupid he chose a treasonous crook to run his campaign and didn't notice when that crook was selling out the US right in front of him."   That position might be credible if those supporting it also agreed Trumptey should be removed for gross incompetence, but somehow they never do.

He was a mercenary. Every presidential campaign has a few mercenaries in high positions.

Going to stop you right there.

A Timeline of Paul Manafort’s Relationship with the Trump World

The depth of their relationship pre-2016 isn’t well known, but it’s clear Trump and Manafort have been operating in close circles for decades. In 1980, Manafort, Charles Black and Roger Stone (all Ronald Reagan campaign officials) opened a lobbying shop in Washington, D.C. One of their very first clients: Donald Trump, who employed the lobbying firm of Black, Manafort & Stone through the early 1990s.

The Quiet American

Manafort didn’t own the Trump account at the firm. But one of his former partners told me that he would dispense advice and pitch in, winning Trump’s trust. When Manafort took an apartment in Trump Towers in 2006, he would kibitz with his old client when they’d run into one another on the elevator. “Trump knew this guy was top drawer,” says one Republican operative.

"He was a mercenary." Sure. One who Trump had been doing business with for the last thirty-eight years and who lived in the same building.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

I'm not quite sure that all have read the Barr's letter.
Here it is

Dear Chairman Graham and Chairman Nadler,

I write in response to Chairman Nadler's March 25, 2019 letter and Chairman Graham's March 27, 2019 letter, which addressed the investigation of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller, III, and the "confidential report" he has submitted to me pursuant to 28 C.F.F. § 600.8(c).

As we have discussed, I share your desire to ensure that Congress and the public have the opportunity to read the Special Counsel's report. We are preparing the report for release, making the redactions that are required. The SpecialCounsel is assisting us in the process. Specifically, we are well along in the process of identifying and redacting the following: (1) material subject to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e) that by law cannot be made public; (2) material the intelligence community identifies as potentially compromising sensitive sources methods; (3) material that could affect other ongoing matters, including those that the Special Counsel has referred to other Department offices;¹ and (4) information that would unduly infringe on the personal privacy and reputational interests of peripheral third parties². Our progress is such that I anticipate we will be in a position to release the report by mid-April, if not sooner. Although the President would have the right to assert privilege over certain parts of the report, he has stated publicly that he intends to defer to me, and, accordingly, there are no plans to submit the report to the White House for a privilege review.³

Also, I am aware of some media reports and other public statements mischaracterizing my March 24, 2019 supplemental notification as a "summary"⁴ of the Special Counsel's investigation and report. For example, Chairman Nadler's March 25 letter refers to my supplemental notification as a "four-page summary of the Special Counsel's review." My March 24 letter was not, and did not purport to be, an exhaustive recounting of the Special Counsel's investigation or report. As my letter made clear, my notification to Congress and the public provided, pending release of the report, a summary of its "principal conclusions⁵" - that is, its bottom line⁶. The Special Counsel's report is nearly 400 pages long (exclusive of tables and appendices) and sets forth the Special Counsel's findings, his analysis, and the reasons for his conclusions. Everyone will soon be able to read it on their own. I do not believe it would be in the public's interest for me to attempt to summarize the full report⁷ or release it in serial or piecemeal fashion.

As I have discussed with both of you, I believe it would be appropriate for me to testify publicly on behalf of the Department shortly after the Special Counsel's report is made public. I am currently available to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 1, 2019 and before the House Judiciary Committee on May 2, 2019.

Finally, in the interests of keeping the public informed as to these matters, I intend to make this letter public after delivering to you.

Sincerely,
William P. Barr
Attorney General

Pretty transparent, no?
Also, Mueller will be assisting in "preparing the report for release, making the redactions that are required".

Oh, I've read it. It's about as transparent as the toxic sludge Trump has imported to DC from his home sewer. I'm just not certain that you (or many others) understand the deep problems with it. Here are some of them:

1. Appropriate House committees have both need and clearance for all the above. These might be acceptable excuses for delaying a public release of the report. As reasons for refusing to hand the full report to select House Committees, this treads the line on criminal behavior.

2. Since Barr holds the view that the President cannot be indicted and beyond that, cannot commit the crimes of which he is suspected, it is possible that he will remove all information with a possible negative effect on Trump's reputation from the report, using this as an excuse. (You may think this would be too blatant. Keep reading.)

3. Given Trump and his administration's habit of blatant lies and public gaslighting, their word is worthless. I predict there will be executive privilege claims if the report contains anything Trump doesn't like. (How would he know? Barr's son-in-law has been 'advising' the President on "legal issues" since mid-February.)


4. Indeed. What kind of deceitful and incompetent jackwagon would possibly call Barr's earlier letter a summary?

5. Oh, the same person who wrote this letter, apparently.

6. And, it's now a summary of the report's "bottom line". That's interesting, because in his previous letter, Barr stated, "I believe that it is in the public interest to describe the report and to summarize the principal conclusions reached by the Special Counsel and the results of his investigation."

7. "I do not believe it would be in the public's interest for me to attempt to summarize the full report." I would swear I'd heard someone write the exact opposite of that somewhere. (See Note 6.)

When was Barr lying? On March 24th, when summarizing was in the public interest, or on the 28th when he stated the exact opposite? Why have "the results of the investigation" vanished from his description? What on earth would possess anyone to think this man possess enough credibility to judge pumpkins at the county fair, much less the criminal behavior of the President of the United States?

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1109918388133023744
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1113047970251931648

The guy who plays the President on the Republican Dystopia reality show seems very unhappy that people might see the report that clears his name.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1115625419460546561

There is no legitimate reason to withold the full report from the House Judiciary Committee.


Trump needs to fire Barr immediately and order his replacement to hand over the entire report. Failure to do so can and should be considered proof of his guilt of high crimes, including conspiracy against the United States, under the principle of spoliation of evidence.

Spoliation of evidence is the intentional, reckless, or negligent withholding, hiding, altering, fabricating, or destroying of evidence relevant to a legal proceeding. Spoliation has three possible consequences: in jurisdictions where the (intentional) act is criminal by statute, it may result in fines and incarceration (if convicted in a separate criminal proceeding) for the parties who engaged in the spoliation; in jurisdictions where relevant case law precedent has been established, proceedings possibly altered by spoliation may be interpreted under a spoliation inference, or by other corrective measures, depending on the jurisdiction; in some jurisdictions the act of spoliation can itself be an actionable tort.

The spoliation inference is a negative evidentiary inference that a finder of fact can draw from a party's destruction of a document or thing that is relevant to an ongoing or reasonably foreseeable civil or criminal proceeding: the finder of fact can review all evidence uncovered in as strong a light as possible against the spoliator and in favor of the opposing party.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

I'm not expecting anything huge tomorrow. But i do find it odd how Trump seems to be attacking Mueller and his team again on twitter again.

Odd is an understatement. It's bizzare. Has everyone forgotten how he claimed the report was a total exoneration days ago?

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/CarolLeonnig/status/1118676734344355841

Going by the Washington Post, it seems like Barr will be going for the "too naive/too stupid to know better" defense tomorrow.

You have to admit, Trump has laid a huge amount of very impressive persuasive groundwork for his upcoming "I am too much of a sub-moronic blithering idiot to know I was committing treasonous crimes" defense. I suppose he doesn't really care that it makes each and every one of his supporters and defenders look like malign fools.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

A lot of redactions in the 1st one hundred pages of the report

https://imgur.com/a/uOPFCyq

In the final Appendix D, out of 11 transferred cases, two are redacted for ongoing investigation. Out of 14 referred cases, 12 are redacted for "Harm to Ongoing Matter".

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Trump: It's entirely Obama's fault that my campaign had contacts to the Russians, he could have stopped it had he wanted to.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1119019875203153921

He's like a corrolarry to Poe's Law. It's impossible to tell if Trump is an epic-level troll, or a delusional imbecile.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Angry Trump reiterates his ultimate "right" as president to fire anyone who's investigating him, thus quickly approaching "when the president does it then it's not illegal" territory:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1118990550235877376

1) The report makes it clear he does not have the right to fire indiscriminately, particularly regarding his own abuse of office. And,

2) It also makes it very clear that Trump did both want and choose to fire the Special Counsel, but was prevented from doing so by babysitters subordinates.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Don't you guys find it unusual (or hilarious) that certain blue avatars haven't said a thing in this thread about the release of the report?
What a bunch of cowards.
Especially those that have previously claimed that they "consistently point-out trump's controversies and idiocies in many/most threads."
I guess if the thread isn't about bashing Islam and certain Muslim congress people, then they would rather stick their head in the sand and pretend it didn't happen.

They have not yet had their marching orders beamed into their brains via FoxNews or Sinclair.

It often seems to take about 24 hours for the all-Right / Russian troll muppeteers to get the muppets their new routine after something shifts.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/mueller-report-latest-donald-trump-participants-treason-spying-turn-tables-a8878761.html?utm_source=reddit.com

Trump is calling participants in the investigation treasonous and vows to turn the tables on them.

This is scary and should outrage everyone, even his supporters.

"Scary and should scare everyone" has been an accurate descriptor from Trump ever since he stopped being a joke candidate back in 2015. He's the political equivalent of hydrofluoric acid, introduced into a system that already badly corroded and overheated.