Robert Mueller investigation

[DMT]

Maddow is a joke and I don't know anyone who watches her regularly. I've never seen an entire episode. Claiming she represents Democrats is like saying Hannity represents Republicans. Oh, wait, isn't Hannity a Trump advisor? Yea, even taking the most extreme example, they're still worse.

[revo]

So members of Mueller's team are saying the report is actually far more damaging to Trump than Barr made it out to be. Hmmm, I wonder why he wanted a lapdog as Attorney General?

[Judge Jude]

pretty much every reasonable person on all sides of politics agreed that Mueller was a straight shooter, and to abide by his decision as to whether to indict - and whether not indicting had anything to do with a balance of powers. we got those answers.

some disgruntled anonymous 'team members' being annoyed is just moving the goalposts because some people don't like the scoreboard.

in other news, we will learn even more details of how corrupt this administration is.

but the target was a big one - did Trump and/or his people directly collude with the Russians to try to influence the election?
no.
plus it didn't work anyway. all of the Russian Facebook ads combined were about what DraftKings and FanDuel used to spend on DFS advertising in one day. and you could fit the people whose minds were changed by leaks of DNC memos into a phone booth with room for one more.

also, Barr is as highly respected as Mueller in Washington insider circles, across party lines.

but keep dreaming the dream.

[gcstomp]

"but keep dreaming the dream."
Literally the only part of your post that someone from this reality could get on board with, an agree to disagree. Even for most ardent Trump supporter, and you claim you are moderate, noted, but your every post is extemist, every line is so slanted, and I dont know how else to say it, wrong, as to give rise to questions. Who was your post directed at, the entire readership is but a few dozen of the same guys year after year.

Barr campaigned for position, recall the 19 page memo ripping Mueller investigation was his primary selling point for position. That Mueller took position that he would do a serious investigation, and have the AG make determination based on that isnt in dispute. Once Barr released a non summary summary, that was so misleading that it prompted 2 follow up letters from Barr himself trying to take back what Trump cheered as total exoneration. It was so misleading that the Mueller team investigators, legendary for being non leakers, collectively were sounding alarm bells.

I could go on, but then you mislead with the scale of the russia influence on election. It is not some secret this was a mass scale operation, not only was every member of trump transition team linked to some russian contact, all with same lies, as well as the indictments of russian actors who had their actions spelled out in Mueller findings spelling out this wasnt some small operation. It has been documented that it was millions of people reached, not only thru bots, some pro Bernie sites had more than 50% of their traffic as anti Hillary auto response bots, on one tiny example. The meddling is still to this day occurring, as it hasnt ever been a trump priority to root out russian meddling but recent articles https://www.washingtonpost.com/techn...=.f95cca85fd8d or https://www.axios.com/senate-reports...ec61c1719.html clearly show this hasnt been stopped.

We could discuss scale of meddling. We have done so in past when I would bother to demonstrate thru what little was publicly disclosed this was a true cyber war with just 1 side participating to effect an outcome. I try to keep away but such blatant partisanship and twisting of readily available info is sometimes disturbing enough, I raise my hand as objection as if we are taking attendance.

[revo]

pretty much every reasonable person on all sides of politics agreed that Mueller was a straight shooter, and to abide by his decision as to whether to indict - and whether not indicting had anything to do with a balance of powers. we got those answers.

some disgruntled anonymous 'team members' being annoyed is just moving the goalposts because some people don't like the scoreboard.

in other news, we will learn even more details of how corrupt this administration is.

but the target was a big one - did Trump and/or his people directly collude with the Russians to try to influence the election?
no.
plus it didn't work anyway. all of the Russian Facebook ads combined were about what DraftKings and FanDuel used to spend on DFS advertising in one day. and you could fit the people whose minds were changed by leaks of DNC memos into a phone booth with room for one more.

also, Barr is as highly respected as Mueller in Washington insider circles, across party lines.

but keep dreaming the dream.

Yeah, but no one has seen the scoreboard yet. Except for one guy who tidily summed it all up for us, and he was Dopey's hand-picked charge. I get that Barr is respected, but until the full report is made public, sans any redactions for secrecy purposes, a full 50% of the country refuses to believe it. Let's see why some of these investigators are upset that their information was taken out of context.

[Gregg]

So members of Mueller's team are saying the report is actually far more damaging to Trump than Barr made it out to be. Hmmm, I wonder why he wanted a lapdog as Attorney General?

But what does Mueller have to say about it?

What members of Mueller's team are saying this?

[Kevin Seitzer]

But what does Mueller have to say about it?

What members of Mueller's team are saying this?

Mueller is not supposed to talk about it, which is why he isn't saying anything. Mueller's team isn't supposed to talk about it, either, which is why none of them are going on the record by name or giving specifics.

Congress and the Attorney General are the only people they are supposed to share their findings with, the AG first, and Congress next if they request it.

[Gregg]

Mueller is not supposed to talk about it, which is why he isn't saying anything. Mueller's team isn't supposed to talk about it, either, which is why none of them are going on the record by name or giving specifics.

Congress and the Attorney General are the only people they are supposed to share their findings with, the AG first, and Congress next if they request it.

So Mueller is the honorable one and some of his team not so much?

[onejayhawk]

But what does Mueller have to say about it? What members of Mueller's team are saying this?

Evidently none. In the lengthy NYT story, there is an innocuous two sentence quote, which is not even attributed to the Mueller team. It has all the trappings of fake news.

Mueller is not supposed to talk about it, which is why he isn't saying anything. Mueller's team isn't supposed to talk about it, either, which is why none of them are going on the record by name or giving specifics.

Congress and the Attorney General are the only people they are supposed to share their findings with, the AG first, and Congress next if they request it.

That is not quite correct. He would be well within his rights to contradict Barr's report if it was misleading or inaccurate. The same is true of his team. When he was supposed to say nothing, the team leaked everything anyway. So, nothing left to reveal.

So Mueller is the honorable one and some of his team not so much?

Someone was leaking everything and it was Mueller's job to stop it. Since the report does not find collusion, it begs the question, when did he know? He had something like 15 lawyers and over 30 FBI agents. When did they begin to doubt that there was anything to find?

J

[gcstomp]

Reckon it would be swell if we could get basic agreement on non trivial, established baseline. Position of Justice is sitting President cannot be indicted. We dont disagree with that, right? We know Mueller did a 2 yr investigation, and it was not in his universe of possibility that Trump could be indicted, even if it was caught on video that President was doing illegal acts, repeatedly, knowingly, and flagrantly. How could we know that? Again, basic guideline, and we know well Justice position on sitting President.

Mueller handed over his findings, some 400+ pages, as well as summaries that he had already prepped for public consumption, gave it all to Barr. Barr then took about a day, and issued his own non summary summary, ignored the for public summaries prepped by Mueller team, there was noise, Trump celebrated, and those who paid even basic attention, after all even the forward facing out in open obstruction like Holt interview where Trump expressly stated reason for firing Comey is concerning, never mind Trumps call to russia to hack our systems to get HRC, and on same day there was russian hacking, could go on but just the out in open what we know there exists more troubling info than what Barr expressed. Barr has now issued a couple memos trying to backtrack on his initial memo.

The info was so misleading that the team of investigators that spent 2 years working on this expressed grave concern to their colleagues back in home offices, and thru these indirect mumblings we had first crack. Understand there were zero leaks during investigation, now that this has wrapped, you cant hope to contain this, and report will find its way to Congress and the Barr spin will be cleansed in the light of day, seen as either accurate, or misleading, or criminally wrong depending on whats in the actual report, which again, we have not seen. But for those who are saying its over, stop chasing rainbows, know how silly that is, as this hasnt been resolved in any way yet.

[Hornsby]

Reckon it would be swell if we could get basic agreement on non trivial, established baseline. Position of Justice is sitting President cannot be indicted. We dont disagree with that, right? We know Mueller did a 2 yr investigation, and it was not in his universe of possibility that Trump could be indicted, even if it was caught on video that President was doing illegal acts, repeatedly, knowingly, and flagrantly. How could we know that? Again, basic guideline, and we know well Justice position on sitting President.

Mueller handed over his findings, some 400+ pages, as well as summaries that he had already prepped for public consumption, gave it all to Barr. Barr then took about a day, and issued his own non summary summary, ignored the for public summaries prepped by Mueller team, there was noise, Trump celebrated, and those who paid even basic attention, after all even the forward facing out in open obstruction like Holt interview where Trump expressly stated reason for firing Comey is concerning, never mind Trumps call to russia to hack our systems to get HRC, and on same day there was russian hacking, could go on but just the out in open what we know there exists more troubling info than what Barr expressed. Barr has now issued a couple memos trying to backtrack on his initial memo.

The info was so misleading that the team of investigators that spent 2 years working on this expressed grave concern to their colleagues back in home offices, and thru these indirect mumblings we had first crack. Understand there were zero leaks during investigation, now that this has wrapped, you cant hope to contain this, and report will find its way to Congress and the Barr spin will be cleansed in the light of day, seen as either accurate, or misleading, or criminally wrong depending on whats in the actual report, which again, we have not seen. But for those who are saying its over, stop chasing rainbows, know how silly that is, as this hasnt been resolved in any way yet.

[onejayhawk]

The info was so misleading that the team of investigators that spent 2 years working on this expressed grave concern to their colleagues back in home offices, and thru these indirect mumblings we had first crack. Understand there were zero leaks during investigation, now that this has wrapped, you cant hope to contain this, and report will find its way to Congress and the Barr spin will be cleansed in the light of day, seen as either accurate, or misleading, or criminally wrong depending on whats in the actual report, which again, we have not seen. But for those who are saying its over, stop chasing rainbows, know how silly that is, as this hasnt been resolved in any way yet.

You were doing OK up to this point. Now you are in conspriacy land. Say hello to Rachel Maddow while you're there.

The team had plenty of opportunity to say Barr was spinning things to far. They did not and still have not. What there has been are rumors from associates and few of those.

J

[onejayhawk]

There is a fairly long article on RCP about the testimony of Bill Priestap, the former Assistant Director of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division.

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2019/04/11/fbi_mans_testimony_points_to_significant_wrongdoing_beyond_spying.html

The conclusion:

In Summary…

So what did we learn from Bill Priestap’s compendious and revealing testimony?

• We learned that the FBI and Justice targeted and took action against Trump.
• We learned that the FBI, according to Priestap, is incapable of securing a FISA warrant with information that isn’t credible, although the judge’s approval of the warrant means by definition that the information is credible.
• We learned that the FBI believes political interference in an investigation can be proper as long as the bureau isn’t acting purely politically.
• We learned that the FBI did send at least one asset to do to the Trump campaign an activity that even the bureau would call “spying” — if it were done by foreign operatives.
• We learned that the origins of the Trump-Russia tale will never be fully understood until the part played by British intelligence is made clear.

That’s an awful lot to take away from one largely neglected transcript. But it suggests just how much remains unknown about the Trump-Russia investigation while providing a glimpse at the people that want to keep it that way.

When is surveillance spying?

We will be getting a lot of verbiage in the coming weeks on that simple question. We will be discussing the question because it is well established that the FBI did extensive surveillance of the Trump campaign.

One note. He misspeaks himself on the third point. Political interference can be proper so long as the interference is not purely political. If the Bureau was purely political all sort of alarms should be going off. Indeed, those alarms may be the point of AG Barr's comments.

J

[Judge Jude]

plaintive tweet by a journalist. I laughed


Garrett M. Graff
Verified account @vermontgmg
6h6 hours ago

It's so depressing to realize how badly the media will screw up the Mueller Report release tomorrow. Advice for everyone talking about it: Go slow, be careful, use precise language, don't rush to speak. It's a big document and Mueller's team surely chose their words carefully.

[Mithrandir]

plaintive tweet by a journalist. I laughed


Garrett M. Graff
Verified account @vermontgmg
6h6 hours ago

It's so depressing to realize how badly the media will screw up the Mueller Report release tomorrow. Advice for everyone talking about it: Go slow, be careful, use precise language, don't rush to speak. It's a big document and Mueller's team surely chose their words carefully.

Trump needs to read this.