Robert Mueller investigation

[TranaGreg]

He won't. Such a piece has no audience. One wing of the political spectrum thinks that Trump is an incompetent boob and sees everything as confirmation. Note that there are some fairly prominent Republicans on this wing. The other wing sees this as the first wing attacking their guy unfairly.
...

There are two types of people in the world: people who divide the world into two types of people, and those who lived in earlier times.

quoting a favourite twitter acct

[Judge Jude]

https://news.yahoo.com/fake-news-mue...l&uh_test=2_05

Good morning!
As the Easter ham cooks, above is AP's attempt at a counterbalancer to Post 249 (which has a must-read link):

"NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump and his team love to deride unfavorable stories as "fake news," but it's clear from Robert Mueller's report that the special counsel isn't buying it.

While there are a few exceptions, Mueller's investigation repeatedly supports news reporting that was done on the Russia probe over the last two years and details several instances where the president and his team sought to mislead the public.

"The media looks a lot stronger today than it did before the release of this report," Kyle Pope, editor of the Columbia Journalism Review, said Friday."

........................

"Mueller's report shows The New York Times and The Washington Post were correct when they reported in January 2018 that Trump ordered White House counsel Don McGahn to make sure Mueller was fired, and that McGahn decided to resign rather than carry that out. When the Times first reported the story, Trump described it as "fake news, folks, fake news."

The Mueller report also showed that Trump directed a series of aides to ask McGahn to publicly deny the story, and ultimately asked himself, too. McGahn refused, saying the story was accurate, the report found."

......................

"In a July 2017 story, the Times reported that the president personally wrote a statement in which he falsely said that an election year meeting between some Russians and his son, Donald Jr., was about the adoption of Russian children, rather than about obtaining potentially damaging information on Hillary Clinton's campaign. Trump's counsel repeatedly responded that the president had no role in writing the statement, yet months later testified under oath to investigators that Trump had dictated it.

Mueller's report also backed up the newspaper's stories, which the administration denied at the time, that Trump demanded loyalty from then-FBI Director James Comey at a private dinner, and that Trump had asked Comey to end an investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn."

.........................

"Trump repeatedly said during the 2016 campaign that he had no business dealings in Russia when, even as he uttered the words, his company was seeking to build a Trump Towers office building in Moscow. When Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen, privately pointed out that the denial was untrue, the future president said "why mention it if it is not a deal?" the report said."

MY NOTE: This one depends on the wording. CNN's Chris Cuomo went paper-rock-scissors on this with Rudy Giuliani the other day. Cuomo insisted that "Trump lied about having a deal with Russia," when what he had was a non-binding letter of intent. Misleading, for sure. But AP here says "no business dealings with Russia," which is a bit different and would push it into the 'lie' category.

.......................

"Mueller, however, did shoot down a BuzzFeed News report that Trump had directed Cohen to lie to Congress about the timing of the Moscow project. Mueller said that while it appeared Trump knew Cohen was lying to Congress, "the evidence available to us does not establish that the president directed or aided Cohen's false testimony."

Mueller also contradicted a McClatchy news service story alleging that Cohen had traveled to Prague, in the Czech Republic, in summer 2016 to meet with Russians involved in the effort to influence the election. Mueller's report said that Cohen had not gone to Prague."

[Judge Jude]

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...-report-a-bfd/
really, really good, from 538.com. much of this outlines where Barr bullshitted us (oddly, it makes Barr look worse than it does Trump)

"perry (Perry Bacon Jr., senior writer): There was a whole, whole lot of obstruction documented here. Like 95 on a scale of 1-100, to me. And it sounds like Mueller didn’t conclude that Trump obstructed justice largely because Justice Department guidelines are viewed as not allowing a president to be charged with a crime. Mueller all but said Trump obstructed repeatedly."

....................

perry: Barr, to me, implied that Mueller couldn’t reach a conclusion on obstruction, like it was a 50-50 call or something, based on the evidence. It looks like Mueller saw obstruction and the question was should he indict based on that or defer to Congress.

..................

One other big unanswered question on the Russia side: Why were all of these people making false statements about their ties to Russia?

natesilver: Maybe because (i) there’s a lot of “smoke,” enough for them to be paranoid even if it all doesn’t amount to a criminal conspiracy to interfere with 2016; and/or (ii) nobody actually is quite sure what happened or what didn’t because the campaign was such a shitshow; and/or (iii) they’re people who lie habitually?

And for the most part, the report confirms media reporting, as well as material uncovered in earlier indictments that Mueller issued.

ameliatd: I genuinely don’t know, Nate. I think the explanation could be any of the above, all of the above or none of the above. It’s just so puzzling. It’s also puzzling that Trump saw the Russia investigation as such a serious threat, and ultimately we’re left with something that’s not so dramatic.

natesilver: The one thing Mueller really seems to go out of his way to bat down is the idea that Russia interfered to change the GOP platform on Ukraine — he seems pretty confident that there’s an innocent-enough explanation for that, which is that Trump had already taken a position on Ukraine on the campaign trail and the campaign/Republicans didn’t want the GOP platform to contradict it.

perry: And he also downplays the idea that former Attorney General Jeff Sessions was involved in much of anything during the campaign.

natesilver: Yeah, he bats down the Sessions stuff too.

..................

sarahf: But do we really think this is bad for Trump? For example, what do we think Congress actually does next? Or will it be advantageous for Democrats to use this in 2020?

natesilver: It’s not that bad for Trump. It’s a 5 out of 10, relative to pre-Barr letter expectations. But it feels a lot worse because of Barr’s clumsy attempts at spin.

natesilver: The report is bad, but it’s roughly in line with what people would have expected, as Amelia and Perry said. Keep in mind that only 42 percent of the public approves of Trump, and that’s in a really good economy! They don’t think he’s honest about Russia or other things. They also didn’t necessarily expect there to be a smoking gun about collusion/conspiracy. The public was way smarter than the media on this stuff, I think.

[Kevin Seitzer]

How has Rudy Giuliani gone from being such a hero after 9/11 to such a heel now? Has any other political figure in recent memory completed such a fall by his own choice?

[B-Fly]

How has Rudy Giuliani gone from being such a hero after 9/11 to such a heel now? Has any other political figure in recent memory completed such a fall by his own choice?

How? He's a pretty terrible person. 9/11 rehabilitated him from the weight of his past missteps, but could only last so long.

[gcstomp]

pt 2 Mueller report is a 180 page spoon feeding a baby on 10 incidents of obstruction of justice by president, with intent that this would be pursued by a congress willing to do its job or charges made after trump leaves office. is it really possible this will be buried?

[B-Fly]

pt 2 Mueller report is a 180 page spoon feeding a baby on 10 incidents of obstruction of justice by president, with intent that this would be pursued by a congress willing to do its job or charges made after trump leaves office. is it really possible this will be buried?

Yes, it is certainly possible, because of the lessons learned, rightly or wrongly, from the GOP's impeachment efforts toward Bill Clinton. I tend to agree with Speaker Pelosi that the strategic priority should be the 2020 Elections.

[gcstomp]

i trust pelosi political acumen. but we have something already in hand well worse, and well more researched/exposed than the lil clinton affair. pelosi wants to investigate, and its true this hasnt even touched on the primary drivers, the money trail. but to what end, if result is congress wont follow up regardless of findings. not like you can find a more trusted/experienced guy to head up an investigation than mueller, and not like you will get a more laid out established case than the part 2 of report with180+ pages, 10 instances of obstruction. there has to be consequences now, for what has been found, along with the 12 ongoing investigations spawned by mueller uncovering wrongdoing at every turn having consequences at each of those. and i dont mean impeachment, though the case for barr impeachment seems clear. there has to be consequences for crimes committed.

[nots]

More good stuff from Taibbi on the media’s failure in the Muellar report and the Democrats rush to collusion judgement.The last couple of lines are a great summarization, but the hyperlinks are will worth the clicks.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/russiagate-fiasco-taibbi-news-media-826246/

[GwynnInTheHall]

To quote Sgt Schultz................

I see nothing, I know nothing, I was not here............I didn't even get up this morning!

[Judge Jude]

from post 264 - their paragraph below looks exactly like what I had written in this thread months ago:

"The whole Steele dossier appears to have been bunk, with even Bob Woodward now saying the “highly questionable” document “needs to be investigated.” The Times similarly is reporting, two-plus years late, that “people familiar” with Steele’s work began to have “misgivings about [the report’s] reliability arose not long after the document became public.”

[to be fair, I recall nothing but agreement here that the bizarre dossier's pedigree needs to be investigated. chips fall where they may]

[revo]

Robert Mueller complained to AG Barr in late March that his summary “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance" in his report. And now who knows if Barr will show tomorrow for his hearing on The Hill. The saga continues....

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/mueller-complained-that-barrs-letter-did-not-capture-context-of-trump-probe/2019/04/30/d3c8fdb6-6b7b-11e9-a66d-a82d3f3d96d5_story.html?utm_term=.488c01db57f7

[Judge Jude]

add Barr to the long list of those with distinguished careers sullied by entering Trump's orbit

[Bernie Brewer]

Robert Mueller complained to AG Barr in late March that his summary “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance" in his report. And now who knows if Barr will show tomorrow for his hearing on The Hill. The saga continues....

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...=.488c01db57f7

Seems to me this is less of an indictment of Barr than is being headlined.

In that call, Mueller said he was concerned that media coverage of the obstruction investigation was misguided and creating public misunderstandings about the office’s work, according to Justice Department officials. Mueller did not express similar concerns about the public discussion of the investigation of Russia’s election interference, the officials said. Barr has testified previously he did not know whether Mueller supported his conclusion on obstruction.

When Barr pressed Mueller on whether he thought Barr’s memo to Congress was inaccurate, Mueller said he did not but felt that the media coverage of it was misinterpreting the investigation, officials said.

[Kevin Seitzer]

Watching Barr in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee is painful. Next to dissemble in the dictionary, they have now placed a picture of William Barr.