A Thread for the Mueller Investigation Results and Outcomes (Part 1)

The BBQ Pit
10563

Figured that would be the case re Barr controlling Mueller’s testimony.

I also agree with Buck Godot that Roberts is mindful of his SCOTUS’s place in history. I am hopeful (though perhaps ill advisedly so) that the Roberts Court will require release of the full Mueller report, including classified information and grand jury testimony, to Congress. It is sickening that Congress is having to go this far to obtain it.

I suspect there is really nothing for Barr to do as regards redactions. Mueller will have already segregated his report into a public version and a classified-for-Congress version. Anyone who thinks Barr needs to oversee this hasn’t paid attention to Mueller’s pleadings.

I agree with Walken After Midnight’s timeline, more or less.

One thing that’s different between Nixon’s impeachment proceedings and Trump’s is, Nixon’s impeachment proceedings were already well underway per WAM’s earlier-posted timeline. Articles of impeachment were introduced against Nixon over 3 days at the end of July 1974. In other words, Nixon was already halfway pinned.

Trump’s entire strategy at this point is to obstruct, stonewall, delay, obfuscate, resist, lie, cheat, steal and otherwise postpone any actions taken by Democrats in the House while simultaneously hoping he can sway public opinion his way in the interim period between now and the 2020 election.

He and his fellow Republicans hope for and encourage foreign intervention on their behalf – probably from the Saudis this time more than the Russians – along with their propaganda mouthpieces at Fox “News” and the other outlets dedicated to fomenting chaos in our electoral process. They intend to create enough cover to steal the next election at least as semi-plausibly as they stole 2016. Trump is already starting to whine about the 2020 election’s legitimacy.

You may have also noted that Barr’s estimated date for production of the redacted Mueller report coincides with the next 2-week recess of Congress, meaning an automatic delay for further House committee action is built in until May 1st-ish. That gives Trump and his minions another month to do their damndest to influence public opinion. I imagine Nadler will issue his subpoena well in advance of mid-April.

If Mueller is subpoenaed, there is one question to which I think it would be tremendously helpful to hear the answer from his own lips, and that I don’t think Barr could preclude his answer: “Did you intend for your final report to be received in its unredacted format by the Congressional committees, without inference from AG Barr?” My, my, my. I’d love to hear the answer to that.

10564

I don’t believe there will be much if anything new in the report. I think it will be confirmation of our worst suspicions.

10565

Agreed, no blockbuster revelations. Just a lot of facts that reveal Trump to be corrupt and self-dealing and obstructive of investigation into his misconduct.

There may well be details that are particularly vivid, and likely to stick in the public mind. And for this reason Trump’s enablers will fight like fury to keep the report from coming out in relatively un-redacted form.

I’m not as sanguine as Neal Katyal about the upcoming Supreme Court rulings on the report. It’s not that I think I know better than Katyal—it’s that I can’t help remembering the many assurances that Bill Barr was such an institutionalist that he would choose not to make protecting Trump his goal.

Many people with impressive credentials and gravitas offered the opinion that Barr would play fair with the report, instead of moving heaven and earth to keep it from coming out (as he appears to be complicit in doing), and instead of slanting coverage of it to make Trump look good (as he appears to have done in his 4-page letter).

Of course Barr and the Court are two different entities. But I feel a bit burnt by the ‘this guy/these people care about their reputations for integrity’ theories that circulated about Barr, and that appear to have been overly generous.

10566

Yes, I think I remember hearing that the other stuff released by the Mueller team has been pre-redacted by them for public release, so it is would be a bit strange if they had not done the same for the finished report. Since such a document has not been released, that would suggest that Mueller and Barr have differences of opinion over what should be classified, or otherwise Barr could have just released Mueller’s for-public-release version. Instead, he’s spending three weeks redacting stuff from it (as well as from the version intended for Congress).

That should be a really important question, and it seems like one that Mueller might be able to give an answer to. Here are more some questions that might be within the scope of what he can talk about:

  • Did you prepare the report with pre-prepared redacted versions for Congress and for public release? (The format might potentially have been that the main body of the report was intended for public release, and attached was a separate annex for Congress, and then there’d be another annex with the top secret classified information)
  • Why did you not reach a legal conclusion on obstruction?
  • Did you intend for the Attorney General to make the final determinations based on your report?
  • Do you think the redactions of the Barr version Mueller Report are fair?
  • Were you put under any pressure to end the investigation before its natural conclusion?
  • Are you aware of any attempts made to shut down the investigation?
10567

As I was saying … I just got an alert from the NY Times, with this as the lead paragraph:

10568

To clarify: I still think every word* of it should be revealed to the public. I just think there will be less of, “OH MY GOD!” and more of, “Yup. Just what we thought,” and a bit of, “We knew it was bad, but it’s even worse than we suspected.”

  • Not sure if there should be anything left out due to issues of “National Security.” Thump doesn’t seem to give a fuck about national security, so why should we?
10569

I’m glad the Special Counsel’s Office is speaking out, if only by intimation. It creates more pressure on Barr to release the full report to the House committees.

Sounds like Mueller won’t mind being subpoenaed, either.

10570
10571

Believe me, we should. There are legitimate things to be withheld from the public.

Example: Suppose a basis of Mueller’s information is that we have a human asset embedded in the top tier of Putin’s henchmen. Does the public have the right to know who this person is, or that he/she exists at all? Or what if revealing certain information would point interested Russian parties toward figuring out who such a human intelligence asset is? Should we make this information public?

Similarly, if releasing certain information would endanger or jeopardize ongoing investigations into, say, criminal acts by Javanka, such data should be redacted, I’m sure you’ll agree. :slight_smile:

10572

This is getting a lot of people excited, myself included. Here’s a couple of interesting tweets from Matthew Miller

10573

I’m grinning from ear to ear. :smiley:

10574

Looks like Virginia was steering us fair after all!

10575

I’m not at all surprised by this. I’m just surprised that anyone beyond the hardcore Trumpists thought that the Barr letter was likely to be a fair, accurate, and complete summary of the Mueller report.

10576

I mean, I was having a hard time understanding how Barr could possibly plan to misrepresent what will surely be public at some point and get away with it. I’m still having a hard time understanding it.

10577

Because these are profoundly incompetent, dishonorable, and immoral people. Those are the only people left working for Trump. We shouldn’t be surprised by this stuff any more – not at all. This is the norm for Trump and his team.

10578

It’s really up to us at this point. Go to every march/protest being sponsored in your area in order to demand the full report. Public opinion does matter, and it does move these assholes to be slightly less assholey.

10579

Honestly, I think they’re just dancing as fast as they can right now. There’s no way out, as you discerned. They took a shot and they missed.

See my post #10653. They were banking on being able to sway public opinion with Barr’s misleading “summary that’s not a summary” in their direction, alleging there’s really nothing to see here, move along, move along, before the full report was released.

Didn’t work. :slight_smile:

10580

The fact that this is the first leak from those guys means a lot.

10581

WE weren’t the intended audience of the letter. I’m sure Barr, like everyone else in this administration, intended his public remarks for an audience of one.

10582

Cite? There have been how many marches since the supreme court was first stolen, and can you point to a single instance of them having achieved the public opinion result? Even once?

If there was ever a group of people less swayed by public opinion, I can’t think of them.