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

[aldiboronti]

Horace’s lines have rarely been more apt.

Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus

[JohnT]

@Walken_After_Midnight

Mueller’s conclusion on obstruction of justice:

“The only reason we’re not charging him is because I’m not a prosecutor, and the rules are kinda unclear here… but if I was, his ass would probably be charged.”

… that’s about it, right?

[steronz]

@Aspenglow

It’s not Barr’s role to “add some minor spin to his letter.” His job is to be an impartial arbiter as the top law enforcement official in the country. Barr adding any spin to this matter is wholly disingenuous and should not be acceptable to all Americans. It is a perversion of our justice system.

You’re right, of course. I guess we’ll throw that in the pile of “shitty things the Trump administration has done.” But that’s not gonna lead to impeachment.

@Aspenglow

It’s not the whole thing if they don’t get the underlying grand jury information. This is customarily provided. Again, Barr attempts to shape the narrative. Not. His. Role.

Barr said he’s legally required to redact that information, even to congress. I don’t know enough about the law to say that’s wrong, but PBS says this:

Material collected through the grand jury process cannot be disclosed, according to Title III, Rule 6 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. The rules were put in place to protect the secrecy of federal investigations and people who may be under investigation but haven’t been charged with a crime.

Because of these guidelines, any grand jury material in the report must be redacted. Of all four categories of redacted material in the report, the rules protecting grand jury material are the most inflexible, Barr told Congress. Barr said the Department of Justice was working with attorneys in the special counsel’s office to identify the sections in the report that have grand jury material and need to be redacted.

But while Barr does not have the authority to disclose grand jury material on his own, it can be released by court order. If court-ordered, disclosure of grand-jury matter may be made to a government attorney, other government personnel, or another federal grand jury, if the information involves foreign intelligence or counterintelligence. Barr has indicated that he is not going to seek such a court order, but others could make the request, including congressional Democrats.

So PBS thinks he’s right that he needs to redact it, and that would mean that you’re wrong about it not being his job to do so…

@Aspenglow

I think you are wrong.

If I am then I think we’ll all know soon enough.

[JohnT]

I’ve been reading this thing off and on for the past 20 or so and anyone who comes in here to argue that this is exculpatory towards DJT is just lying, PP&S.

[Aspenglow]

@Sage_Rat

Looking at the two tables of contents, it looks like Mueller excluded most of everything negative to the President (or Barr had it removed - but I don’t think so). For example, there’s no mention of seeing the crimes related to Stormy Daniels and handing that off. Nothing about Saudi Arabia or Israel.

I don’t know, then, whether Mueller wrote another report that lists the other crimes which he handed off, but I suspect that we’ll start to hear rumors of such a thing.

Why would he include it? His mandate was to investigate Russian intervention/subversion into our election and the extent to which the Trump campaign conspired with them to accomplish it. None of what you mentioned has anything to do with these mandates.

Mueller did the appropriate thing: When he found potential crimes unrelated to his mandate, he handed them off.

[El_Kabong]

In case anyone’s interested, Appendix C lists Mueller’s famous written questions to Trump, and Trump’s responses. That section appears to be entirely unredacted. Obviously, I haven’t yet had time to read it in detail, but a quick glance indicates (surprise!) quite a lot of not recalling of times, persons or events.

[Ambrosio_Spinola]

@JohnT

I’ve been reading this thing off and on for the past 20 or so and anyone who comes in here to argue that this is exculpatory towards DJT is just lying, PP&S.

No shit . . . that’s a lot of contacts with Russians and shady behavior, even if it doesn’t violate any criminal statutes. Any attempt to summarize this thing by saying “no collusion, no obstruction” is in transparent bad faith.

Speaking of transparent bad faith, here’s what Mueller’s report said:

Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.

Barr took this sentence in his “letter” and truncated it to:

[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.

Basically the same meaning, right?

[Aspenglow]

@steronz

<snip>

Barr said he’s legally required to redact that information, even to congress. I don’t know enough about the law to say that’s wrong, but PBS says this:

So PBS thinks he’s right that he needs to redact it, and that would mean that you’re wrong about it not being his job to do so…

<snip>

I am speaking specifically about the version that is submitted to Congress, not the one submitted to the public. Of course the public version must by necessity be redacted of material that would imperil sources and methods and/or grand jury proceedings. But this does not apply to the Gang of Eight or the House and Senate committees tasked with oversight of the Executive Branch. To them, the version should be wholly unredacted.

[Buck_Godot]

@Walken_After_Midnight

Report is live:

https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf

I just randomly opened pages 9-10 of the report. It is definately not an open and shut exoneration of Trump. The thrust is that there were numerous connections between the Trump campaign and the Russians, but that the people they interviewed, lied, deleted emails and pleaded the 5th such that it was impossible to get enough of a full picture of what was going on to charge anybody.

[steronz]

@Aspenglow

I am speaking specifically about the version that is submitted to Congress, not the one submitted to the public. Of course the public version must by necessity be redacted of material that would imperil sources and methods and/or grand jury proceedings. ** But this does not apply to the Gang of Eight or the House and Senate committees tasked with oversight of the Executive Branch.** To them, the version should be wholly unredacted.

Cite? The article I posted doesn’t say there’s an exception for congresspeople, and in fact it explicitly says congress can ask for the court order to release that info if they’d like. I don’t think it’s Barr’s call.

[Walken_After_Midnight]

Good quote from report:

According to notes written by Hunt, when Sessions told the President that a Special Counsel had been appointed, the President slumped back in his chair and said, “Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I’m fucked.”

[Fiveyearlurker]

@Walken_After_Midnight

Good quote from report:

The one time that I wish he was right.

If this report came out about a Democratic president, I would want that president removed from office yesterday.

[Aspenglow]

@steronz

Cite? The article I posted doesn’t say there’s an exception for congresspeople, and in fact it explicitly says congress can ask for the court order to release that info if they’d like. I don’t think it’s Barr’s call.

The cite is custom and practice, in virtually every other special prosecutor/counsel’s report provided to Congress. In all other instances but one, the AG asked for and got the grand jury proceedings unredacted on behalf of the Congress.

The exception was Nixon, and in that case, the grand jury themselves asked for their proceedings to be unsealed so the American people would have the benefit of their efforts in determining if Nixon should be impeached. Perhaps that will happen again.

[Fiveyearlurker]

@Fiveyearlurker

Trump personally directed efforts to obtain Clinton’s missing emails.

In parallel with Chuck Grassley’s office.

[Aspenglow]

@Fiveyearlurker

The one time that I wish he was right.

If this report came out about a Democratic president, I would want that president removed from office yesterday.

That’s the difference between Republicans and Democrats. Democrats believe in the rule of law irrespective of who is breaking or abusing it.

And may I just say what a sad day it is when Jeff Sessions is the “ethical” Attorney General.

[dasmoocher]

@steronz

Either the Barr summary was accurate or Barr is a filthy liar. In order to him to have been a filthy liar about the summary, he would need to redact a bunch of stuff for bogus reasons. In order for those bogus redactions not to become public he’d have to release a fake “unredacted” report to congress. In order for that fake report not to be found out everyone on Mueller’s team would need to be complicit.

@Aspenglow

I really don’t get why you view what I bolded above as a binary choice. There are lots of shades of gray in between for Barr to use as a basis for misdirection. He can, as I believe he did, make partial direct quotes from Mueller’s report and deliberately take them out of context. That’s not quite a “filthy liar,” but it’s far from an honest representation of what Mueller found.

I was also going to point out this isn’t a binary choice. You can have lies of omission–the whole truth thingie.

AIUI, there were 10 instances were Barr and Mueller disagreed about what constitutes obstruction. Isn’t Barr on the record as saying something like the President, as head of the Executive branch and therefore the DOJ, can’t commit obstruction? Or, at least didn’t in firing Comey?

If Trump committed a Federal crime on 5th Avenue and then fired (or ordered the firing of) the SDNY AG who was investigating it, would that be obstruction?

[JacobSwan]

His replies to the written questions are great. He doesn’t seem to be able to recall or remember anything. For such a stable genius he sure has a poor recollection.

[dasmoocher]

@JacobSwan

His replies to the written questions are great. He doesn’t seem to be able to recall or remember anything. For such a stable genius he sure has a poor recollection.

Even more on point:

TRUMP: I remember call to Gold Star widow better than she does because I have ‘one of the great memories of all-time’

[JacobSwan]

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. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgement.

Hardly a total exoneration is it?

[gytalf2000]

@dasmoocher

Even more on point:

TRUMP: I remember call to Gold Star widow better than she does because I have ‘one of the great memories of all-time’

Holy cow! He is such an asshole.