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

[JohnT]

Anybody else take Trump’s tweet regarding Google as an admission by the administration that social media manipulation does, in fact, change votes?

[Jack_Batty]

I take Trump’s tweet regarding Google is an admission that he thinks Google has something to do with actually changing votes. I give him no further credit than that.

[ThelmaLou]

Did Ukraine come up anywhere in the Mueller papers/testimony?

[The_Devil_s_Grandmother]

Yes, mostly about the Ukrainian businessman Konstantin Kilimnik, who worked for Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. A quick search says there are 44 mentions of Ukraine, but Biden or Hunter got no hits.
Of course, we can only search the redacted reports (DocumentCloud) so who knows?

[Buck_Godot]

If Biden’s name did actually appear in the report I somehow don’t think that that would have ended up being redacted by Barr.

[dasmoocher]

@Buck_Godot

If Biden’s name did actually appear in the report I somehow don’t think that that would have ended up being redacted by Barr.

Maybe Trump can tell Barr to add Biden’s name to the report using a Sharpie.

[Walken_After_Midnight]

Politico:

Lawyers for the House of Representatives revealed on Monday that they have reason to believe that the grand-jury redactions in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report show that President Donald Trump lied about his knowledge of his campaign’s contacts with WikiLeaks.

The attorneys made the stunning suggestion in a court filing as part of the House Judiciary Committee’s bid for Mueller’s grand-jury materials, which have remained secret by law.

[Walken_After_Midnight]

I had a look in The Mueller Report, and these are the excerpts from Trump’s written answers I could find that related to WikiLeaks:

@Donald J. Trump

I do not recall being aware during the campaign of any communications between the individuals named in Question II (c) and anyone I understood to be a representative of WikiLeaks or any of the other individuals or entities referred to in the question.
…
I was in Trump Tower in New York City on October 7, 2016. I have no recollection of being told that WikiLeaks possessed or might possess emails related to John Podesta before the release of Mr. Podesta’s emails was reported by the media. Likewise, I have no recollection of being told that Roger Stone, anyone acting as an intermediary for Roger Stone, or anyone associated with my campaign had communicated with WikiLeaks on October 7, 2016.
…
I spoke by telephone with Roger Stone from time to time during the campaign. I have no recollection of the specifics of any conversations I had with Mr. Stone between June 1, 2016 and November 8, 2016. I do not recall discussing WikiLeaks with him, nor do I recall being aware of Mr. Stone having discussed WikiLeaks with individuals associated with my campaign, although I was aware that WikiLeaks was the subject of media reporting and campaign-related discussion at the time.

[Ravenman]

@Walken_After_Midnight

I had a look in The Mueller Report, and these are the excerpts from Trump’s written answers I could find that related to WikiLeaks:

No recollection of discussions of any phone call with Roger Stone over a period of months? Gerbils Crunch, Trump should be impeached for not have a working a-brain.

[jasg]

@Ravenman

No recollection of discussions of any phone call with Roger Stone over a period of months? Gerbils Crunch, Trump should be impeached for not have a working a-brain.

Perhaps redacted because of Stone’s pending trial?

[Kimstu]

@Ravenman

Gerbils Crunch,

I know this is probably a deliberately chosen euphemism instead of an autocorrect for “Jesus Christ”, but I can dream.

[Gyrate]

@Ravenman

No recollection of discussions of any phone call with Roger Stone over a period of months? Gerbils Crunch, Trump should be impeached for not have a working a-brain.

@Kimstu

I know this is probably a deliberately chosen euphemism instead of an autocorrect for “Jesus Christ”, but I can dream.

Man, I wish the people who’d made the bowdlerized version of Deadpool 2 had used that. It took me ten minutes to realize why they kept talking about “cheese and rice”.

[Aspenglow]

There has been speculation that SDNY’s investigation into Andrey, David, Lev and Igor and the counterintelligence investigation into Crazy Uncle Rudy were spun off from Mueller’s investigation. Rudy, of course, is deeply enmeshed in attempting to drum up information to “support” the krazy konspiracy Klinton server-in-Ukraine meme – which is apparently Bill Barr’s current reason for living.

Tonight on Maddow, she reported that US Attorneys in Chicago also have a piece of this action and have offered their assistance to SDNY. That could also be a result of a Mueller referral.

It’s quite possible that Mueller’s referrals will be the basis of Bill Barr’s ultimate undoing. I would find it wonderful and richly ironic if this turns out to be so.

[asahi]

@Aspenglow

There has been speculation that SDNY’s investigation into Andrey, David, Lev and Igor and the counterintelligence investigation into Crazy Uncle Rudy were spun off from Mueller’s investigation. Rudy, of course, is deeply enmeshed in attempting to drum up information to “support” the krazy konspiracy Klinton server-in-Ukraine meme – which is apparently Bill Barr’s current reason for living.

Tonight on Maddow, she reported that US Attorneys in Chicago also have a piece of this action and have offered their assistance to SDNY. That could also be a result of a Mueller referral.

It’s quite possible that Mueller’s referrals will be the basis of Bill Barr’s ultimate undoing. I would find it wonderful and richly ironic if this turns out to be so.

Nothing will undo Bill Barr; he will be there until the bitter end.

[elucidator]

The End Is Near!

[Gyrate]

@elucidator

The End Is Near!

And it will be bitter.

[VinylTurnip]

@asahi

Nothing will undo Bill Barr; he will be there until the bitter end.

And then he’ll fuck off back to Goblin-town.

[JKellyMap]

@VinylTurnip

And then he’ll fuck off back to Goblin-town.

Hey, watch it!
(Barr’s father was my grade school principal, so it sounds a little like you’re unwittingly describing my childhood town. Actually, it is where the Halloween-themed Legend of Sleepy Hollow took place, so maybe “Goblin-town” isn’t far off the mark…)

[Aspenglow]

Mr. Barr is in more trouble than is generally understood, I believe.

Senator Amy Klobuchar released evidence that Barr failed to refer the whistleblower’s complaint to the Federal Election Commission as required by law. (Mother Jones) This was confirmed by FEC Chairwoman Ellen Weintraub. (October 18, 2019, letter from Weintraub to Klobuchar)

I loved Lawrence Tribe’s tweet in response:

Poetic justice: By declining to investigate as a crime what Taylor is now reporting, Barr thought he was protecting his boss. In fact, he gave up the chance to say Congress can’t look into this stuff because DOJ is doing so! If he had half a brain, Trump would be pissed!

And there’s more (Reuters, toward the end of the article):

Also on Wednesday, three Democratic U.S. senators sent a request under a law called the Freedom of Information Act to Attorney General William Barr seeking any of his or Deputy Attorney General Jeremy Rosen’s correspondence referencing members of the Trump administration with Ukrainian, Turkish and other leaders.

They also asked for all records of interactions between Justice Department officials and the governments of Ukraine and China about Trump’s potential political opponents and any White House requests to investigate the Bidens. Trump has publicly called on China to carry out such an investigation.

In the letter, Senators Kamala Harris, Sheldon Whitehouse and Richard Blumenthal said the whistleblower complaint and recent witness testimony “raise serious concerns about the Justice Department’s involvement in politically motivated investigations, at the behest of the White House.”

There are good reasons Barr is working hard to distance himself from Giuliani and the rest of the Ukraine mess. I’m sure visions of John Mitchell are dancing through his head in his nightly dreams.

[kaylasdad99]

I hope some of them involve him sharing a bed with Martha…
Too soon?