Funny, I didn’t see that assumption being made. I saw the conclusion that he hasn’t been corrupted, backed with an argument intended to show that there’s absolutely no reason to believe he has been, but I don’t recall him having been described as God.
Er, I thought he made it damn clear that he viewed the courts/congress as the arbiters of guilt, and that as neither judge, jury, or even a prosecutor in court he couldn’t put forth a decision or even an accusation. Sure, he had volumes of very hard evidence, which he pointed to at every opportunity, but while his evidence was allowed to speak for itself, he wasn’t given the role of judge.
On the subject of assumptions…
The sad part about “innocent until proven guilty” is if you’re not allowed to make the determination of proof, you can’t assert they’re not innocent.
I mean, you or I can, because we’re sloppy non-lawyers who don’t give a fuck about formal proof in court.
Mueller taking a pass on dt sitting down for a normal interview led directly to the arrogant flouting of congress by all of his toadies, including the Sec of State.
Once you let that go by, why not just invite don to be president for life?
I’m sorry, but the timeline of events following the Mueller report, and especially the Mueller testimony, has shown that even the Trump Administration expected a more forceful response than what they received.
Mueller, July 24th. Zelensky call, July 25th. Erdogan call, October 6th. God knows what else since 7-24-2019.
We can argue as to why the report and the testimony wasn’t enough to put him down, but keeping Mueller himself above this argument, as he’s some sort of Jesus (“Jesus was OK, it was all his followers that f-ed everything up”, said by half of Christianity at one time in their lives), is more inconsistent with the principles of the SDMB than bad arguments re: Mueller’s level of responsibility in the report not generating the impact it should have.
Aspenglow’s correct in that the facts are there. But I’m correct in saying that Mueller was derelict in not making it crystal clear that Trump should be impeached, and, as noted above, the events after his testimony do more to corroborate my contention that he could’ve done more. It was literally what the country was waiting for, he didn’t do it, and the President went insane with vote-stealing power the very next day.
There comes a time in ones life when protecting and serving the United States means doing more than protecting and serving your institutional norms. His Congressional testimony was one of those times, and Mueller didn’t meet it.
No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people and that’s why Donald Trump has won so far and you have not.
The one thing that a person will want to know, reading the Mueller Report is: Did Trump collude?
If you open the report and go to page 1, it will not tell you. 90% of readers will not continue past this point. Page 2 will not tell you. 90% of the 10% who remained will stop reading. Page 3 will not tell you. Page 4 will not tell you. Page 5 will not tell you. Page 6 will not tell you. Page 7 will not tell you. Page 8 will not tell you.
On page 9, at the bottom of the page, Robert Mueller confirms exactly what William Barr told us in his letter. 90% of the readers who made it to this point - which is a mere few hundred or maybe, if we are lucky, thousand ordinary citizens - will cash out at this point without even moving on to the next paragraph.
Robert Mueller was tasked to investigate connections between the Trump campaign and Russia. He has just spent eight pages writing about Russian propaganda campaigns that have nothing to do with the Trump campaign nor any member of it. Following that, he immediately exonerates Trump.
On page 10, a page that you and I read and no Republican outside of, maybe, Justin Amash, Mueller mentions that so much information was deleted and hidden and there were so many lies told and intimidation of witnesses that the conclusion he just reached is not meant to be taken as an exoneration but as a “white flag” of surrender.
Now if you lead, page 1, with the paragraphs after the exoneration, the Mueller Report would have been released in much the same form as the Zelensky transcript - a reordered paraphrase of nearly everything that was discussed with a few key exclusions.
One of the most harrowing scenes of Part 1 is the tale of Steve Bannon and Eric Prince in the Seychelles. Would you say that this story is near to or far from the start of the detailed section? Where is the stuff about Russian propaganda - again, a thing that is entirely tangential to Mueller’s explicit investigatory mandate.
Mueller completely refrains from mentioning the Trump Tower server that should play into this.
He does, in fact, bury his most consequential revelation inside of a footnote, that there has existed in Eastern Europe blackmail material on our President, supposedly destroyed.
This is all buried. To be sure it is there and it is, as said, harrowing.
Conceivably, the choice bits were not intentionally buried and Mueller simply formatted and ordered things in a more or less arbitrary manner or sought a simple chronological order.
I doubt that strongly, however. The man who came up with, “I’m not allowed to issue a verdict or suggest any crimes, as that would not allow those mentioned to defend themselves”, is unlikely to have not understood what he needed to do to launder some amount of information into the public record.
“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.”
And subsequent events since the Mueller testimony has shown us the Trump people actually have a deep aversion to foreign interference with our government, especially regarding elections. I’m glad that Mueller was able to see through the smoke to, what was it, “not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with…” any foreign government, or otherwise I would be worried about all this Ukraine mess! Now why doesn’t Congress investigate Hunter Biden, now that Mueller effectively cleared the Trump team on page 1?
But, it completely beggars belief, does it not? That a NYC real estate huckster turned carnival pitchman who positioned himself as a master of the deal, who has had 3 decades of dealing with Russia, a man without any government experience or knowledge, would not “conspire… or coordinate… with the Russian government in its election interference activities” even though, as is noted in that very same sentence, “the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts” and the subsequent 400 pages actually proved that very thing page 1 denies?
I agree that Trump expected Mueller to come storming in, ranting and raving, his bad combover flapping in the wind as he raised a tiny-fingered orange fist and shouted out Trump’s destruction. That Mueller didn’t meet his self-image-based expectations certainly emboldened the orange turd with bad results.
But that doesn’t mean Mueller’s failure to rant was a calculated move designed to sabotage his own report. It is alternately possible that Mueller is just unable to stop being the adult in the room - an adult who doesn’t believe that it’s his job to stand in front of Congress and do Congress’s job. It is certainly possible that this is the case.
Now, you can hate him for failing to break the rules (or are they laws? Hard to tell at this level) and do a job that wasn’t his and wield accusatory power he did not legally possess. But is that any different than being mad at him because he failed to murder Trump by shooting him in the head? Rules, scmooles, am I right?
When you’re capable of not comparing (a) the inability to state clearly the obvious conclusions in your own report and (b) murder, perhaps we can continue this discussion?
I’m here to tell everyone that SOME of them ARE partisan… hyperpartisan in fact. I have to listen to their nonsense more often than I like … All Clintons and all Democrats are traitors. Bill Clinton should have been lynched. Hillary sucks and Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi. GW Bush could do no wrong. Trump more Bushy than Bush, but better. Lou Dobbs Rush Limbaugh Tucker Carlson are The Word Of God. Ted Nugent is an American hero.
Hey, whatever shuts you up.
Mueller is, as I understand it, a person. As a person, he is capable, as I understand it, of having beliefs and opinions. Opinions, as I understand it, can include the belief that the rule of law is a good thing. Belief in the rule of law can, as I understand it, include the belief that different government organizations and individuals have specific and limited powers and authorities.
I mean, yes, we here on the SDMB are huge fans of members of government overstepping the customs and rules of their roles, but we should try to remember that not everyone is a fan of government people behaving like Trump.
Where was I? Oh, yes. Limited powers and authorities can, as I understand it, include the belief that one doesn’t have the authority to use your platform as a government official to levy unproven* accusations of criminal wrongdoing. (*, as I understand it, refers to being proven in a court of law specifically.) And given the Mueller didn’t have the legal authority to levy accusations, it’s my understanding that wishing him to do so anyway is to wish him to disregard the law.
So. Given what I understand it, it makes perfect sense to me that Mueller might not choose to open his speech to congress with “Screw due process, the president is a crook! You don’t have to understand me and I don’t have to present my evidence; I just know it, because I’m a smart guy! And also he’s a crook and a traitor and he’s committed treason! Burn the witch!”
You appear to disagree with me that it’s possible for Mueller to conclude that being judge and jury was outside his purview. That being the case, we presumably disagree upon something I understand to be true. If we don’t differ on whether he should break the law, perhaps we differ on whether he’s human?
Honestly, if you really think about, I think the idea of people at the highest level of the FBI deciding to be that loose cannon who breaks the rules to get the bad guy is kind of unnerving. As convenient as it is when he breaks the rules to get the guy you hate, that’s not really the sort of mindset I want somebody running a covert organization to have.
And honestly, if you want to blame somebody for his speech to congress not having the desired effect, blame congress. If I’m correct about the effects Mueller had hoped his report would have, Trump would have been impeached by the next afternoon.
I am talking about a man at the end of his career making an assertive statement as to whether the President is or is not a criminal, and frankly, as an American citizen, I am not OK that the man punted on that question. Just so we have this clear.
This isn’t a game, Begbert. We’re not playing Diplomacy here, and people who are still acting like the rules matter are, as noted above, getting their asses kicked by those who don’t.
It is evident from the timeline that everyone, even the Administration, expected more from Mueller. Why you are acting shocked, SHOCKED! that people are demanding that he should have done more when even his opponents expected more is, frankly, beyond me. But I’ll concede the point - thanks to the honorable and unflappable Robert Mueller, the norms that were preserved to allow a criminal into the White House are still in place. Whew! The Republic still stands!
Ah yes, we should abandon rules and laws. That’s a great plan and in no way could possibly backfire.
If you seriously think that Robert Mueller could have brought down the republic all by his lonesome in the face of a congress complicit with Trump’s wrongdoing, then you don’t think he’s honorable and unflappable, you think he’s the unholy union of John McClane and God.
(I think you made the opposite point that you wanted to make with that last, as that is not a point I was arguing. I was arguing he could have been more effective in saving the Republic, not “bringing it down”.)
With that being said, here is my rebuttal:
“My God, Senator, have you no sense of decency?!? At long last have you no sense of decency?” (From memory, sorry)
If you think that obstructionist senators would even blink at the accusation of having no dignity, I have a senator to sell you (they’re cheap).
I get it, you’re unhappy that Mueller’s report doesn’t appear to have changed anything. And because he wasn’t absurdly theatrical, you think that if he had been absurdly theatrical the trumpists would have arisen as one to cry out for Trump’s arrest, and/or the congressmen would have been inspired to suddenly realize no shit, they’re evil, and Trump would have panicked in terror and surrendered himself with a full confession.
Or something. You think that something would have happened to make things super-much better, had Mueller lost his cool, or started saying out loud what everybody’s already been saying out loud, or started shooting a gun into the ceiling, or who knows, just not what he actually did.
But that’s just you guessing. That’s you taking an unknown series of behaviors that you didn’t see happening and guessing what would happen if it had played out that way instead.
I’m looking at the same set of possible behaviors and guessing that fuck all would be different. Seriously, you think that congress doesn’t know Trump’s a criminal? You think that his followers aren’t divided between people who don’t believe the news, and those who don’t care? God, you’re not just an optimist, you’re delusional.
I don’t know what possible futures Mueller was seeing. It’s entirely possible that with his vast stores of intel, he already knew nothing would happen - that congress wouldn’t turn on Trump because they’re all complicit and compromised. He’s also not an idiot - he’s very aware of the sway that alternative news has on the populace. Maybe he walked into it knowing that his information would be left on the table.
At which point, what is there to do? Do his job, put it on the table, and not make an ass out of himself in the process.
He failed to interview the main target. So it was not the lack of fireworks or drama or aha that dems care about. It was that he spiked the whole investigation by not interviewing and then calling it an investigation, when it was really just investigation with an asterisk.
As soon as he did it, dt and other of his minions began treating US Congress with more contempt than the day before. Do you really think that rm’s passivity hasn’t led to recent troubles with Barr, Giulliani, Pompeo, Ross, ad nauseum?
I will say that as a person who quit the family business, bought out a competitor, and lodged bids at my parents clients for 3 years, finally stopping when they bought me out, going all out for a moral point is apparently easier for me than it is for Uber-Bureaucrat Robert Mueller.
I, for one, am thrilled that Mecha-Mueller did not break the bonds of his programming. His world might have been disturbed. I mean, the man had memorandums which needed obeying!
