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

Only one person said Mueller was a bad person, who might be part of a conspiracy, and I don’t know that I’ve seen them post lately. We all know he’s a human being though, he’s not daddy, and he is not above criticism, any more than dt is AFAICS.

He had a long honeymoon for me and progressives. Nobody has been cruel to him here. You don’t seem to want it to end though. It’s time to take stock and figure out the next thing. He’s not a bad person but it’s a new situation, and he hadn’t ever seen it before. Just like we hadn’t.

It’s possible to believe, as I do, that a good and honorable man has lost a step or two in recent years at his age. During his hearing, it was difficult for me to avoid thinking that he was a step behind.

It is a new one on all of us and Mueller too. It was a stand off at many times and in ways that were so subtle that you didn’t know what was happening. And things could change with a tweet! We still don’t know where we are at civically, every one of us.

But for this thread we need to agree we actually have got all the answers and it is too dangerous to discuss it, and no bad words about rm? OK.

There is a direct line from the failure of dt to be interviewed, to Cory Lewandowski practically spitting on the committee a week or so ago. The Ukraine call was the day after the rmr dropped. It’s been a duel all the way, and dt hasn’t lost yet.

It’s clear that Trump was emboldened by the fact that Mueller’s report didn’t immediately flip the republicans over to an impeachment position. However I’m not convinced that Mueller attempting to get an in-person interview with Trump would have effected that, or that there was any different way that Mueller could have presented himself and his report to get the party of traitors to stop supporting the guy they already knew was a criminal going in.

Of course, since we’re talking about speculative alternate universes here, I don’t think it can be proved either way. Perhaps if Mueller had cussed a bunch Trump would have been impeached by sundown. Who knows?

You keep trying to draw some drop-dead nexus between one thing and the other, and it’s complete bullshit as if Trump was emboldened on July 25, 2019, and not beforehand.

The earliest known contact where Rudy Giuliani sent his henchmen to meet with Ukrainian officials was clear back in 2018. You believe Giuliani was doing this because… why? On his own initiative, nothing to do with Trump? No, wait, we don’t have to guess. Per Wikipedia:

(Emphasis mine)

It’s also painfully obvious you have no idea how the whole subpoena thing would have gone. Mueller would have wasted literally years trying to obtain testimony that would never have consisted of more than, “I assert my rights under the Fifth Amendment.” I’m sure you’d have been the first one whining if Mueller had in fact pursued Trump’s (non) testimony and not submitted his report until, oh, May 2021.

You and I had the same take. But it in no way invalidates the good, thorough and extremely difficult work he accomplished under nearly impossible conditions, and that’s the important thing to me. The failure is in the citizenry that chooses to not read and comprehend what he tried so hard to tell us.

Even in his brief press conference, his primary points were that 1) His testimony is the report; 2) every American should be concerned with what happened; and 3) (for fuck’s sake) read the report.

The mainstream media I’ve been reading have pretty much walked right up that line. I’ve read numerous articles in the WaPo, NYT, and other mainstream outlets essentially saying the same thing they have for the past few years, which is that he’s corrupt, he lies, he’s unfit and all of that – it’s not fundamentally changing anything and it won’t.

And as I’ve tried to explain before, the reason it won’t matter what the MSM post is that it’s the people, it is us, it is the guy sitting next to you in the bar, or living above you in apartment 4A. Or working in the cubicle next to you. Until they change, until they ‘get it’…forget it.

I honestly believe the average American no longer qualifies for a democracy, which is not to say that I want something other than a democracy. I simply mean that the average American no longer really has democratic values, no longer appreciates and understands the value of electing someone who values institutions. About half this country believes that as long as they have a job and/or as long as their cultural supremacy is respected, that’s good enough – never mind the fact that at this rate, with trillion with a fucking capital T dollar deficits, we’re racing toward a dark choice between social security & medicare, the military, or default.

I’ll point out something else that I’ve pointed out before but needs pointing out again: more people in this country trust the military as an institution than they do the press and the very people they vote for. Their own instincts hold what is inherently the greatest threat to a democratic regime in higher regard than they do the mechanisms by which they can participate in their own self-government. This has been shown in poll after poll. I am not pointing that out to critique the military; I am pointing that out to illustrate how the average person who is voting is quite likely to vote to end their own self-rule. That is almost always how democracies die, and that is how ours will die.

Missed the edit window but wanted to add:

Sorry for the thread jack: I agree that this is not on Mueller. He’s in unfamiliar territory just as we are. I never for a moment disagree with his ultimate conclusion: we’ve been looking for a superman to save us from ourselves, and Mueller ain’t it. Didn’t volunteer for the job. We’re the one who put Mueller, Brennan, Strzok, McCabe, Rosenstein, and other faithful public servants in front of the bus with their hands tied behind their backs. That we should expect individual people to save the country from the collective stupidity of 63 million voters is fucking guffaw-ish.

We don’t know, you included. Courts expedite stuff in the emergent national interest. We survived 2000.

IMO trinp is a fascist and needs to be challenged on every front in public. The lack of this I think has been harmful to democracy.

We need stronger enforcement and media coverage. I honestly don’t know if democracy can survive the loss of the fairness doctrine. If you compare 1973 to now it’s obvious. No one could have predicted the gaslighting and the ease with which it is occurring in 2019. Trump needs to be trolled and challenged until he loses his shit, and it should have started on day one.

Correct. Times two.

The Ironass personality disorder, my number ten least favorite. Principled, good, rigidity, bad. Military ironass, worse, Marine Corps ironass worser and worser. I can entirely understand why such principles are necessary, even essential, in a combat situation, another good reason to avoid such situations. As if another was needed.

Da Rules. The ironass believes in Da Rules like my Mama believed in Jesus. And Da Rules say thou shalt not X, Y. or Z. So Mueller did not do X, Y, or Z. Period, full stop, snap to attention. Ten clear and obvious examples of obstruction, right there, with the eight by ten glossies. If he didn’t do that, fuck him, if he did, its on us.

And it is.

This Ukraine thing has nothing to do with Mueller, but thanks for trying to conflate the two issues. :dubious:

The obvious fact that Trump was emboldened by Mueller’s testimony was cited earlier in this thread, er, bolded above.

Here’s some more, as you seem to be confused on this issue:

Trump: Mueller’s congressional testimony was ‘a great day for me’

Trump claims victory in wake of Mueller testimony

Trump, after Mueller testimony to House, says Republican Party had good day

To read the news articles from that day, the line from the reaction to Mueller’s testimony to the call the very next day is evident.

Yes, you are correct - this Ukrainian deal was going on prior to July 25th. But due to Mueller’s testimony, Trump thought he was in the clear and started openly doing that which was previously clandestine. And so a bunch of people who weren’t in the know suddenly came into the know, and alarm bells were rung.

I’m stunned that this obvious sequence of events is even being questioned, to be honest. The entire reason this Ukraine thing blew up is because Trump thought he was legitimized by Mueller’s testimony.

If he hadn’t decided to follow the OLC opinion that POTUS can’t be indicted, and just straight out said he committed perjury and obstructed justice there would have been some movement.

Oh, I fear you have missed my point completely.

I’m not conflating Ukraine with Russia. My point is that Trump was already well on his way to engaging in new criminal behavior with Ukraine long before Mueller had even concluded his report on Trump’s past criminal behavior with Russia, and before any other result from Mueller’s report occurred. For this reason, to attribute Trump being emboldened by Mueller’s ultimate performance is idiotic.

And you attribute all of the above to Mueller, nothing to do with Barr? Ok, then. That is where you and I will forever disagree. And I don’t think it’s me who is confused.

I’m not the one attributing it. It’s Politico. The Washington Post. Reuters. NBC. CNN. I can find more citations, I’m sure.

And to buttress my case, I’m looking at career civil servants who literally have zero problem calling a crime a crime and saying so to Congress. Why wouldn’t Mueller do this?

Again, you and others forget the constraints under which Mueller was allowed to investigate. One of the very first things decided at the outset of the investigation (likely ordered by Rosenstein but I have no evidence of this) was that the SC would be constrained by the OLC memo. This should not be surprising, since Mueller was working under the auspices of the DOJ and the memo is guidance that has long been followed by DOJ.

It’s clear to anyone who read the report that Mueller intended for Congress to pursue its remedies under impeachment. He gave them a road map to do so. It is Barr who deterred this by mischaracterizing the report from the beginning. I don’t understand why you continue to disparage Mueller but give Barr a pass.

Trump is emboldened every day of his life, because that’s how long he’s gotten away with everything.

I think JT and The Glow are talking past each other; they’re both basically correct. Trump probably did feel emboldened after the Mueller investigation ended, but it’s just one example of something that fits within a much longer pattern of behavior. Like any authoritarian, Trump keeps testing and applying pressure to institutions. He’s been doing that since day one, but people have been resisting, which partly explains the turnover in the DoJ.

I go back to the average voter, though. There has been a mountain range of information available to the public indicating he is completely and totally unfit for office. Journalists have stood up to Trump. Other Republicans have stood up to Trump. Judges have stood up to him. Career civil servants have stood up to him. Trump has been challenged. And yet, 40% of the country seems pretty strongly behind him no matter what he does, and another 10% can’t make up their minds as to whether to support him, oppose him, or have no opinion of him.

It’s true that some adults have been more or less shut out of the voting process - African Americans who have to drive 30 minutes and wait in line for an hour or two just to vote, for example. But a lot of other Americans just don’t make the connections between what Donald Trump is doing to destroy the politics of normal and their own unfreedom.

I think he needed to give the nation who paid for the thing something after all of it: just say that it was a crime of intent and the president refused to sit in person, that it was not under his control, and POTUS’ written reponses were inadequate to resolve issues about such a crime.

Mueller didn’t want to be there at all, seemed allergic to his own testimony, and was mostly concerned wtih trying to stay out of memes and clips, by his word choices, and Barr and tronp both took that as a thumbs up ran like crazy with it within hours. And look at that: voila! The innocence project 2.0, more fucking gaslighting and post truth.

Barr is discrete from dt? How?

You don’t get how dt could be emboldened by things that happen in his world? (He does that like a dog sniffs shit for christs sake)

Because dt was already engaged in corruption he exists in a steady state of it, where he is never emboldened by any event affecting him, but exists in a permaboldened state?

Your description of yourself is boldened above.