Like second marriages, the triumph of hope over experience.
My conclusion was that Mueller wouldn’t be coy, which is not based on the text of the release, it’s based on having read about Mueller.
To be certain, you can get into word-play and minutiae to try and decide that it doesn’t mean exactly what it says. And there are people who would write things in a way where they would make a vague denial or a vague statement where the technical wording is true, but the general impression that one would get from reading it is false.
Mueller is not one of those people. He’s not going to write a technically true but basically false notice. The general impression that you get from it can be safely extended to cover all minutiae. It is not a document that merits questioning the truthfulness of.
The only reason it was believable in the first place was because this is Trump we’re talking about. I’d caution any Trump supporter about feeling too elated or vindicated about this. The next news cycle may not be so forgiving.
No, this total vindication, an affidavit from God Almighty countersigned by Gabriel. The convictions and confessions of Manafort, Cohen, Flynn and all others will be vacated and quashed, they will be returned to their honored status as worthy citizens and patriots. Speaker Pelosi will, of course, perform the Walk Of Shame…
No, your conclusion was that
Now, the inference you’ve drawn from the statement, based on what Mueller has done in the past, may be correct. Or it may not.
Nah, when Mueller says that it wasn’t his team, it just means that it wasn’t his team. He’s not the sort to say anything, one way or the other, about any other federal law enforcement, like the SDNY (who were more likely to be involved in this matter, anyway).
You have a right to your own interpretation, but it’s not widely shared (except on the right, of course), as others have pointed out. The actual words from Mueller’s spokesman:
That’s my emphasis, of course. What Mueller is saying, I believe, is that Buzzfeed improperly implied that Mueller’s office had leaked.
And Mueller was not going to stand for such an implication being made.
And so he issued a statement general and vague enough so that Trump’s defenders could point to it as a total repudiation of everything in the Buzzfeed story------even though it is NOT a repudiation of everything in the Buzzfeed story. It’s only a repudiation of the sourcing Buzzfeed appears to be claiming for their story.
In other words: don’t imply Mueller’s team leaks and think you can get away with it. The hammer will fall and your entire story will be swept away, even if your story is factual.
Yes, that. (My emphasis, again.)
OK, maybe Trump didn’t tell him to lie. Didn’t tell him not to lie, maybe. Maybe didn’t even find out about it, didn’t watch TV that day, so he didn’t even know that Cohen lied! Maybe didn’t remember, heard what Cohen said and thought, yeah, that’s what happened, remember it clearly!
Hell, worked for Reagan.
We bought it! Hey, shit happens, people forget stuff, details, shit like that! Look at that nice old man, you can tell he’s really, really sorry about what happened. Mistakes were made!
GeeDubya being cute about the WMD, looking under the couch, lifting up the rug, looking for those weapons. OK, not the best, a hundred thousand innocent Iraqis dead for nothing. Not only didn’t do us any harm, most likely couldn’t have if they wanted to! Well, hey, here’s a comedy skit, so, all good now, right? Water under the bridge! Well, blood, but still!
Has it gotten worse? Sure as hell hasn’t gotten any better! And its on us, we let it happen, we looked, we saw, and we didn’t do shit. If all the evidence of this man’s crimes and misdeeds were piled into the Oval Orifice, there wouldn’t be enough room for him to close the door.
If not us, who? If not now, when?
This was the OP thread, posted on 03-22-2017, 08:28 PM.
Now its January 2019… a lot of time has passed. Trump is not even a suspect.
Really?
I can imagine two ways to prove this:
- A comprehensive list of all the suspects under Mueller’s investigation on which Trump doesn’t appear (we’ll limit it to Mueller, not including NY’s investigations or those of other states or of Congressional committees); or
- An unambiguous statement by Mueller that Trump is not a suspect.
Which of those do you have?
He actually said early that he fired Comey because of the Russia thing. And now we do now that that prompted an investigation of Trump. I don’t know what definition you use but when someone is targeted by the FBI that guy is a suspect.
I have Muellers words to the press.
Mueller says Trump is not a criminal target. He has brought forth zero charges on the President. Those are the facts. If they change after 2+ years of fishing, we’ll see.
Can you show me any proof that Trump has done wrong?
You are using the present tense, but when is the last time Mueller said that? The one I could find was from April 2018 when he said Trump was a subject of the investigation, but not a target at that time.
Do you have a link? I missed this; I guess it was recent news?
Multiple counts of obstruction of justice, witness tampering, and probably more that I’m forgetting.
You manifestly do not. Having those words would consist of quoting them, or at the very least linking to them.
My prediction: you’re going to quote or link to something that actually doesn’t say what you initially claimed.
Wait, no, my real prediction: you won’t even link to anything.
Oh, add potentially “illegally targeting federal employees for partisan reasons”.
(Man, sure got quiet in here.)
N/m
At this point, we’re gonna need a bigger boat.
Okay, not a target. With each passing month, Mueller’s hand looks weaker.
If the President is not a target, and Mueller already picked the low hanging fruits of people for not paying their taxes, all he has left is to squeeze the juice out of what he has and hope they tell different stories to lower their prison times.
He already shot down Trump telling Cohen to lie.
If that helps you sleep at night, fine. But I see it quite differently. To me, the case against Individual One looks like it’s coming along fine. In any event, we’ll now within a few months and we can decide then.