Obligatory Mueller Report TSN
No one has read it. No one knows what’s in it. Everyone is reacting strongly to it. The Mueller report is complete, according to official notification by AG William Barr to congress.
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s much-anticipated report – the product of nearly two years of investigation – will not include any further indictments, according to a senior Department of Justice official.
The report was handed to the Justice Department for Attorney General Bill Barr’s review, and Congress has been notified of the transfer late Friday afternoon, according to a Justice Department spokeswoman.
According to federal regulations, the special counsel’s final report should be “a confidential report explaining the prosecution or declination decisions reached by the Special Counsel.”
After reviewing Mueller’s report, Barr will then send what he has described as his own “report” on the Mueller investigation to the top Democrats and Republicans on the House and Senate judiciary committees. Barr has promised to be as transparent as possible, but it’s unclear how extensive or detailed Barr’s own “report” to Congress will be.
So, what say you?
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It’s too early for us ordinary citizens to opine on the report since we still don’t know anything about what’s in it, but I expect it will be difficult for Trump to put a positive on it.
My hunch is that Trump has not tweeted anything about it already (Midnight CST) because he knows this now so instead he’s working on excuses and denials.
The Dems, on the other hand, are most likely working frantically on how to make mole hills look like mountains and huddling with their corporate media cohorts to generate as much hype as they can squeeze out of it.
No matter what’s in it we’re all in for a big top media circus as soon as Barr releases his first statement.Report
There’s a “tradition” in DC that you don’t drop good news late on Friday. As is when Trey Gowdy finished up the last Benghazi investigation he dropped his report on a Friday at about 6pm because he couldn’t find anything legally wrong that Sec. Clinton has done. So one way to read this is Mueller knows it’s not going to change the political landscape and thus shoved at 5pm on Friday.Report
Just want to point out that this hinges on what a “good” report is.
If we flip the logic, then a “bad” report which alleges collusion against the President would be dropped on a Friday, obviously.
It just that we see that as a “good” report… so our categories are scrambled.
Personally, I see this as more akin to all the RFP’s that I get on Friday evenings… the team working on the RFP set a deadline of COB Friday for *their* portion of the work… and don’t care about the jerks like me who have to review and work on it over the weekend.Report
It’s always wise to skew skeptical unto cynicism, but Mueller has always struck me as a straight shooter. I imagine that he set an internal deadline of COB Friday and the timing really doesn’t indicate anything one way or the other.Report
That tradition is for politicians. Mueller is not one, nor has he played any sort of game this entire investigation. Pretty much all of his big moves have been on Fridays (Roger Stone’s arrest, for instance).
I don’t think you can tea leaf read good or bad off of his timing.
Nor do I think you can read much off of Trump’s Twitter habits. On the one hand, he just came off a two week meltdown that culminated in a truly bizarre NK move that seemed designed to dominate the weekend coverage.
On the other hand, that’s…pretty normal (even if the meltdown was worse than normal).
He has, in the last two weeks, alternatively claimed the report should be released, never be released, it was a witch hunt, it was fake news, etc. And then had the bill to require a public release quietly killed in the Senate before it could be voted on.
The only leaks we have are from political appointees so far (Mueller doesn’t leak, and IIRC the report is circulating only at the highest DoJ level). I suspect nobody in the WH or Congress or even the DoJ was entirely certain what was in it, although ironically the person most likely to know were the people running the campaign.Report
Looks pretty easy to spin to me: Zero indictments of Americans for Conspiring/Colluding with Russia. Every indictment from the special council were process crimes with no underlying crime. How is that not a witch hunt that found nothing?Report
Why were they lying? What were they lying to cover up? “Process crimes” oh please, take that shite someplace else.
In the various pleas the players have admitted to things like giving private polling data to russian agents, knowing about the russians having the stolen emails which they never reported to the FBI, extensive secret communication between the trump campaign and russian agents and that trump was trying to do business in russia during the campaign which he lied about. All that is actual stuff relating to conspiracy. None of that is a witch hunt, it is all material to what happened. How can any person who isn’t’ completely partisan say those things don’t matter or point to something that at least looks like collusion/conspiracy.Report
process crimes are crimes, thus the term “crimes” being involved.Report
President Clinton was impeached for a “process crime”. Just sayin’…Report
I don’t know. Looking at it from Mueller’s point of view he has been raked over the coals by both sides for so long now he probably has no shits to give either the Dems or GOPs. And his hands were tied on issuing an indictment of any kind against Trump, and he said he wouldn’t. So at this point that doesn’t indicate anything other than he’s respected that legal opinion.
I don’t think it’s a too far a stretch to wonder if he may have handed over enough to indict Trump & family and then stepped back to let those in a position to act on it show what they’re made of.
That lets him avoid any accusations of outside influence or personal bias and puts the burden of the historical record of actions taken on the AG and/or the DOJ, and congress. Considering he was sure to get blasted from either side if he opined at all on rather or not charges should be brought up that’s seems like it’d be a good option for him personally.
If that’s the case he’s dumped all of that load onto Barr’s lap and we might expect that no matter what Barr puts in his summary his ass is going to get chewed on instead of Mueller’s.
All that’s entertaining for me to ponder, which is all I’m doing here. Maybe tomorrow we’ll all have something real to chew on.Report
A tweet has surfaced!
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Now he has capitalized all of the words. GMHAGD. Now, GM is the company that recently shut down in Ohio despite his attempts to keep such companies open and HAGD is a shortening of “Hagrid”, the groundskeeper in the Harry Potter universe. The fact that he’s including both of these concepts in his first tweet back is no coincidence. In this essay, I willReport
Thanks for the update J-Anon! Please keep us posted.Report
Which because it’s Trump, might be the greatest Trolling tweet of them all…Report
I’ve always assumed Mueller wouldn’t find anything that’d convince the GOP to flip on Trump so my expectations are basement low.Report
Yep. That’s a pretty high bar to hurdle.Report
I doubt there will be anything that will change R’s minds. What we already know shows his campaign was ass deep in working with the russians to trade stolen info for various things the russians wanted. So it’s not like there already hasn’t been epic proof of conspiracy. So unless something new comes out, which is certainly possible, the current mountain of evidence won’t mean much. There are also several other investigation going on in various jurisdictions as well as the house so it’s not like this is the end of digging into the swamp of trump. But i also expect a fight about seeing the report with Barr releasing his interpretation which will favor trump. He wouldn’t’ have gotten the job if he wasn’t’ going to bend the info. But in the end the report will come out.Report
I tend to agree with this, though I’m a little more hopeful regarding what AG Barr might do. AG Sessions – while toady-ing on almost everything else – remained firm in his commitment to be recused from this. So there may be a sliver of hope.
I’m more interested to see what remaining indictments are dropped both by the NY State Attorney General and the Southern District – NY US Attorney. Meuller’s Virginia grand jury is now officially done but I do t think we’ve heard the last of his referrals.Report
It ought to be released to the public. It’s the only way to determine the merit of the allegations.Report
I have a hard time believing it won’t be leaked somewhere.Report
It will be, the DoJ will get an injunction to suppress it, the Washington Post will appeal, and the Supreme Court will reverse New York Times Co. v. United States 5-4.Report
Perhaps… but all that will happen while you and I are reading it via unauthorized websites.
Two things will follow:
1. Attempts to sow doubt that what we’re reading is *really* the *real* report.
2. Our pursuit of truth will be rewarded with thousands of emails for blue pills and miracle grills.Report
There will also be a “conservative” version of it that makes Hillary and Obama the colluders. IT WILL BE IN ALL CAPS!!!!!!!!Report
Well, we all know that’s a crock.
The documentary will show how Cheney orchestrated the whole thing.
The hack, framing the Russians, and whitewashing the report.
Turns out Cheney also had a personal grudge against Manafort… so took him down too.Report
After seeing Dick, I’m actually feeling a nit apologetic towards Cheney. Yes, he’s a vicious, malevolent, genuinely evil man, but that movie still manages to be unfair to him.Report
This is so exciting… has it been more than 4 hrs? How many hours is it until we’re supposed to call a doctor?
I think I prefer this exact moment of Trump being both a colluder and non-colluder simultaneously to what will follow after we open the box.
For sure I’m not signing up to any drinking game involving the phrase “mistakes were made”
But since we’re baselessly speculating, here’s my uninformed guess: Where I thought Mueller would triangulate around the collusion issue to slowly increase the pressure on Trump via financial exposure and the threat of eventual ruin; it seems he might just have stayed true to his charter, investigated Collusion and indicted the folks directly caught up in illegal activities as a result of that investigation. That’s assuming the one page leaked summary isn’t hiding a blockbuster collusion conclusion, obviously.
That doesn’t mean that the Trump empire will survive the Trump Presidency. Perhaps that will be the “pour encourager les autres” our Celebrity Billionaires need to witness.
My controversial “how to lose OT friends and Whole Foods privileges” take: Obstruction was always a tip-in/add-on charge; if there was collusion, then there was obstruction. No collusion, no obstruction owing to the constitutional privileges granted the executive. In even more prosaic political terms, you can’t obstruct an investigation that isn’t hindered by the act, and, which finds there wasn’t the underlying crime of collusion [assuming such is the finding]. I recognize that isn’t a strict legal interpretation of obstruction that would apply to ordinary citizens; but since the obstructing act was a presidential act, there’s a political/constitutional component that I suspect Mueller couldn’t square. I’m interested to see if the hypothesis is borne out, repudiated, or ignored in the report (or whatever such summation we get).
The contrarian in me wants the report to state that there are no further indictments because one cannot indict a sitting president, but the evidence for collusion is obvious; and its not the charter of Special Counsel to do anything other than that. Ergo the glove fits and impeachment is the prerogative of Congress.Report
” I’m interested to see if the hypothesis is borne out, repudiated, or ignored in the report ”
Right good of the Attorney General to satisfy my curiosity. He probably read this thread.Report
Well, I am waiting with breath baited for the indictments of Jared, Don Jr. and anyone else involved…
Oh, wait…Report
Trump wants to suppress it because it’s exculpatory?Report
It’s been 23 hours now since Trump has twirted. That’s got to be one of the longest stretches of Twitter silence since he started campaigning.
That, if nothing else, seems to be a sign he’s struggling with how to respond to the contents of the report.Report
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Awesome… so we open the box to see if the cat is dead or alive and… its a DRAGON!Report
There’s a lot of motivated reasoning going on.
It’s weird.Report
I think Marcy Wheeler has a good take on this:
http://www.emptywheel.net/2019/03/23/after-mueller-an-off-ramp-on-russia-for-the-venal-fucks/
That what we already know is damning in itself. That a hostile foreign government wanted Trump to win, that he eagerly accepted whatever help they could provide, and was eager to offer rewards in return.
“An unbelievable swath of this country — including the denialists who say all those things that Trump’s own aides swore to doesn’t amount to evidence of wrongdoing — have chosen for tribal reasons (and sometimes venal ones) to side with kleptocratic Russians over the protection of America. Now that the report is done, it’s time to start focus on protecting the United States again.”Report
I want to challenge an implication of the statement “foreign government wanted Trump to win”. Everything I have seen indicates that is far from the primary goal and basically gravy. Russian actions would have likely been broadly the same had it been candidate Cruz or Bush or Jindal. The primary goal is as it has seemed to be for the last 10 years or so. Delegitimize clean elective processes, create animosity and strife in target communities/countries, and create a domestic tar pit for the winner. Trump’s victory was likely as much of a surprise to Putin as everyone else. The effect of a few million dollars for folks to run the psyops campaign has been huge… one of the best investments ever. Electing Trump was not the goal, but it is hard to see how it could have worked out much better for the actual goal.
Arguably, the election interference has a lot in common with 9/11. Short version: someone tried to play us and we fell for it.Report
I think Mr. Joe is mostly right here.. at least with regards motive.
Putin wanted Clinton to lose and would have done everything he did if Jeb!, Rubio?, or Cruz~ were the candidate. Definitionally, if he wanted Clinton to lose… then he wanted Trump to win; so I don’t see much point in parsing that.
I’ve previously linked an article from NYT citing Clinton’s campaign stating this… I can’t find that one, but here’s a Politico article making the exact same point. The article is pre-election… when we all assumed Clinton was going to win.
But it does make a pretty be difference on how you see what happened if we start with the premise that the goal was (somehow) to get Trump elected rather than subverting Clinton, her chances, or at least her reputation.
I’m willing to change my mind (or add to it) if Mueller uncovers a real conspiracy; but I think overlooking Putin’s most likely reason for looking to unsettle the election process is a pretty big category error.Report
Doh, Politico LINKReport
Having link issues:
https://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/clinton-putin-226153Report
Yeah, I think there are three narratives which a lot of people view as in some tension:
1. Putin was messing with our elections to weaken our democracy.
2. Putin was messing with our elections to keep HRC from winning.
3. Putin was messing with our elections to help Trump get elected.
To me, there is no tension created by accepting all three. Personally speaking I think the likelihood that 2 is true but 3 isn’t is exceedingly low, at least if we assume Putin’s motive derives from the candidates expected Russia-related policy positions.Report
Sure, we can hold those three plus half a dozen more at the same time. My point is that those positing #3 as *the* reason are probably wrong.
If I had to rank order, it would be 2, 1, x, y, z, 3.
Of course, even if I’m right it doesn’t preclude collusion…but if I’m right it would be a collusion of opportunity, not a planned thing.
But then I’m just a guy on the internet.Report
Sure, we can hold those three plus half a dozen more at the same time. My point is that those positing #3 as *the* reason are probably wrong.
If I had to rank order, it would be 2, 1, x, y, z, 3.
Of course, even if I’m right it doesn’t preclude collusion…but if I’m right it would be a collusion of opportunity, not a planned thing.
But then I’m just a guy on the internet.Report
I’m sure Putin wanted to weaken clinton or have her lose before any R was selected to be candidate. However when Trump became candidate that opened up new possibilities for Putin. He still wanted Clinton to lose but now the R prez candidate was trying to do big business in russia, which requires Putin’s say. Trump hires Manafort who also had long ties with the russians. Now Putin has a R candidate he not only would prefer just on based on not being Clinton but who has some leverage with and who he has back channels to influence so he can get all sorts of goodies he wouldn’t with a generic R candidate. I think it started as 1 and 2 equally but opportunity arose where 3 was also possible and even better.Report
Those are reasonable suppositions; that’s why an investigation is/was warranted. Recognizing that 1&2 are the pre-existing drivers leaves one open to see that collusion may or may not have happened since the point wasn’t Trump. Whether Trump was ensnared, that’s Mueller’s job to find out.
It is less epistemologically jarring for me either way… obviously where I’d be completely flummoxed is #3 leading the way – the Russian long game scenario.Report
Putin’s motives don’t matter.
These are facts:
The Russians offered help to the Trump campaign; Trump eagerly agreed to accept whatever was offered.
The Trump campaign gave the Russians polling data.
The Russians used various means such as email hacking, bots, and social media to create chaos and dissension in America.
The Trump campaign offered various carrots and rewards to the Russians such as lifting sanctions.
To this very day, the Trump organization refuses to tell a straight story of their involvement with the Russians and refuses to condemn the election interference.
Trump’s finances are deeply enmeshed with the Russian oligarchs/ government.
These are facts which no one disputes. They by themselves are damning.
We might learn more detail or other facts but unless they explain away the facts we already know, there is no exoneration possible.Report
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBz3PqA2FmcReport
They matter less once we have the Mueller report… they matter more when people are speculating on what/why happened. Fortunately we should have some interesting information to look at shortly.
But since we’re still in the speculation phase, I’ll set a few markers based on your comments
“The Russians offered help to the Trump campaign; Trump eagerly agreed to accept whatever was offered.”
~Mueller report should answer what was offered and what was accepted, and what was given. Advanced access to about to be released illegally hacked data? The “hand-in-the-cookie-jar” scenario? Great campaign issue… need to see the quid-pro-quo to judge conspiracy/collusion.
“The Trump campaign gave the Russians polling data”
~Manafort gave polling data; Mueller should answer whether that was coordinated with Trump.
“The Russians used various means such as email hacking, bots, and social media to create chaos and dissension in America.”
~In coordination with the Trump campaign? Else true but meaningless in this context.
“The Trump campaign offered various carrots and rewards to the Russians such as lifting sanctions.”
~This would obviously be the heart of the conspiracy… the Mueller report should identify both the give and the ask. We know that sanctions were lifted in 2019 on three Russian Oligarchs.
“Trump’s finances are deeply enmeshed with the Russian oligarchs/ government.”
~Reasonably speculated… have we confirmed? Will Mueller confirm? I have no issue with disclosing those ties and new laws about financial disclosure for Federal office holders. I’ve been consistent in suspecting that Trump’s empire will be imperiled by his unexpected win; I bet there are a lot more people than Russians who have leverage over Trump. Let’s disclose them all.
… But, the person who was certainly in danger from financial obligations to Russian Oligarchs was Manafort; from what I’ve seen come to light, I suspect Manafort was pulling one magic rabbit from a hat away from a bullet in the back of the head the next time he left the beltway. Trump was his Rabbit. This is both a gateway and a firewall… Manafort needed to deliver to his overlords and that’s an obvious gateway to conspiracy/collusion – Surely Mueller will have uncovered whatever there is to uncover here? What happens though, if Manafort isn’t colluding with Trump but using Trump as a tool for his advantage? In that case some of what you list above as what we “know” becomes firewalled by Manafort’s need to prove his worth to his overlords. This has to be the substance of any impeachment basis that Mueller would uncover wouldn’t it? That’s what I’d expect.
If everything you say is known and known the way you seem to think we know it, then the Mueller report will confirm it. I guess I’m less certain what we know to know.
Its hard to imagine a scenario where the Report is exculpatory… so its – at a minimum – a great campaign asset… as long as the hand isn’t overplayed.Report
We already know what was offered; Stolen emails.
We already know what was given- promises to lift sanctions.
Manafort WAS the Trump campaign; he was its chairman. The Trump campaign gave the Russians polling data for their use.
Again, there is plenty of detail yet to learn, but even the broad strokes here confirm that Trump was eager to coordinate efforts by the Russians to disrupt the elections.
If someone were try to spin a yarn in which Trump is somehow innocent, it becomes laughably preposterous which is why no one has managed to do it.Report
You realize that polling data is worth about 50 cents, right? That’s why it is printed in the newspapers and is posted on free polling company and news websites where we all go to read it.
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Um, no.
It was internal polling data, which is very valuable.
And the question is why.
Why would he give a hostile foreign government who was at that moment hacking into American campaigns and conducting information warfare against America?
Oh, and discuss a Ukraine peace plan with those same Russians at that same meeting.
Is there some innocent explanation for this that passes the giggle test?Report
No, internal polling data isn’t valuable, it’s just expensive – and often worthless. Hillary’s internal polling data was obviously worse less than nothing.
The Russians can also collect their own polling data by hiring a polling company. Everyone can do that. It’s just an indirect way of hiring college kids to call lots of people. One of my close friends ran my state’s oldest polling company. He used college kids making phone calls. You could run it out of an office in a strip mall. His building was just down the street from KFC.
But perhaps the Russians reciprocated by giving Manafort a list of Putin’s Superbowl picks.
I’m sure the idiots in the press would just spin that into Russian interfering in our professional sports, though, and whether the KGB has infiltrated our locker rooms, and whether the Patriots are actually in league with a hostile foreign power.Report
So, a copy has been released, for any who would actually like to read it, as opposed to just talk about it.
https://www.scribd.com/document/402800029/Report-from-the-Special-Counsel-Investigation-into-Russian-Interference-During-and-Before-the-2016-Presidential-ElectionReport
I saw that on the Twitters yesterday but couldn’t find the comment where @Jaybird was talking about Smashmouth.Report
The version I saw was from a British fellow by name of “Richard Astley”.Report
That wins the internets today as far as I’m concernedReport
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/russiagate-is-wmd-times-a-million
When you have lost Matt friggin’ Taibbi you have really screwed up. I suggest reading the article as there are lots of juicy links, enough to keep feeding on for days.Report
Comparing it to WMD is Stone Cold.
Especially since we *DID* find mustard gas shells in Iraq.Report
I just finished the Taibbi piece. I like him in general. Most of his piece was slagging on the press and less about actual, you know, investigation into Trump. He picks every argument that fits his thesis and ignores everything that doesn’t. He really does not even mention admitted facts that don’t support his conclusion. That isn’t really good. He is usually better than that as i remember. Regaling the history of press screw ups doens’t address any actual facts in this current admin so a lot of it is off the point.
But what is just so very Trump is to scream at the press, because everybody hates the press and to be fair the press screws up a lot, when accused of crimes. It’s a great way to lay a smoke screen. I’m sure Trump will keep doing it when there are even more ethical problems or crimes in his admin; just blame the press, blame the press, blame the press. I get why his besotted followers buy it. I guess i also understand why people are dazzled by the sweet tap dance of blaming the press when caught doing crimes. But whether the press is wrong or right doesn’t address what Trump and his admin had done. They are two separate issues.Report
When you have lost Matt friggin’ Taibbi you have really screwed up. I suggest reading the article as there are lots of juicy links, enough to keep feeding on for days.
Or, you could look at the number of indictments the SCO handed out, the number of investigations into Trump et al’s activities the SCO farmed out, and draw the opposite conclusion. Taibbi, just like the rest of us, has no idea what’s included in the report. He has no idea why Mueller didn’t indict Trump. Was it an absence of evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, or was it due to DOJ policy that sitting President’s can’t be indicted? (If the latter, then the former is irrelevant.) There’s also a DOJ guideline applying to criminal investigations that evidence which doesn’t lead to charges should not be included (which is a perfectly fine policy) but if the *reason* the evidence didn’t lead to charges is because the person in question can’t be charged, then Mueller’s driving in a very narrow lane. Furthermore, it’s yet to be determined if Barr will release the counter-intelligence conclusions of the report. As of Friday, he said he’d present only criminal the conclusions from the criminal side of the investigation. So, a lot we don’t know about Mueller’s findings, but there are *a lot* more investigations ongoing, and almost certainly more indictments to come.Report
But the press is bad!!! People, well all on one side of course, have been hyperbolic. Who cares about convictions or what those people have admitted to in court…..the press is the issue.Report
Well, Taibbi’s article is a performative example of what he’s criticizing in others. It’s laughable that he doesn’t realize it. (I think he does, on some level, but he’s a self-interested contrarian and that’s their game, incoherent as it is.)Report
At risk of further documenting my Wrongthink on this issue I think Taibbi does have a point, just not the one he concludes with. The media and specifically the MSM is always going to exist and people who want to think its credible will and people who don’t will watch Fox, listen to talk radio, etc.
I do think that the way all of this sprung from the Steele Dossier, the deferential treatment of the security state, the weird amnesia and agnosticism about the records of people like Clapper (or even Mueller) raises questions about whether our MSM is capable of the role it needs to play in a free society. Now maybe the report will have something that really corroborates all of the inuendo. But if it doesn’t I think it’ll show how weak our press is, and that rather than being any kind of 4th Estate with its own influence, its nothing more than an easily manipulated tool of those with actual power. This would suck in ways much more profound for our democracy than the general suckitude of Trump, which at least will eventually pass.Report
Eh probably not. Mueller could produce a video of Putin’s aides having detailed conversations with Trump and his aides and plenty of people would still say “nothing to see here.” They will say this because:
1. They support the Republican Party whether they admit it or not; and/or
2. Denying collusion gives them an opportunity to slag on Democrats and that is what they love most of all. Doesn’t matter with the slager is right-wing or left-wing, they just hate Democrats because they think it is cool to do so.Report
Another take
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2019/03/today-russian-ratfucking-troofer-hat-takesReport
What we need, as a society, is the ultimate take on takes, one so powerfully devastating it obliterates all other existing takes on contact and reaches *inside people’s minds* to prevent even the slightest inclination to write another take.
That’s my take, anyway…Report
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In case anyone needs any light reading while waiting to see if the Mueller report is released or what tidbits we are fed say the Starr Report is available on amazon and audible. It was published when the report was completed.Report
Trump’s main propaganda arm, NPR, is reporting on the summary of findings.
The webpage linked above contains a copy of the letter sent to Congress by Attorney General William Barr.Report
TSN up with this and the letter for further commenting. Report