The Mueller Report, Collusion Confusion and Trump’s Delusions
Here’s the really short version of the Mueller Report:
Trump and his campaign likely did everything everybody suspects them of-- they just don’t have evidence to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt because of lying, invocation of privilege, and destruction of evidence.
There’s more info about the the Special Counsel’s findings below. Suffice to say, it’s up to Congress now.
***
Propaganda is all about controlling the narrative, and the Attorney General of Donald Trump (he’s certainly not working for us) did just that by holding a press conference on Thursday morning in advance of the release of a redacted version of the Special Counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016.
The presser was, by and large, a rehash of everything the Department of Justice has already said. During the course of the event, Atty General Bill Barr repeated the phrase “NO COLlUSION” eight times. He went out of his way to stress the transparency and cooperation of the White House, conveniently forgetting the President’s refusal to be interviewed by the Special Counsel.
Given that nobody in the media had seen the subject matter at hand, the “questions” simply provided an opportunity for the administration to repeat its talking points. When a reporter asked “Is it an impropriety for you to come out and sort of spin the report before people are able to read it?” Barr said “no” and walked off the podium.
The President sent a dozen messages on Twitter during the morning, claiming crimes were committed by Democrats (and crooked cops), and ending with a Game of Thrones knockoff graphic proclaiming “Game Over.”
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1118876219381026818
Later in the morning Trump used a White House Wounded Warriors event to take a victory lap following the release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia report.
“I’m having a wonderful day,” he told the assembled crowd as cameras rolled, “No collusion, no obstruction!” “This should never happen to another president,” Trump said of Mueller’s investigation.
***
Over the course of the investigation, Robert Mueller brought charges against 34 people — including six Trump aides and advisers — and revealed a broad effort by the Russian government to influence the 2016 presidential election. Twenty-five of those charged were Russians accused of involvement either in the hacking of Democratic emails or of a social media campaign to spread disinformation.
Five former Trump aides or advisers pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate in Mueller’s investigation, among them Trump’s campaign chairman, national security adviser and personal lawyer.
***
The Mueller report, released a couple of hours later tells a different story. Following are some tidbits from my first skim of the document.
The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion" with a "social media campaign that favored presidential candidate Donald J Trump" and with "computer-intrusion operations" against the Clinton Campaign
“The President’s efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests."
Mueller did look into indicting Trump, a sign the special counsel’s office thought they had enough evidence to pursue and indictment against the President Of The United States.
They chose not make a prosecutorial judgment, after discussions with the DOJ office of Legal Counsel because of a belief it was up to Congress to decide if there was obstruction of justice and other crimes.
"Under OLC's analysis, Congress can permissibly criminalize certain obstructive conduct by the President, such as suborning perjury, intimidating witnesses, or fabricating evidence, because those prohibitions raise no separation-of-powers questions."
There are 108 pages documenting interactions between people connected with Trump and the Trump campaign and people connected to the Russian government.
WikiLeaks asked Donald Trump Jr. to tweet link to Podesta emails, which he did four days later.
"Trump told Gates that more releases of damaging information would be coming."
Mueller did not have admissible evidence the Trump Tower meeting was an intentional attempt to obtain illegal foreign donations from Russia.
There was a 'reasonable argument' that Donald Trump Jr. violated campaign finance laws, but the Special Counsel did not believe they could obtain a conviction.
Sorry folks, it looks like the pee-pee tapes were fake.
In the written answers to questions posed to the President, he said on more than 30 occasions he didn’t remember or didn’t have “independent recollection” in response to questions. The special counsel said investigators viewed Trump’s answers to be “inadequate”
Trump directed White House Counsel Don McGahn in June 2017 to call the acting attorney general and say that Mueller must be ousted because he had conflicts of interest.
After Trump directed McGahn to call Rosenstein and have Mueller removed, McGahn "called his lawyer, drove to the White House, packed up his office, prepared to submit a resignation letter ... told Reince Priebus the President had asked him to 'do crazy shit.'"
"Trump told advisers it was the end of his presidency" when Mueller was appointed
Mueller determined they likely couldn’t prove willfulness and that the value of the solicited information exceeded the legal threshold beyond a reasonable doubt.
“This Office's focus in resolving the question of joint criminal liability was on conspiracy as defined in federal law, not the commonly discussed term "collusion."”
President Trump directly asked members of his campaign team to find Hillary Clinton’s missing emails that eventually turned up in a WikiLeaks document dump.
There are 13 ongoing cases and investigations the Mueller Report says were referred to others.
The Special Counsel’s office identified “dozens” of pro-Trump and anti-Clinton rallies organized on social media in 2015 and 2016 by the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a Russian troll farm.
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1118877931764355072
More news & analysis when I get it...
***
Hey folks! Be sure to like/follow Words & Deeds on Facebook. If you’d like to have each post mailed to you, check out the simple subscription form on the right side of the front page.
Email me at DougPorter@WordsAndDeedsBlog.com