US Politics April 2019 Thread: 'I find that pretty hard to believe'

if you want to maintain your sanity i recommend not putting any emotional investment into what is said on TV

Nixon must be furious he wasn't born 40 years later

Chris Wallace on Fox News: "The Attorney General seemed almost to be acting as the counselor for the defense, the counselor for the president, rather than the Attorney General, talking about his motives, his emotions... Really, as I say, making a case for the president."

— Ken Fitzpatrick (@krf7) April 18, 2019

holy shit every single cable news channel is falling for this
― frogbs, Thursday, April 18, 2019 10:05 AM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ive got msnbc on and no they are not (obv but still)

barr getting eviscerated

yep

ah ok just speaking for CBS and CNN and FOX (of course), though Chris Wallace at least somewhat acknowledges how obviously corrupt this all is

obv I'm not ombudsmen but here's the NYT lede:

In his news conference on Thursday morning, Mr. Barr at times sounded like a defense lawyer, making no criticism of the president and instead offering an understanding interpretation of actions that Mr. Trump’s critics have said amounted to obstruction of justice.

Barr pretty much admitting that Trump committed obstruction (but it's ok because he was mad) and that there was collusion by the campaign (if not involved in the direct hacking) and that Russia very much wanted Trump to win but lmao nothing matters

Just based on what I've read about Barr's press conference it's reminiscent of a kid arguing with great passion that a D- is actually closer to a C than it is to an F- before throwing his abysmal report card at his parents and running away to hide in the neighbor's shed.

that's a good take away imo

https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf

448 pages.

Breaking: Mueller in his report says he lacked confidence to clear Trump of obstruction of justice but suggested Congress could take action.@cstrohm https://t.co/f9O1zJeBoV

— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) April 18, 2019

Renato: "We now know the first part of the sentence Barr cut off: '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.'"

So yes, Russia interfered, and yes, Trump Inc approved, they just ... didn't help?

a lot of blacked out shit of course

so everything the media was reporting on for the last 2 years was...basically correct?

pretty sure Barr is full of fucking shit and even this redacted mess will prove that at least

Already.

Barr totally lied about why Mueller didn't decide whether Trump obstructed. https://t.co/WIQlH8tRCw pic.twitter.com/c9FSDt8PSu

— emptywheel (@emptywheel) April 18, 2019

Just flipped to a random page:

“Evidence concerning the President’s conduct towards Manafort indicates that the President intended to encourage Manafort to not cooperate with the government.”

Totally legal, totally cool

Yeah, just looking at random pages has already evinced evidence of random criminality, or criminal intent.

fucking unsearchable file

I've already seen Stephen Miller's name pop up perhaps more than I expected.

never use "Stephen Miller" and "pop up" in the same sentence

page 18 is my favorite so far pic.twitter.com/XMhsTx51xT

— maura quint (@behindyourback) April 18, 2019

When Trump was told about the Mueller investigation: the president slumped back in his chair and said, oh, my god, this is terrible, this is the end of my presidency, I am -- then he used a form of a word that begins with F. I am f-ed.@PeteWilliamsNBC

— Chris Jansing (@ChrisJansing) April 18, 2019

The long goodbye.

god, just say fucked

Maybe he actually said "f-ed," because so religious.

Trump upon learning of Mueller's appointment: "Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."

page 290 pic.twitter.com/U3pDPgY56U

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) April 18, 2019

PETER SMITH was contacted by Michael Flynn to find the deleted Clinton emails, at Trump's request, per Mueller. pic.twitter.com/jKhZZAOcrp

— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) April 18, 2019

so this has been out for half an hour and there's already like three dozen crimes uncovered

It doesn't take much looking! Like, throw a dart or something.

it's almost like the facts never mattered and he was never going to be prosecuted because he's the president

this has to be hannity, right? (what even is the point of redacting if you're going to keep alphabetical order? the redacting also preserves the lengths of the names, some bars are shorter)

https://imgur.com/a/9XZuM5y

'I'm fucked' = a phrase I often use when I know I'm innocent and have absolutely nothing to hide.

I'm pretty sure he said "I'm fullyexonerated"

(also someone points out the redacted name between "Katsyv" and "Kaveladze" is probably Kavanaugh

it's 10:55 am on the morning of the Mueller report's redacted release, so probably premature to sum up the situation, but what the hell. things seem pretty much exactly as before:

- trump is guilty as hell and everyone knows it
- Barr's theory on executive privilege is that the president gets to do whatever he wants. that's why he was appointed.
- GOP is willing to look the other way
- republicans can say "no collusion" for the next few years for political gain
- democrats can point to all the obvious ways the president is corrupt for the next few years for political gain
- meanwhile, we are in hell

AFAICT, yup

I mean the public release of the report was never going to have any more substantive effect than getting both sides to dig in their heels a little more. I super double-dog believe that Trump is a crook! That and two bits will buy me a scrumptious bag of penny candy.

The twist is that he tried to obstruct justice repeatedly, but his staff and inner circle kept stopping him from totally breaking a law. So ... the system worked?

Yeah it seems clear that he tried through multiple channels to impede or stop the investigation but since those efforts largely failed... no obstruction?

Tell me how, under that system, we wouldn't be just as well off (if not better!) with a dog as president. I mean even like an unwell dog that isn't particularly bright. Or let's say a brick. Just place a brick in the big boy seat and let the system hum along, untroubled and efficient.

Like what fucking world are we living in where anyone can look honestly upon this scenario and say, 'yes, this is all perfectly okay because no actual collusion took place'.

i won't have time to skim the report til this evening/weekend, but places like TPM are already weighing in with stuff like this:

"The Mueller analysis of the obstruction of justice question is far more complex, nuanced, and unfavorable to the president that Attorney General William Barr has portrayed publicly.

Most importantly, the well-known DOJ policy that the President of the United States cannot be indicted was a significant consideration by the Mueller team and informed its analysis and its presentation of the obstruction question.

It also puts front and center Congress’ impeachment role, or as Mueller puts it: “constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct.”"

compare that to barr's press conference, when he was specifically asked about that, and said that the mueller report makes clear that the DOJ policy on indicting a president did NOT play a role in mueller's analysis.

The twist is that he tried to obstruct justice repeatedly, but his staff and inner circle kept stopping him from totally breaking a law. So ... the system worked?

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, April 18, 2019 12:13 PM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah it seems clear that he tried through multiple channels to impede or stop the investigation but since those efforts largely failed... no obstruction?

― circa1916, Thursday, April 18, 2019 12:16 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"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."

So one big finding so far, following up on David’s note below. It’s in the “Introduction to Volume II”, the obstruction part. It’s very specific and detailed. But it’s only two pages. You can read it yourself. It’s pages 213-14 in the PDF, pages 1 and 2 of that volume of the report. The gist though is that the Special Counsel decided not only that they couldn’t indict a sitting President but that it would not be fair even to accuse him of a crime without indicting him. They also say that if they decided he shouldn’t face prosecution (under the normal standards that would apply to a non-President) that they would say so. They did not. The gist is that the whole non-finding of obstruction seems to rest on the DOJ/OLC belief that a sitting President cannot be indicted – quite contrary to Barr’s claim.

They were just words, sterile, ineffective words. He was exercising his first amendment rights, no big deal. Holding the President of the United States to this standard is totally fine.

What does the redacted Mueller report look like? Check out this great visualization from @gaufre and @LATimesGraphics https://t.co/8phguSNTI6 pic.twitter.com/Hlm1O5aLLH

— Chris Megerian (@ChrisMegerian) April 18, 2019

lmao everybody else in the country would go to jail for even a tenth of this