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

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

Probably the coolest message you could relate to a walking moral vacuum is that any degree of supercriminality to which he aspires, however extreme, will elicit nothing more injurious than huffing and puffing from people he couldn't give two shits about. Like I'm sure nothing but very good, very cool things will follow upon the dawning of that realization.

Roger Stone's official name is now "harm to ongoing matter"

Xp to km- that’s key, i think.

also,

- 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

actually worse than hell, because gop is motivated to lockdown electoral problems, overturn the judiciary, install more cronies to doj and agencies. given the anti-small d- democratic scenario that we are in, and the amount of time they have to work, either a ‘normal’ impeachment, or some other extrapolitical intervention (by which i mean eg special counsel dropping lots of terrible info, or powerful federal district cases, not violence) is required to get this stupendous and lethal turd flushed. otherwise the pressure will only rise, with all the dangers associated there.

This isn't the same as the Barr release. It paints a much less rosy pic, confirms sketchy acts that were previously rumored in the press, and shows Trump tried to interfere and obstruct but was thwarted by deputies who refused his orders.

This is not a victory for Trump like Barr report was. It's not going to move the needle much re: approval rating or lead to impeachment, but the press is already running with the "this is the end of my presidency" quotes as well as other salacious details, as opposed to the Barr report, where they basically said DEMS GOT IT WRONG.

This might not make a big diff re: voters, but it sure isn't going to win Trump any new voters either. Repubs can spin it however they want. The report has him making a weak-assed statement about it being the end of his Presidency and his active attempts to subvert justice.

Also supports the Dems claim that Barr is doing Trump's bidding.

this aged well

I know this piece is not going to make me popular. But I'm willing to give Bill Barr the benefit of the doubt—for the next two weeks. https://t.co/5IX95XdJug

— Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) April 1, 2019

At the risk of sounding like an annual broken record, I still don't get why people aren't out protesting. Is no criminal behaviour brazen enough when it comes to this piece of shit?

Xxpost I mean, Mueller's report says some attempts to investigate collusion were stonewalled by destruction/non-preservation of data and that access to that information could have yielded a different verdict.

It also basically says Trump tried to obstruct justice but was too stupid and got bailed out by people refusing his orders.

I'm not broken up about this.

Xpost people have been protesting since the morning after the election. Short of violent insurrection, it's proven ineffective since the GOP protects its own.

the key is to get out there and vote for congressional representation in your district that is likely gerrymandered so you're either voting for a democrat that was going to win anyway or lodging a protest vote against a republican that was going to win anyway, unless you live in one of the 10% or so of districts that could be plausibly described as "swing districts". btw if you live in one of those swing districts your representative has a 99% chance of being a complete asshole who thinks that centrism is an ideology

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D4cw62KWkAIKLA9.jpg

Any writing which isn't immediately posted to Twitter is highly suspect imo.

lawyers don't take notes

just

amazing

i wonder what trump thinks legal pads are for

pee tape update:

Comey’s briefing included the Steele reporting’s unverified allegation that the Russians had compromising tapes of the President involving conduct when he was a private citizen during a 2013 trip to Moscow for the Miss Universe Pageant. During the 2016 presidential campaign, a similar claim may have reached candidate Trump. On October 30, 2016, Michael Cohen received a text from Russian businessman Giorgi Rtskhiladze that said, “Stopped flow of tapes from Russia but not sure if there’s anything else. Just so you know ....” 10/30/16 Text Message, Rtskhiladze to Cohen. Rtskhiladze said “tapes” referred to compromising tapes of Trump rumored to be held by persons associated with the Russian real estate conglomerate Crocus Group, which had helped host the 2013 Miss Universe contest in Russia... Rtskhiladze said he was told the tapes were fake, but he did not communicate that to Cohen.

i see the flow has been stopped. probably a painful process for all involved