Watch, over the coming days, how the Trumpanzees, from Fox News on down, do a rapid pivot on Robert Mueller. For the last two years, they've been taking their cues from El Caudillo de Mar-a-Lago, who has been impugning Mueller's character.
Now, without a twinge of shame, they'll say that Mueller is an honorable man.
Apparently, the Special Counsel took no position on whether or not Trump obstructed justice and specifically refused to exonerate Trump, leaving that call to the AG. Keep in mind that Trump worked hard to find a loyal Trumpista to put into that job. So you can take Trump's claim that he was exonerated for just another one of his ten thousand fibs.
Trump may say it's over. But as anyone who has been paying attention knows, there are ongoing investigations of Trump and his cronies in several jurisdiction.
This is far from over.
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He may not face any legal trouble for the campaign law violations and such until after his presidency, but we really need to 1) make sure he doesn't get re-elected and get to continue the normalization of presidential criminal behavior until 2025 by which time it may be too late to find a peaceful and sane path back to the normal, boring, operation of the government, and 2) actually prosecute him for any of the criminal behavior we already know he did, like the campaign law violations, like we would anyone else who was caught doing them.
Part of how we got where we are now is failing to prosecute Nixon for his crimes and failing to get some of the Iran/Contra felons for what they did, or even go after the Bush administration torturers, which has apparently led certain Republicans to believe they will never face any legal consequences for their behavior.
They and anyone else holding offices of public trust need to be disabused of that notion, which as of now they seem to be entirely correct about.
-Doug in Oakland
"they'll say that Mueller is an honorable man."
What? Why??? The people who have been calling him a partisan hack will continue to do so - a clean bill of health is all the more compelling if it comes from an enemy. Some of the people who supported him may now turn on him. But what would compel a Trump supporter to volunteer a compliment for Mueller? All the internet chatter I've seen indicates that we are nigh united in our mockery of him.
Also, have you seen the stats on that investigation? The number of subpoenas sent, witnesses interviewed, man hours invested (as indicated by cost)? Check your information outlet of choice. They're big. No other investigation is going to exceed that depth. No other investigating jurisdiction can afford it. The House may repeat it, but if an ex-FBI head didn't find anything, with the level of access he enjoyed and the ability to leverage unrelated crimes to compel testimony, sending politicians armed only with contempt power is downright silly, even if evaluated under an assumption that something was missed. This was THE deep scan. It came up empty. Oh, it got surrounding people on tax evasion, and it induced some people to lie to the investigators. White collar criminals were found, process criminals were created, and pleas were made. Mueller has some trophies. But on the original goal of the hunt, Russian collusion, on the notion that we have a traitor in the Whitehouse? Nothing. After diligent search, there is simply no evidence that such an animal exists. It's a cryptid. It's Sasquatch.
We sent a hand picked guy out for Sasquatch. We put the apparatus of the US Government at his back. He hired assistants. He spent millions looking. He turned over a great many rocks and trees. He converted local wildlife to work for him by threatening to lock them up. He had no deadline. He stayed out for years. He just came back to report that he didn't find anything, and that he is done looking. We don't need him to opine that there is no Sasquatch. We can reach that conclusion from the results. There is no Sasquatch. And we can stop taking people seriously when they tell us they believe in Sasquatch.
"This is far from over."
The plausibility of the collusion accusation is over. The harassment and demonization will continue because that's how politics works today. Trump ruffles all the wrong feathers, and so he must be destroyed. But "collusion" as a believable talking point is bleeding out. Increasingly, what its advocates are going to encounter upon using it is not a "wait and see" reservation of judgment (that phase ends here), or a respectful acknowledgement of a difference of opinion (as would be the case if evidence was present but inconclusive), but instead a contemptuous dismissal of their position as a baseless, tested and failed, hate-based conspiracy theory. Because those who persist in calling a man a criminal in the absence of evidence, after an investigation this thorough, place themselves on the wrong side of Hanlon's Razor. Here on out, this is just "the searching out and deliberate harassment of those (such as political opponents) with unpopular views", and there is a word for that.
You know what kind of case no reasonable prosecutor prosecutes? The kind with exactly zero supporting evidence.
From the letter Barr sent to DOJ: "While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him."
Fergus is already saying it exonerates him. That is, he's still lying about it.
-Doug in Oakland
Bradley, for all of your recitation, you seem to be obscuring the fact that Mueller reported on two and only twoissues: Russian collusion and obstruction of justice.
Tax fraud? Campaign finance fraud? Insurance fraud? None of those were addressed by the Special Counsel. When Mueller did seem to come across indications of other crimes, he handed those off to other prosecutors. Those are still going on.
Despite the full-court press from the press, as well as every Republican that could also face criminal charges, the results of this report are NOT YET publicly declared. Let's wait a bit more and see.
My take is justice for the rich and powerful isn't the justice that the the bottom parts of society face. Nothing new here, except we have to work twice as hard to elect at least semi honest people to represent us.
Of course, Bradley Pierson, just because a number of Trump’s men have been convicted for lying about their contacts with Russians during and after the campaign, there can’t be any collusion.
Also, this:
https://youtu.be/ZnY7D4M4k68
And the folks that spent over $100 million on the Benghazi probes (4 - all which turned up nothing) would have you believe that the $25-28 million that was spent on the Trump investigation was wasted monies. Although with all the properties seized from Manafort and others, Mueller's team may have actually recovered some of the costs of the investigations. But that won't figure into the 'reasoning' of all the Trump supporters. After all, Donald is now as clean and pure as the driven snow, right?
Dale
The end of the beginning.
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