Relying on the Mueller Report, the New York Times counts at least 140 contacts among the Trump campaign, Wikileaks, and Russian nationals.
That’s proof of nothing, right?
As reader Bob Shepherd commented, if a Democratic candidate had been so deeply involved with Russian contacts, how would Republicans have reacted?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
You’re going to have to take up the collusion thing with St. Robert Mueller, who found non. Contacts =/= collusion, which is a good thing because the Hillary campaign had plenty of contacts with Russia too: https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/429292-the-case-for-russia-collusion-against-the-democrats
I’m guessing cherries are your favorite—perhaps only—food?
When do you stop defending Trump? The fourth of Never?
The 4th of Never. Love that! Thanks for the chuckle.
It’s incomprehensible that anyone could read even a few pages of the report without being disgusted at CORRUPT behavior of the Trump campaign and administration.
Mueller showed that the Trump campaign absolutely knew that Russians were helping them while they were blatantly lying about it publicly. Trump apologists like dienne77 aren’t bothered by that one bit but since they know most people are, they need to say “no collusion” to defend their great leader.
Trump enablers like dienne77 and the other “Trump can do no wrong” fans like to only talk about what Trump did not do because talking about what Trump DID do makes them feel really really uncomfortable.
I am waiting for dienne77 to tell us that the Mueller report also didn’t say that Trump sexually harassed anyone. Then I expect her to tell us that the Mueller report also didn’t say that Trump punched anyone in the nose.
Trump apologists like dienne77 like to focus on what Trump did NOT do because what they absolutely love is what Trump did do. Beat the evil, awful HRC who those very same people don’t need no silly evidence to convict of major criminal activity. And since Trump needed Russia’s help to defeat HRC, apologists like dienne77 don’t want to talk about Russia. They’d rather talk about what Trump didn’t do.
I won’t be surprised if she will soon remind us that Mueller didn’t prove that Trump cheated on his SATs, and Mueller didn’t prove that Trump refused to rent to African-American tenants. She will remind us that Mueller didn’t prove that Trump pee pee’d on a bed and she will remind us that Mueller didn’t prove that Trump was mean to his wife Ivana.
When people like dienne77 are this obsessed with recounting all the things Mueller didn’t “prove” Trump did while they ignore the copious truly corrupt and unethical things that Mueller said Trump DID do, you have to wonder about them.
As I explained earlier, Mueller did not find that there was no collusion. He found that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to prove collusion, and, on the separate matter of obstruction:
Part II of the Mueller report says, upfront, that Mueller and his team decided at the beginning of their work not “to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment” about whether “to initiate or decline a prosecution” of the President. They did this on the basis of a decision that “the indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions.”
So, those who were hoping that the report would result in indictment of the President had no chance of that happening. It was ruled out from the start. And far from being an exoneration of the President, the report lays out the evidence, and that’s all it does. It says, clearly, that the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel has determined both that “criminal investigation during a President’s term is permissible” and that “a President does not have immunity after he leaves office.”
So, the report doesn’t clear, doesn’t exonerate the President. It does exactly and only what it says it thought permissible at this time–it lays out the available evidence and draws no conclusion about whether that evidence is sufficient to warrant a prosecution for obstruction.
The collusion question remains, as the Mueller report makes clear, quite open. And there is a lot of material suggesting that collusion might have occurred, to whit:
There just happened to be business arrangements between Trump and Moscow, and much of the Russian intelligence establishment and many of the kleptocrats around Putin just happened to be dedicated to getting Trump elected and to spreading his gospels about our Confederate Heritage and secure borders and guns and isolationist American exceptionalism, and there just happened to be hundreds of meetings and trips to Russia and other contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russian intelligence officials and kleptocrats in Putin’s circle, and Trump just happened to get big loans, despite his bankruptcies, from the bank that handled the accounts of those kleptocrats. All just coincidence. Ask William Barr. He’ll tell you. No way he was hired because he wrote a memo a year ago saying that the Mueller investigation was illegal and has had a long history of support of a sovereign presidency that is above the law.
And if you believe all that, Dienne, I have some real estate courses I would like to sell to you offered by Bob’s Really Great Make a Million a Minute University.
I don’t know whether Trump colluded with the Russians. No one does. There’s another plausible theory–that he and his people were complete political amateurs and so were easily manipulated to serve Russian purposes and engaged in questionable activities out of sheerest ignorance–that is, that the candidate proved to be a useful idiot in a Russian campaign to sow disruption and polarization, get a pro-Russia leader in the White House, undermine US trade agreements and alliances (like NATO), encourage American isolationism, and distract Americans from real issues with stuff like Trump’s stupid border wall. I really don’t care whether Trump is indicted. I would be happy to see him leave office and go play golf for the rest of his years. But that this should have happened, this undermining of US democracy by a very sophisticated, coordinated attack led by Russian intelligence, is appalling.
I wish he would play more golf and stop appointing right wing judges.
I was told by a reliable source (Trump has a lot of anonymous reliable sources so I can have them too) that Trump only plays golf at his own clubs so he can cheat and get away with it. Actually, I did read this somewhere.
Lloyd Lofthouse: I posted something about Trump’s cheating when he plays golf. He always has to win. I think it was a U-tube video.
Bob Shepherd: “I would be happy to see him leave office and go play golf for the rest of his years.”
Do you really think that after having all of this power and being known all over the world that he would be content to ‘play golf for the rest of his years”? I believe the only way to shut him up is to have him in prison with NO iPhone.
He has a base and he won’t let them forget all that he stands for. I doubt that if he isn’t in prison we will never hear the end of him until that great day when there will be dancing in the streets at his passing.
This is NOT ABOUT COLLUSION!
This is NOT ABOUT Obstruction!
This is NOT ABOUT the investigation or the report!
STOP WHINING about that and ask yourself if any other president (or mayor or ceo or principal or dog catcher) did any one of his actions if you’d be defending him/her.
HE is the ISSUE – not the process.
This is about a bad man and facts. PERIOD. Why is this not only about one thing – him. Not commissions or mueller or blah blah blah
He lied. It’s on tape. His press people lied. It’s on tape.
His closest right hand people are indicted for doing his dirty work and their own.
How many indictments?
How many actions his office took to protect him from colluding.
He is a baby, behaving like a guilty man, a bully, and demeaned hundreds of people in the process of his rallying and fear mongering – – – none of which is collusion and who cares – he and it’s despicable, beneath the integrity of the office, and self-serving.
Dienne, I am quoting here from the Conclusion o Volume II of Mueller’s report, page 182:
“Because we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment, we did not draw ultimate conclusions about the President’s conduct. The evidence we obtained about the President’s actions and intent presents difficult issues that would need to be resolved if we were making a traditional prosecutorial judgment. At the same time, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”
Mueller and his team decided at the outset that they would simply lay out the evidence and would not make a decision, pro or con, regarding whether the President committed crimes. In concluding the report, they say that if the evidence showed that he didn’t they would say that. They don’t say that. The last clause in the report is “it also does not exonerate him.”
So, your comment, and much of the right-wing reporting about this report, is simply misinformed. Read the report.
And, of course, predictably, Trump is claiming that the report does exonerate him when the report clearly says that it doesn’t. But Trump lies about everything. That’s to be expected.
“Read the report.”
Tsk, tsk. You book readin’, fuzzy-headed, bleeding heart, pin-headed, muesli-munching, tie-dyed wearing, Birkenstock lovin’ communiss!
You left out snowflake.
You saved me a lot of typing.I don’t buy the amateur theory.
Bob Shepherd,
Trump apologists like dienne77 don’t want to know what Trump DID do! They don’t care about corrupt things he did because he defeated the evil HRC and that’s all that matters to them!
Trump apologists want to focus on what Mueller could not prove Trump did. The list of what Mueller couldn’t prove is endless. Trump didn’t pee pee on a bed. Trump didn’t beat up his wife. Trump didn’t kick a puppy. Trump didn’t do something that Mueller didn’t even investigate that Trump apologists call “collude” and Trump didn’t park next to a fire hydrant.
Please don’t tell a Trump apologist that Trump did anything corrupt. They don’t care about what Trump DID! That might cause them to criticize Trump and they aren’t about to criticize Trump for something that Mueller proved he did because criticizing the great Trump is absolutely not allowed. Only democrats can be criticized. They don’t need evidence to smear and attack a Democrat!
These Trump enablers only want to discuss what Trump did not do so they can pretend that what Trump did do is completely normal and perfectly fine. Apparently they believe obstructing justice is fine if a great man like Trump does it.
What kind of person would read the Mueller report and be so thrilled that Trump didn’t “collude” that they want us to completely ignore everything that Trump did do that is recounted in great detail in that very same report? Only Trump’s biggest fans are like this.
NYC public school parent: Try fighting this if you think Dienne is bad.
You know I’ll never be a left wing nut job, you haven’t proven one thing yet. Just one more thing, if Fox news is so wrong, then why are more people watching them than all your left wing bias news added together? When the Mueller stopped his fake investigation into Trump, people noted that your so called media lied for two or more years about Trump, your networks went down the tube. They are probably below basket weaving, that’s lower than the food channel.
So why don’t you get a life and stop sending your trash you call news. Rush will be the air in about two hours.
We’re praying for you, it’s not my job to fix stupid, that’s the Lord’s job.
dienne77 is worse than your Fox News friends because your Fox News friends are honest about what their agenda is — they will say and do anything to keep Trump and the far right racist xenophobic Republicans in power. They admit to how much they adore and admire Trump.
dienne77 claims to just a concerned “progressive” as she repeats word for word the misleading lies of rabid Trump supporters. Her lies are twofold — she defends Trump from any critics claiming there is absolutely no evidence for critics to be saying anything negative about Trump. While at the same time she bashes Democrats as corrupt without a single bit of evidence (“e-mails”).
Remember, the right wingers understand that all the rabid “Dems are evil and trying to distract the country from their corruption by lying about Trump” comments from the far right can be easily ignored. They have no power unless self-described progressives start repeating it.
They need fake progressives like dienne77 who will probably be bashing AOC next because she doesn’t agree with dienne77 that the Mueller report exonerated Trump. I wonder what awful attacks AOC will start getting from fake “progressives” who insist Trump did no wrong but Democrats practically committed treason.
No doubt those fake progressives will be documenting some corrupt AOC action next and bashing her for daring to criticize Trump when they insist there hasn’t been one bit of evidence to warrant those criticisms.
The Watergate scandal also resulted in the indictment of 69 people, with trials or pleas resulting in 48 being found guilty, many of whom were top Nixon officials. The affair began with the arrest of five men for breaking into the DNC headquarters at the Watergate complex on Saturday, June 17, 19
How many were found guilty in the Clinton-focused Whitewater investigation?
“A later White House investigation into the trades found no evidence Hillary committed any trading violations.” In fact, the Clintons lost money in that investment.
https://www.vox.com/2015/4/13/8397309/hillary-clinton-whitewater
How many were found guilty in the Benghazi investigations?
No one.
How many were found guilty in the manufactured Hillary Clinton e-mail scandal?
No one.
How many were found guilty or pled guilty during the Mueller investigation?
“Mueller indicted, convicted or got guilty pleas from 34 people and three companies, including top advisers to President Trump, Russian spies and hackers with ties to the Kremlin. The charges range from interfering with the 2016 election and hacking emails to lying to investigators and tampering with witnesses.”
http://time.com/5556331/mueller-investigation-indictments-guilty-pleas/
Lord help me. I read the Mueller report. What a horror he describes, in disgusting detail. I feel like I need a bath after reading it. And all the while, I could have been reading Keats’s Endymion.
I suspect that SomeDAM Poet has fallen silent the last day or two because the poet is working on a Mueller Report masterpiece.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a 2020 presidential candidate, called on the House to begin impeachment proceedings against Trump.
Over several tweets, Warren said that the Mueller report showed the president’s “repeated efforts to obstruct an investigation into his own disloyal behavior.”
“The severity of this misconduct demands that elected officials in both parties set aside political considerations and do their constitutional duty,” she said. “That means the House should initiate impeachment proceedings against the President of the United States.”
I just got this email.
Warren for President
Carol,
The Mueller report lays out facts showing that a hostile foreign government attacked our 2016 election to help Donald Trump and Donald Trump welcomed that help. Once elected, Donald Trump obstructed the investigation into that attack.
Mueller put the next step in the hands of Congress: “Congress has authority to prohibit a President’s corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice.” The correct process for exercising that authority is impeachment.
To ignore a president’s repeated efforts to obstruct an investigation into his own disloyal behavior would inflict great and lasting damage on this country, and it would suggest that both the current and future presidents would be free to abuse their power in similar ways.
The severity of this misconduct demands that elected officials in both parties set aside political considerations and do their constitutional duty. That means the House should initiate impeachment proceedings against the president of the United States.
I want to make sure you know where I stand.
— Elizabeth
Awesome. Senator Warren demonstrates, yet again, that she has intelligence, integrity, and courage that are lacking in many of her colleagues. Shame on the Democrats if they do not vote, in the House, to impeach.
From the day Elizabeth Warren gave her speech announcing she is running for president, I’ve been a supporter. She is the only democrat who is really talking about the issues. She doesn’t give us a lot of empty platitudes or evade questions (like the flashy but vacuous Beto O’Rourke). She is telling it like it is and she has ideas about how to actually fix some problems we have in this country. Kudos to her for showing her INTEGRITY in calling for Trump’s impeachment. This country cannot continue to exist if we have a president who has acted in the ways the Muller report has laid out. SHAME on our leaders who don’t call out and impeach and REMOVE a president for these behaviors.
Mueller who scared Trump at the start turned out to be a political tool which Trump is now wielding with great rhetorical force. Mueller buried Trump’s culpability in 400 pgs. of legalistic detail and timid doubt when his own investigation uncovered smoking guns to declare courageously, “Evidence of collusion and obstruction is multiple and sufficient to initiate impeachment.”–a simple but risky declaration Mueller refused to make. We can debate why. My speculation: all his life Mueller’s been an unreconstructed agent of the status quo, a conservative GOP high-level career insider now ready to retire in plenty and comfort which would be disturbed had he bravely and morally followed the evidence of his own investigation. Mueller will be remembered for failing the nation when it needed him most. All in all now, the opposition has to do what Mueller didn’t, push indictment. Invent captivating memes and legible declarations to seize the rhetorical initiative from Trump who got the jump thanks to Mueller/Barr–“No collusion! No obstruction! No indictments! Complete Exoneration!” Play catchup/overtake, push impeachment. All 18 Dem Pres. candidates and the Dem House majority should arouse public opinion for impeachment.
As has always been typical of Trump, throughout the investigation, he lied about it, saying that it was run by a “bunch of Democrats” in the DOJ. But as you point out, the people who instigated this investigation and who carried it out were Republican appointees and life-long Republicans. They had to be very troubled by what Trump and his people had done to have brought the investigation to begin with, and they have taken as pro-Trump an approach as was possible throughout. Barr is simply an apologist for an imperial Presidency.
Yes, Nixon before Trump set the example by firing those who would not defend him(“The Saturday Night Massacre”)but Trump out-Nixoned Nixon by “the everyday massacre,” firing his appointees from the start(Sean Spicer left early). The GOP insiders were at first dismayed by Trump until they embraced the singular state power he brought them which they have wielded well in finalizing the rightward drift of both parties in the last 45 years. Time’s up for the dilatory Dems, we all have to come out swinging now.
McConnell realized early on he could use Trump to pack the federal bench with rightwing judges committed to turning back the clock about 75 years. And use him he did. Some of those McConnell put on the federal bench refused to say whether they agreed with the Brown decision.
If Trump were gone and Mike Pence was president (the thought is loathsome), I’m sure the Republicans could get him to pack the courts in the same way. WHY do the Republicans back Trump and literally give away their power as a separate but equal branch of government? I just don’t know.
They pack the courts because they have a fundamental fear of democracy.
The right-wing in the US knows that the country is changing. Soon, it will no longer be majority white, and the young people coming up are overwhelmingly Democratic. So, they are fighting against those tides. That’s why we have the anti-immigrant hysteria, the gerrymandering, the attempts to limit voting access, and the packing of the courts with troglodytes. Increasingly, they won’t be able to win at the polls. Soon enough, Trump and his vile ilk with be the ugly Before picture.
Yes. And they pack the courts to reverse the past 75-100 years of legislation. They pray for a return to the days of Warren G. Harding, of no abortion rights, no gay rights, no civil rights, no desegregation, no abortion. They long for a white majority but that’s a vain hope. Demography is not on Trump’s side.
Can we impeach Barr and McConnell also? Why not dump Trump? At least Pelosi is going some thinking about the matter. Couldn’t she have stated more?
……………………………..
Nancy Pelosi Plans Monday Meeting On Mueller Report: ‘Congress Will Not Be Silent’
The House speaker called the redacted report a “grave matter” and described its release as “disrespectfully late.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) organized a meeting with House Democrats scheduled after the Easter weekend to discuss what to do next in response to the release of Robert Mueller’s long-awaited redacted report.
Pelosi asked for the conference call to take place on Monday in a letter to Democrats. In her letter, Pelosi described the special counsel’s findings as a “grave matter.”
The speaker also said the nature in which the Justice Department released the findings was “disrespectfully late” and “selectively redacted.”
“The Caucus is scheduling a conference call for Monday to discuss this grave matter, which is as soon as our analysis and this Holy Season’s religious traditions allow,” Pelosi said…
Article: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/nancy-pelosi-conference-democrats-mueller_n_5cb91e23e4b06605e3ed0141
This originally came from Reuters but is sent out by the Straights Times in Singapore.
I find it interesting to see what foreign newspapers think of Trump. [Not much.]
……………………
Democrats make legal bid for all Russia probe evidence, Trump calls Mueller report ‘crazy’
PUBLISHED10 HOURS AGO
…The report provided extensive details on Trump’s efforts to thwart Mueller’s investigation, giving Democrats plenty of political ammunition against the Republican president but no consensus on how to use it.
The 448-page document painted a clear picture of how Trump tried to hinder the probe. It did not conclude that he had committed the crime of obstruction of justice, although it did not exonerate him.
The report blacked out details about secret grand jury information, US intelligence gathering and active criminal cases as well as potentially damaging information about peripheral players who were not charged.
Democratic leaders played down talk of impeachment of Trump just 18 months before the 2020 presidential election, even as some prominent members of the party’s progressive wing, notably US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, promised to push the idea…
https://www.straitstimes.com/world/united-states/us-house-judiciary-committee-issues-subpoena-for-full-mueller-report?utm_source=emarsys&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ST_Newsletter_AM&utm_term=Democrats+make+legal+bid+for+all+Russia+probe+evidence%2C+Trump+calls+Mueller+report+%E2%80%98crazy%E2%80%99&utm_content=20%2F04%2F2019&utm_source=google_gmail&utm_medium=social-media&utm_campaign=addtoany
I think that if the Democratic leadership in the House decides to impeach, they will make their move when the 2020 elections and presidential debates are in full swing much closer to the actual election. They will time it so the impeachment hearings in the House are still going on the day of the election.
This tactic will remove the threat of short American attention spans forgetting that there ever was an impeachment that succeeded in the House but failed in the Senate — something MAGA Man would take advantage of to crow he is innocent and a victim of a witch hunt because of the GOP Senate vote to save him.
In a war, when launching a major offensive, timing is very important.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
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@AOC
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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Retweeted The Washington Post
Mueller’s report is clear in pointing to Congress’ responsibility in investigating obstruction of justice by the President.
It is our job as outlined in Article 1, Sec 2, Clause 5 of the US Constitution.
As such, I’ll be signing onto @RashidaTlaib’s impeachment resolution.
And once again, AOC makes the perfect response. Citing the article in the Constitution.
Brilliant!
Meanwhile in an alternate universe far far away in Minnesota……warning, warning, the following may be harmful to your sanity and mental well being. MICHELE BACHMANN, oy!
From USA Today: Michele Bachmann has long been an outspoken proponent of Christian values in American life.
Now the former congresswoman from Minnesota believes those values have no greater champion than President Donald Trump.
Bachmann, who was a Republican presidential candidate in 2012, said during an interview Saturday that “Donald Trump has had the courage and the fortitude” to stand up “where other Republicans wouldn’t dare to stand up.”
“He is highly biblical, and I would say to your listeners, we will in all likelihood never see a more godly, biblical president again in our lifetime,” she said on the Olive Tree Ministries’ radio show “Understanding the Times.”
Geezus, this woman is certifiable.
Let’s not have these fundies, ever again, complain about someone a) bearing false witness, b) committing adultery, c) stealing, or d) coveting his neighbor’s wife, for the “Biblical president” has done all of these things again and again and again. Evidently, in the theological system to which Ms. Bachmann subscribes, as long as you don’t like brown people and want to build walls to keep them out, you get a pass on breaking these commandments, even though Christians used to think of breaking these commandments as “mortal sins. I guess that’s no longer the case. Go figure. LOL.
The evangelicals will support immoral liarsif they get what they want: judges to reverse Roe v Wade
What hypocrites. Fetuses count above all else. Where is the outrage about poverty schools that have poor funding? Where is the outrage about cutting SNAP, CHIP or Medicaid? How about immigrant children who are taken from their parents and some will never see their parents again because of the hast in taking these children away? Where is the outcry about the effects of guns and killings in brown/black neighborhoods? It’s okay for a child to be shot while in his home..no problem. Where is the outcry about opioids that are killing parents of children? Are they protesting the profits of the Sackler family? Are they protesting the pollution and pesticides that slowly kill our food supply? The EPA is turning into a worthless organization due to Trump’s beliefs. Are they concerned about the overuse of antibiotics in beef and toxins in chicken feed that makes animals grow faster but is destroying the health of children?
I went to a Planned Parenthood protest/support. We supporters were on one side of the street and the protestors of fetuses’ being killed was on the other side. This is a VERY angry bunch. The anger on their faces was prominent along with all the pictures of unborn fetuses. Two police cars were on our side to protect us.
Roe vs. Wade is ALL that is on their minds. Babies MUST be born but after that they can die, especially if they aren’t white. Hypocrites!!
Michelle Bachman just repudiated the 10 Commandments with these remarks, although in the Bible there are plenty of men who lie, cheat, steal, murder and commit adultery. In that sense, Trump is a “Biblical figure.”
This is a very astute comment and strikes at the base of the fundamentalist support for trump. They believe honestly that politicians like trump who support the end of Roe v Wade and hostility to things like pornography and homosexuality, which they put in the same category, are like King David or Jacob who sinned and was used by God for righteous purpose. This rationalization allows for breathtaking logical leaps.
Just to keep the conversation lively …
Dems should wait on any impeachment talk.
Why? Because impeachment becomes the issue, not the president.
And, the gutless scared GOP senators and elected can support being against impeachment without being forced to comment on the president and his actions.
Every phone call, letter to the editor, blog, protest, and email should be about the President and “Dear Senator why do you still support this mob boss?”
The GOP would welcome an impeachment fight because they won’t have to defend the president.
We are living in a reality tv show. Like it or not, that is what this president has turned politics and the press into (sorry about the preposition at end of the sentence).
So – tradition, old rules, and norms are out the window.
There are no states – they are placeholders for corporations to buy seats in Congress (and electoral college and school boards).
There are no facts – If Fox news said the world was flat millions would believe it.
They can’t defend the President.
Don’t give them anything to change the focus.
Want a copy of the Mueller Report to read? Here is a PDF of all 448 pages. The report is not actually a PDF format… the text pages are IMAGES of the actual report.
Click to access muellerreport.pdf
Every allegation of criminal conspiracy has to be tempered by this statement.
“Even when individuals testified or agreed to be interviewed, they sometimes provided information that was false or incomplete, leading to some of the false-statements charges described above.
…
some of the individuals we interviewed or whose conduct we investigated—including some associated with the Trump Campaign—deleted relevant communications or communicated during the relevant period using applications that feature encryption or that do not provide for long-term retention of data or communications records.
(And he explained that)
while this report embodies factual and legal determinations that the Office believes to be accurate and complete to the greatest extent possible, given these identified gaps, the Office cannot rule out the possibility that the unavailable information would shed additional light on (or cast in a new light) the events described in the report.”
(Almost 2 Months before the Comey firing )
“Donaldson 11/6/17 302, at 14-15. On March 16, 2017, the White House Counsel’s Office was briefed by Senator Burr on the existence of “4-5 targets.” Donaldson 11/6/17 302, at 15. The “targets” were identified in notes taken by Donaldson as “Flynn (FBI was in—wrapping up)-DOJ looking for phone records”; “Comey-Manafort (Ukr + Russia, not campaign)”; ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ “Carter Page ($ game)”; and “Greek Guy” (potentially referring to George Papadopoulos, later charged with violating 18 U.S.C. § 1001 for lying to the FBI). SC_AD_00198 (Donaldson 3/16/17 Notes). Donaldson and McGahn both said they believed these were targets of SSCI. Donaldson 11/6/17 302, at 15; McGahn 12/12/17 302, at 4. But SSCI does not formally investigate individuals as “targets”; the notes on their face reference the FBI, the Department of Justice, and Comey, and the notes track the background materials prepared by the FBI for Comey’s briefing to the Gang of 8 on March 9. See SNS-Classified-0000140-44 (3/8/17 Email, Gauhar to Page et al.); see also Donaldson 11/6/17 302, at 15 (Donaldson could not rule out that Burr had told McGahn those individuals were the FBI’s targets)”
Can’t you just see the hard drive going flying out the window? The whole party has to go
So, after more than two years of unrelenting, hair-on-fire news reports that Trump is a Manchurian Candidate controlled by Putin – despite the actual anti-Russian actions of the Trump administration – Saint Santa Claus Mueller (remember those embarrassing candle-light vigils for him and Jeff Sessions, and SNL literally portraying him as Santa Claus?) finds no evidence of collusion. And, while I know that many people on this site are fact and evidence aversive when it comes to this topic, please remember that indictments rely on a preponderance of evidence, not guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, providing Mueller with a much lower bar for prosecution. And he still said there was either insufficient evidence of collusion/conspiracy, or no evidence at all.
You’d think this would lead people to be embarrassed at their credulity and susceptibility to bias-confirming propaganda, or at least reassess their rhetoric and tactics, and not insist on relying on gross malpractice by the FBI and news media – which Trump is certain to effectively use against the Democrats next year – to somehow make Trump and Trumpismo disappear, and return us to that status quo ante we so fondly remember.
But I’m just a Russian bot, Putin fan boi and closet Trump supporter, so what do I know?
As Mark Twain said, it’s easier to con people than to convince them they’ve been conned, and it’s as true for Russiagate Truthers as for any Trump Dead Ender.
I guess the McResistance will do anything to bring Trump down, except engage in normal politics, or offer the American people policies that would materially benefit them.
The McResistance could have spent these years actually opposing Trump, instead of squandering them on transparently false and hypocritical accusations – Putin used Pokemon to game the election, Manafort met Assange in London, Trump told Cohen to lie to Congress, ad infinitum – and preposterous magical thinking. But that would have meant casting a critical eye on baseless accusations from the Clinton campaign, factions among the political police (aka FBI) and National Security State, as well as the very same news media that helped elect Trump in the first place.
So, my recommendation is that you continue enjoying the warm embrace of groupthink, Dollar Store (or is that Whole Foods?) moral indignation and wishful thinking while you can, because the hangover from it in 2020 is going to be brutal.
Read the report, Michael. He doesn’t say that the evidence supports a finding that collusion did not occur, and he does not say that obstruction did or did not occur. At the very beginning of the report, he says that he decided, at the beginning of the investigation, not to make a decision as to whether the evidence was sufficient to prosecute Trump because of the Constitutional question of whether a sitting President can be indicted. All the report does, he says, and all Mueller felt he could do, is present the evidence, without making a prosecutorial judgment. However, the last line of the report is that the report “does not exonerate the President.”
In fact, the report says that collusion is not itself a crime–is not addressed by the criminal code–and that they looked at various other matters, such as conspiracy to commit various crimes and acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government. But again, the decision was made by Mueller and his team, at the outset, not to make a judgment about whether the President had committed a prosecutable offense.
A like button would save my keyboard a lot of abuse.
Mueller may have decided that a sitting President cannot be indicted, which in your logic gives Trump a free pass, but the fact remains that no one, as in not a single solitary human being, in the Trump family (despite James Clapper hilariously claiming a week before Barr’s summary that Jared and Donald, Jr. would be indicted) or administration was indicted for conspiracy with Russia.
What was preventing the (formerly) sainted Mueller from indicting them?
In fact, the only collusion with a foreign government that was documented by Mueller was the effort by the Israeli government to have Michael Flynn convince Russia to veto a UN resolution criticizing Israel for its illegal settlements in the West Bank.
And Russia, Trump’s best buddy and co-conspirator, ignored the request.
It doesn’t give him a free pass. Mueller makes quite clear in his report that once a President leaves office, he can be indicted, and the notion that a sitting President cannot be indicted is not settled law, it is a nonbinding DOJ Office of Legal Counsel decision that Mueller, as a DOJ official, claims to have to abide by. The evidence in the report does not prove conspiracy, though it is highly suggestive, but it does prove obstruction.
I can only imagine what Repugnicans would be saying if all the stuff outlined in Mueller’s report had been done by a Democratic President, and if that President had had a long, long history of selling multimillion-dollar properties to Russian kleptocrats for cash, had visited Russian way back in 1987 at the invitation of the Russian US ambassador, had denied having any business in Russia during his campaign while at the same time negotiating to build a tower in Moscow, had kowtowed to the Russian President repeatedly and in public, had called on the Russians to hack his opponents’ emails, and so on. Michael, if that all doesn’t raise suspicions in your mind, then I have some real estate courses I would like to sell to you. They are offered by Bob’s Really Great Make-a-Million-a-Minute University. All you need to become a billionaire are these courses (and three-quarters of a million from Daddy).
cx: three-quarters of a billion
Oh, and had repeatedly told aides that he wanted to get out of NATO and had systematically attacked US alliances and trade agreements around the world
My reply, Michael, is in moderation
Proving a conspiracy is difficult. This is why John Gotti won his first couple of RICO trials. Our own Teflon Don has, so far, squeaked by on that one.
Bob, all those suspicions you list have been investigated, in great detail, at great expense and over an extended period of time by Mueller and his staff.
They led to zero indictments. That is the unavoidable reality that none of you can seemingly accept or admit to. You can try to move the goalposts yet again, compound the original conspiracy theory with more conspiracy theories about obstruction, or whatever.
But the fact remains that Mueller, that Savior of the Republic whom liberals were supposed to attend candlelight vigils for, returned zero indictments. Zero indictments, not because the prosecutorial bar was too high, but because the evidence was either not sufficient or was non-existent.
The insistence on holding to this discredited conspiracy theory does so much more to help Hair Furor than the likes of Dienne or I ever could. Refusing to drop this bone almost guarantees his reelection.
Russiagate Truthers are accomplishing the near-impossible: making Trump appear truthful when he talks about Fake News, inoculating him against allegations that are true (which the Steele report-based Russiagate conspiracy theory never plausibly did, but which you apparently still believe), and appear put-upon by The Powers That Be.
Congratulations, and enjoy the dubious fruits of Trump Derangement Syndrome until November of next year, when you can blame Dienne and me for reelecting him.
Your belief in Trump’s exoneration by the Mueller report is shared by Attorney General Barr.
Micheal Fiorillo, is your real name Ivanka Trump? I’d suspect you were Donald Trump but he can only speak and write gibberish like he was four years old.
Michael wrote, “They led to zero indictments.”
Tell me, Ivanka (aka: Michael Fiorillo), do you only watch Hannity on Fox Insanity?
“Over the course of his nearly two-year-long probe, special counsel Robert Mueller and his team of prosecutors have now indicted 34 individuals and three Russian businesses on charges ranging from computer hacking to conspiracy and financial crimes.
“Those indictments have led to seven guilty pleas and four people sentenced to prison.”
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/breakdown-indictments-cases-muellers-probe/story?id=61219489
And then there is this: “But the department wouldn’t address questions about whether any Mueller-obtained sealed indictments might be released at some point down the line.
“Dozens of sealed indictments remain filed in D.C. federal court spanning the nearly two years Mueller’s been on the job. But there’s an important caveat to that: All those could be unrelated to the Russia investigation. For now, though, the possibility remains that a wide range of people who’ve been ensnared in the probe still have no final resolution on their legal fate.”
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/22/mueller-report-analysis-1233091
Ivanka also said, “But the fact remains that Mueller, that Savior of the Republic” (I’ll revise the rest of it) is a life long Republican who became the director of the FBI after he was nominated by GOP President G. W. Bush.
When Mueller, the life long REPUBLICAN, served in the U.S. Marines, he reached the rank of captain and was awarded a Bronze Star with combat “V” for valor, a Purple Heart Medal, TWO Navy COmendat6oin Medals with valor, and more all during the Vietnam War.
This was the response at the time Mueller was appointed to oversee the investigation:
“Mueller’s appointment to oversee the investigation immediately garnered widespread support from both Democrats and Republicans in Congress.[73][74]
“Newt Gingrich, former Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives and prominent conservative political commentator, stated via Twitter that “Robert Mueller is a superb choice to be special counsel. His reputation is impeccable for honesty and integrity.”[75]
“Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) said, “Former Director Mueller is exactly the right kind of individual for this job. I now have significantly greater confidence that the investigation will follow the facts wherever they lead.”
“Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) stated, “former FBI dir. Mueller is well qualified to oversee this probe”.[73]”
I would like to think it impossible that IQ45, Don the Con, Prez Pinocchio, The Don, Cheeto Trumpbalone, Vlad’s Agent Orange is not electable again. But then I thought that George Bush, Jr., whose history was of bankrupting businesses, going AWOL from his service, being a cocaine and alcohol-abusing party boy, and so on–the guy who couldn’t think of the name of a single philosopher when asked for his favorite, was unelectable. There seems to be no bottom, as the election of the crooked, treasonous Orange One proves. How low, how low, how low will they go? There seems to be no low too low at this Limbo party, just an asymptotic approach to total inanity and depravity.
Oh, sure, Michael–all this is just fairy dust. I would not have thought you, based on your comments on other matters on this blog, to be so gullible. Sure, every private citizen is invited by the Russian ambassador to the US to fly to Moscow on a KGB-owned and operated airline for an all-expenses-paid tour of the city and meetings with Russian oligarchs and kleptocrats. Happens to me all the time.
An d this guy just happens to be the only US President since the founding of NATO who has repeatedly expressed to staff members his opposition to NATO.
And what, exactly, makes you think that concern about the Russian connection will keep those who oppose IQ45 from pushing on the ridiculousness of a) his support for his stupid wall, b) his insanely costly trade wars, c) his isolationism, d) his gutting consumer and environmental protections, e) his expansion of charter schools and vouchers, f) his fighting to do away with Romneycare while having no program to replace it, g) his racist and sexist comments in public and private and the models those provide to our children, his support for huge tax cuts for the wealthy and for corporations, h) his dog whistling to Neo-Nazi hate groups and effusive praise for genocidal maniacs like Christopher Columbus, i) his refusal or inability to attend to briefings or to read reports, j) his running a misadministration with more entrances and exits than a stage farce, k) his leading former members of his misadministration to characterize him as having “the understanding of a sixth grader, l) his appointment of extremist right-wing judges, m) his constant bullying of staffers and others, n) his continually encouraging others to break the law, o) his refusal to do anything to curb the daily mass shootings in the United States, p) his kow-towing to brutal authoritarian dictators worldwide, q) his locking children in cages and separating them from their families, and so on ad nauseam? Your argument is an example of the either-or fallacy, and you are smart enough to recognize this, Michael. ALL OF THIS is sickening. I don’t know whether MAGA stands for Moscow’s Agent Governing America or Moscow’s Asset Governing America, but certainly, Mr. Trump has served the Russian purpose of sowing chaos in our internal politics and among our allies, and so Mr. Putin’s enormous investment in getting him elected as certainly paid off for him.
That, Michael, is one of the most bizarre rants I’ve ever read.
👍👍
Or, “How can you say Hitler killed tens of millions of people? There is no evidence that he ever fired a shot, set off a can of Zyklon B, or put a noose around anyone’s neck.” Bizarre indeed. Weird, wacky, bizarro, oddball, way out, kooky, freaky, off the wall, and offbeat even.
He also says, time and time again in the report, that the evidentiary standard applied to a sitting President has to be very, very high. So Mueller would not agree with your point about simply having to prove a preponderance of the evidence.
Michael,
Did the Mueller report document numerous times that Donald Trump obstructed justice in order to cover up his campaign’s numerous contacts with Russia?
Yes or no?
Your answer to that question will tell readers whether you want to have an honest discussion or not. I don’t expect you to reply.
Why even engage with someone who won’t acknowledge that the Mueller report documented numerous accounts of Trump’s obstruction of justice to cover up his campaign’s contacts with Russia?
These people are no different than right wing Fox News watchers. You can provide copious facts and evidence about what Trump did wrong and they don’t care. They want you to shut up so they can keep exaggerating the corruption of the Dems, and they don’t need evidence for that.
Hypocrites.
Again, from the report:
“Because we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment, we did not draw ultimate conclusions about the President’s conduct. The evidence we obtained about the President’s actions and intent presents difficult issues that would need to be resolved if we were making a traditional prosecutorial judgment. At the same time, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”
Do you really expect facts to matter to a rabid Trump enabler?
Facts did not matter during 2016 when these very same people insisted that Trump was absolutely, positively no worse than having HRC as President. You weren’t allowed to mention Supreme Court Justices to them or the hundreds of far right federal judges because all they would repeat is that Trump is absolutely positively no worse than having the democrat.
Reasoning with them is about as useful as reasoning with the rabid Fox News watchers who believe Democrats are out to get white Christian “real” Americans who have been discriminated against by those evil Democrats for decades.
For Michael, no Republican can ever be criticized without making it clear that the Democrats are so much worse and more dangerous. Facts don’t matter. Destroying the Democrats is their only goal. And that means minimizing anything Trump does. That means minimizing EVERYTHING Trump does. That means attacking his critics because they are Democrats.
Will Michael to turn on AOC next?
I’m not talking about Trump’s conduct either, Bob, which I will duly say is disgraceful (since one must always denounce Satan in church, in order to show how devout you are).
But Mueller was not charged with finding out how awful Trump is. His mission was to establish whether Trump or his agents conspired with a foreign power to affect the election. And as anticlimactic and disappointing as that may be to the McResistance, the fact remains that Saint Santa Claus Mueller (remember when he was going Fix Everything? Good times) found no reason to pursue the matter.
What’s so hard about understanding that, unless you’ve made unreasonable emotional investments in another, more magical outcome?
Or are you now terrified that we must actually go out and defeat Hair Furor through traditional American methods? You know, like organizing and voting, instead of trying to use the FBI, former spooks and the corporate media to overturn a confusing and scary and awful election result.
A confusing and scary and awful election result that, despite the hysteria and reckless accusations that followed, was legitimate according to our system.
Russiagate peddler and Truther Chris Matthew’s of MSNBC inadvertently exposed that mindset when, right after the release of Barr’s summary, he said something along the lines of, “Gee, I guess that means we have to defeat him (Trump) in an election now.” Except that’s going to much harder to do, because the journalistic malpractice behind Russiagate has helped inoculate Trump against factual reports of his actual behavior, and gives credibility to his charges of Fake News. Don’t think for a moment that he won’t go to town on that during the campaign.
Face it, guys, after screaming treason for over two years, to think you’re going to impeach Trump for obstructing the (politically motivated, as McCabe’s memoir demonstrates) investigation of crimes that didn’t occur is political folly on an enormous scale.
And after all this, y’all still won’t let it go? It’s an embarrassing instance of groupthink and confirmation bias, and it’s going to come back and kick us all in the (family blog).
Thanks in advance for that…
Bob,
I think Michael’s reply says it all. You are wasting your breath talking to the same sort of people who watch Fox News religiously.
Notice how Michael can barely say in passing that Trump is “disgraceful” or “awful”.
Bob, lots of people are “awful”. Rush Limbaugh is “awful”. Maureen Dowd can be “awful”. Bobby Knight was “awful”.
I suggest anyone read Michael’s non-stop rants about the corruption in the DNC and the reprehensible slurs and attacks he makes on Democrats. Michael didn’t say HRC was “awful”. Michael implied that Schiff and HRC are CORRUPT.
Michael can’t say the word “corrupt” about Trump. He reserves that word for the Democrats he likes to smear without nearly the evidence that Mueller presented on Trump’s corruption.
Mr. Trump is the head of a crime family. He’s the Teflon Don. So far.
Does Teflon Don have a thicker coat of Teflon than President Reagan had?
We all know — well those who read the real news — what was happening to Reagan’s mind near the end of his presidency. His Teflon coating didn’t save him as his mind leaked out of his ears and puddled on the floor to join all the other puddles from his other orifices.
I wonder if Teflon Don will beat Teflon Ron when it comes to who lost their mind first or last and will his children brag from their jail cells about how Don was greater than Ron because of it.
Reagan differed from Trump in one important respect: he was willing to learn from those who knew more than he did. He learned, for example, that a nuclear war was not winnable and would be a cataclysmic disaster, and then he threw himself into detente with the Russians. Yes, in his second term, he was suffering from senile dementia, but you must give him that. The thing that is unforgivable in Trump is the toxic combination of arrogance and ignorance and utter callousness toward others. I didn’t want Reagan to be President, and I was often horrified by him (when, for example, he would spin his racism into the myth of the Cadillac-driving welfare queen), but I suppose that if he hadn’t been President but were simply an old guy who lived next door to me, I would have found it in myself to get along with him. Not so IQ45. He’s utterly vile, a truly despicable person through and through–sexist, racist, ignorant, incompetent, a bully and pathological liar and narcissist, a cheat, a con artist, a man of appallingly bad taste and no learning, an embarrassment. So far, at least, he has not embroiled us in yet another stupid foreign war. But if the needs a speech writer for the 2020 campaign, I think I’ve got his style down: https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/2019/03/16/trump-rally/
I met Reagan on one occasion. It was a meeting that lasted an hour. He was charming. He had a delightful sense of humor. Strangely he seemed humble. He never boasted. I heard his son Ron interviewed and he was asked to compare the two, and he said Reagan never humiliated others. He treated others, even those he disagreed with, with respect. He had dignity. You could hate his policies but he was disarmingly friendly and amiable.
Very well said! Exactly. I’m glad to hear that your personal impressions accord with the view I have developed of the man.
Even if you wrote a speech for MAGA Man, I don’t think he’d have the patience to read it. It’s easier for him to just rant whatever pops into his demented mind.
^^^and Michael absolutely revealed himself as a Fox News junkie when he called the entire Mueller investigation “politically motivated”.
Michael repeats the Fox News propaganda word for word. I can’t figure out if he really believes it, if he is a right wing troll, or if his absolute hatred of a few powerful women who happened to run the DNC or ran for President in 2016 has overwhelmed all of his reason.
Do you think Michael believes Trump is corrupt? I don’t think so. Trump is awful but not corrupt.
Remember — the Mueller report is a politically motivated hatchet job and it completely exonorated Trump of any wrong doing because Trump should never have been investigated in the first place according to Michael! And Trump only obstructed justice to cover up silly meaningless things like inviting Russians offering dirt on his opponent into Trump Tower for a meeting and all of his campaign’s contacts with Putin and then kowtowing to everything Putin wanted! So it’s just like covering up a consensual affair! No difference!
Every inch of Trump is corrupt.
I had thought, before Trump’s election, that we had come a lot further in this country than we have, but the young people coming up give me a lot of hope. I suspect that the worst is to come for Mr. Trump–that he will end in complete disgrace and that he will be the horrific Before picture representing much of what was once wrong with this country. Here’s Trump in a nutshell: At a time when the wealth and income gaps in this country have been growing enormously, at a time when almost all of the vast increase in productivity since 1975, almost a doubling, has gone almost entirely to the ownership class, at a time when he was elected as the great hope of the working class, he pushed Ryan’s tax cut for the wealthy and for corporations. Then he went down to Mar-a-lago and sat at dinner and told his wealthy friends that he had just given them a great big Christmas present. He is a cynical manipulator and con man. End of story.
I love that Diane used the word amiable when referring to Reagan. Clark Clifford famously described Reagan as “an amiable dunce.”
Reagan’ dirty wars and the illegal dirty tricks he played to support them should not be forgotten. Neither should the fact that he simply looked with other way with regard to the AIDS epidemic. This was a man who had an official White House astrologer, the one who claimed that trees were the greatest polluters of the environment. He announced his run for the Presidency with a speech on state’s rights given in the same country where three children were killed by a Klan bomb. He was intimately involved in the McCarthy-era Communist witch hunt. When he was first campaigning, he was going around the country calling Social Security a Communist plot until his handlers put him on a script. When Kurt Vonnegut wrote Slaughterhouse-Five, published in 1969, he wanted to show that Billy Pilgrim’s wife was an extreme right-wing fruitcake, so he put a Ronald Reagan for President bumper sticker on her car, which he thought of as a joke, never imagining that people would actually take this extremist seriously as a Presidential candidate. In many respects, Reagan’s was a corporate Presidency in which major decisions were made by career officials around him, as he was quite willing to be led in many matters. He had a very simplistic view of the world accurately described by Gary Trudeau, in his Doonesbury comic strips, in which he gave us a “Tour of Reagan’s mind,” which consisted of pithy, folkie truisms written on Burma Shave signs. So, yes, Clifford’s phrase fits.
But people are often a mixed bag. That Reagan was affable and courteous and humble–these are admirable traits in a man who was not admirable in many other respects.
Character really does matter. I suspect that Reagan’s character had a lot to do with the success of his interactions with President Gorbachev. And I long–oh, how I long–for having someone in the Oval Office whose character our children might actually, reasonably admire.
Here’s an excellent summary of the report: https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-mueller-found-russia-and-obstruction-first-analysis?utm_source=pocket-newtab
It is obvious to me why MAGA Man Donald Trump, Moscow’s Agent Governing America, and his pet minion AG Barr released the Muller report the way they did. It was to give them the advantage in a dangerous game of manipulation and subversion.
Most if not all professional K-12 teachers will tell us that it is important for the teacher to be the first contact with parents/guardians after their child gets in trouble at school. If the child reaches them first with his/her version of what happened, then the odds tend to favor the parent/guardian will believe the child or at least lean their support toward the child instead of the teacher no matter what the facts were.
This is what AG Barr did when he alleged (and deliberately misled): “After nearly two years of investigation, thousands of subpoenas, and hundreds of warrants and witness interviews, the Special Counsel confirmed that the Russian government-sponsored efforts to illegally interfere with the 2016 presidential election but did not find that the Trump campaign or other Americans colluded in those schemes.”
The Trump administration wanted to get the first message out first and have time to repeat it as often as possible up to the actual release of the report with the goal to mislead and/or program as many people as possible with deliberate lies and misinformation instead of the facts of the 400+ page report that most Americans will never read.
Take Dienne77 for instance, she is the evidence that it fooled her/him and others but hopeful no the majority of Americans. We now have about 567 days left to reach as many people as possible with the facts and make our message simple so it is as easy to understand as the Trump administration’s lying propaganda. We are fighting a war of words and if we lose, that war will soon leave the words behind and turn to bullets and bombs.
Trump has been and is still following Joseph Goebbels playbook. “If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.” According to his first wife, that was MAGA Man’s favorite marked passage in the only book he kept close to their bed, the only book he admired, and I think that one passage defines who Trump is. To prevail, we the people must overcome Trump’s momentum and smother his subversion with the facts that reveal the truth.
Repeat, repeat, repeat … and keep the message simple.
Lloyd Lofthouse: ..”the lengthy report exist primarily to fuel biased media attacks against Mr. Trump….It was an attempt to throw Donald Trump out of office and nullify the election results of 2016.”
Freedom of the press allows this to be said. Rush is making millions of $$$ spouting his hatred and lies. How does Democracy fight this?
……………………………………….
Rush Limbaugh says Mueller report should read: ‘Trump attempted to obstruct our coup’
By Douglas Ernst – The Washington Times – Thursday, April 18, 2019
Rush Limbaugh says special counsel Robert Mueller’s 400-page report would have been more accurate if he had openly lamented President Trump’s attempt to obstruct a silent “coup.”
The man behind the “golden EIB microphone” said on Thursday’s show that hundreds of pages were not needed to explain the details of an investigation that concluded with zero criminal charges against the president.
Mr. Limbaugh told his audience that the lengthy report exist primarily to fuel biased media attacks against Mr. Trump.
“This wasn’t an investigation,” he said. “It was an attempt at a coup. It was an attempt to throw Donald Trump out of office and nullify the election results of 2016. It was disguised as an investigation.”
The longtime conservative talk-radio host noted that the report “recounts everything you’ve read in the New York Times and the Washington Post about collusion before concluding there wasn’t any! It’s made to order for people who want to continue running this operation to get rid of Trump. … The report itself says there was no collusion.”…
Link: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/apr/18/rush-limbaugh-says-mueller-report-should-read-trum/?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=email_this&utm_source=email
Limbaugh must be hoping this will get him another invitation to spend a night at the Facisit White House like he did When President Teflon Ray-Gun lived there back in the 1980s.
The level of misinformation in the media about this report is astonishing. Piece after piece repeats Barr’s statements, and clearly, the reporters writing these pieces often haven’t read the actual report.
Barr has a long history of supporting an imperial presidency that is above the law. he did that work during the Iran-Contra scandal. And then he wrote that memo a year ago arguing that the Mueller investigation was unfounded. He was chosen to spin this thing, and it will work for a time. But soon enough, people will catch up to what the report actually says, which is that Mueller and his team decided up front not to make any prosecutorial judgment regarding the President and, rather, simply to lay out the evidence, which is extremely troubling. Elizabeth Warren and Mitt Romney have actually read the report, and their reactions are spot on.
Lloyd,
We all choose which people have credibility based on our own values and belief in facts and integrity. When dienne77 takes the word of Attorney General Barr over every Democrat, that is a choice that reflects her own values and beliefs.
If Adam Schiff had characterized the report first, those people would still want to hear what right wing Republicans like Barr say about the report — they would no doubt say it is in the interest of “fairness” and their strong belief that Schiff is much more of a liar than Barr is. It’s the Fox News definition of “fair and balanced”. Everything a Democrat says is likely a lie and they don’t need evidence to condemn them, and everything a Republican claims must be accepted as true until a court trial and only a court trial convicts them.
There might be people who insist we reserve judgement about Trump who also insist we reserve judgement about Democrats. But when a person only wants to reserve judgement against right wing Republicans and rush to condemn Democrats, then something else is going on.
It has nothing to do with who told them first. They have been repeating the right wing propaganda that Mueller’s entire investigation is a trumped up sham since it began and their choice to only accept the far right wing interpretation — which we hear those people claiming here — would occur no matter when Barr talked about it.
Wrong wrong and wrong.
We have Manafort; a campaign manager giving internal polling data to Deripaska through Kilimnik throughout the campaign. And giving Kilimnik battleground states to target. This is the campaign manager and deputy campaign manager.
So we can not prove why he is doing this. Whether he is doing it for his own personal benefit. As that a Trump victory would greatly benefit him. Whether it was done with the knowledge of the Candidate or both. Nor can we prove what was done with the information. It could be that voter preferences in Michigan are a hot gossip topic in the Cafes of Kiev.
Conspiracy requires a provable quid pro quo. What we have is an understanding of mutual interest with a hostile (hostile as defined by the sitting administration) foreign Government. Now that may not be a crime but it certainly is collusion. Collusion is actually not a term that most of the American people associate with actions like this. They like the judge in the Flynn plea arraignment; think of this as treason.
At every turn, we have a similar quandary Trump jr’s meeting in Trump Tower is not a crime. Don jr. and Jared were too stupid to know that they were violating campaign finance law. (was Manafort). The law requires a presence of mind that you are violating it.
Stone’s and Donald Trump jr’s. outreaches to wiki leaks are not a crime because Wiki did not commit the computer hack. Except that by June the Trump campaign knew that the Russians “wanted to help”. By July they knew that Wiki probably was a conduit for Emails stolen by Russia. By August they were told that was indeed the case by the FBI. And yet the actions continue throughout the election.
Stop saying Collusion and start calling it what it was Treason for greed. The only thing lacking was the Trump saying hey Vlad lets make a deal. That came after he won the election and the inauguration.
How dare you cite facts and evidence. I thought you knew better. Very disappointing.
Reading full report this weekend. About 80 pages in now. I bet the members of Mueller’s team have cracked walls throughout their houses from repeatedly banging their heads to relieve their frustration.
It was treason. It was corrupt.
You make an excellent point, Joel, but I fear you are speaking to people who don’t care about facts.
GregB
I have little desire to read the whole report. The obstruction section is a given. we witnessed it daily. So in that section, I will just rely upon the media highlights. The Russian hack I also will rely on reporting. As I have perhaps foolishly discounted the effect of Social Media. And I have my own theory as to why the Emails that no one read were so devastating to Clinton.
As I have stated before; Russia was acting in its National interest. That, that interest is determined by an organized crime syndicate headed by Putin is not relevant. Those Americans who collaborated with them to undermine the fundamental basis of a Representative Democracy are guilty of Treason. Guilty both before the election and after the election where they all sought to cash in on the deal. Yup getting those adoptions going again was among other things getting a half Trillion dollar oil deal going too. And a Trump hotel in Moscow.
The NY Times has a searchable copy very easy to go through contact by contact.
Regarding the Hillary Clinton e-mail issue:
“Highlights of DOJ inspector general report on the handling of Clinton email probe”
June 14, 2018 / 7:17 PM / CBS News
“The long-awaited Department of Justice Inspector General report on the handling of the Clinton email investigation by the Justice Department and FBI has been released.
“The report, more than 500 pages long, focuses on former FBI chief James Comey and the decisions he made during the course of the Clinton investigation. It describes Comey as “insubordinate” while also criticizing then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch for weak leadership. It also criticizes FBI official Peter Strzok for his priorities and communications in the Clinton email probe.
However, the report found that political bias did not affect the investigation and it gave support to the decision not to prosecute Clinton.”
And from Vox:
“FBI Director James Comey has repeatedly said that there’s “no evidence” Clinton’s emails were deleted in an attempt to hide them, and all of the documents released by the FBI’s investigation since then have backed that up that conclusion.
“But like many wild accusations, Trump’s claim is built around a true fact: Somewhere around 33,000 emails from Clinton’s time as secretary of state really were deleted. Trump, however, omitted the most crucial fact about these emails — Clinton’s team ordered them to be deleted before any subpoenas had been issued.”
https://www.vox.com/2016/10/10/13222360/trump-emails-clinton
Thank you, Joel. Points well made.
Russia today is a crime syndicate. Putin makes billionaires. If they or anyone else challenges him, they go to prison or die under mysterious circumstances.
Another fact about Russia that solidifies its criminal led government. Russia is one of the top countries for trafficked sex and worker slaves being shipped in like cattle and nothing is done to stop it or protect the victims, the young girls and boys that were kidnapped and shipped there.
Russia
The U.S. Congress-approved sanctions against Russian banks and oil companies also target North Korean labor in Russia and elsewhere. According to the report, Russia recently expanded bilateral agreements with North Korea that allow for labor camps and “slave-like conditions” for workers within Russian borders. About 20,000 workers from North Korea are sent to Russia each year. The country has been rated Tier 3 since 2013.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/slideshows/5-of-the-worst-countries-for-human-trafficking?onepage
Russia
Over 5 million migrants in Russia are working in conditions of slavery in factories and as public drivers. These workers are vulnerable to sex trafficking and forced labor. The entry of migrants into the country is facilitated by the Russian officials. Other officials are even bribed not to investigate or give a false report on human trafficking crimes. As a destination, source, and transit country for victims of trafficking, Russia has not done much to protect human trafficking.
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/worst-countries-for-human-trafficking-today.html
Volume II of the Muller report looks at ten instances of possible obstruction of justice on the part of the President and describes whether these meet three criteria for criminal obstruction—that an obstructive act was committed, with a nexus with an official proceeding, and with a corrupt intent. The report concludes that all three criteria were met in six of these instances and that in only one of them were all three not met. In other words, the report lays out SUBSTANTIAL evidence of obstruction of justice on the part of the President but declines to make a Prosecutorial judgment about these. That’s what the report actually says.
It concludes that the report does not exonerate the President and points out, early on, that once a President leaves office, he can be indicted.
Let’s discover if Michael Fiorillo is capable of reading a legal analysis of Mueller’s report without letting his extreme bias make all the decisions for him.
https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-mueller-found-russia-and-obstruction-first-analysis?utm_source=pocket-newtab
“But the cries of vindication do not survive even the most cursory examination of the document itself.”
Agree. Gave it a cursory read yesterday and am about one-third of way through now. Really appreciated the link to the article, Lloyd.
And the criminal conspiracy that has been alleged non-stop for over two years is where, exactly?
For future reference, Lloyd, people can read the links you post as rebuttal, and see they clearly do no such thing.
You got the investigation and investigator you wanted, with unlimited resources at his disposal, prosecutor-friendly conspiracy statutes, and fawning media coverage from journalists who should know better, and the result was zero indictments of a single soul for collusion/conspiracy with Russia (which included Trump’s pre-election business dealings with Russia, so even that was a dry well).
So now you want to go after Trump for obstructingi crimes the prosecutor you previously beatified said did not occur.
Do you really want to bet the 2020 election on that? Good luck.
Alleging something, anything is really easy. All we have to is look at all the allegations the Clinton’s had and still have to deal with and how many times no one could convict them because there has never been enough evidence to take them to court and convict and most of these investigations and allegations came from Republicans who would have jumped for joy to find anything they could use to take the Clintons to court.
But Donald Trump is guilty of a lot more than allegations of a criminal conspiracy and we will have to wait until he and his alleged criminal family are not protected by him living in the White House as another illegitimate president, probably #2.
Then we the people will have our chance to see MAGA Man Donald Trump dragged into court in New York state to answer to all of his crimes there where the evidence is overwhelming.
Probe of Trump’s charity could crash ‘like a Mack TRuck’ into his real estate empire.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/probe-trump-s-charity-could-crash-mack-truck-his-real-n950576
Why One of Trump’s Biggest Legal Threats IS New York’s Attorney General
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-one-of-trumps-biggest-legal-threats-is-new-yorks-attorney-general/
The Mueller investigation is over, but other legal probes of Trump’s world continue
“Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s work is done, but various state and federal investigators are still peering into aspects of President Trump’s business, personal matters and political support.”
I counted NINE on the list that’s waiting for MAGA Man Donald Trump to move out of the White House. My advice to Moscow’s Agent Government America is that he should move from the White House straight to his personal jet and fly to Russia where he can ask for asylum from the courts in the U.S. but he is too stupid and arrogant for that so hopefully he will finally get his day in court and justice will be served crushing him.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/more-trump-investigations/?utm_term=.cb7ee2940591
Michael Fiorillo: Why do you support Trump? I’d like for you to be specific and name what he has done to make you a supporter.
I see him as a pathological liar, a misogynist, bullying, racist, xenophobic, unfit person who doesn’t read and gets his ‘news reports’ from Fox. It costs the US taxpayer $3.4 million for security every time he goes to golf at one of his resorts. The wonderful ‘tax break for the middle class’ is a sham. He supports the NRA because they donated $30 million to buy him off. He hates immigrants and works against US amnesty laws that require people waiting for amnesty to be held in the US. He was willing to sign a healthcare bill that would have taken 30 million people off having insurance. He believes himself to be above the law and fires anyone who isn’t loyal enough, even having asked people to go against the law. He has no respect for the media or journalists unless they openly worship him. He has made fun of disabled people. He picks people for cabinet positions who work to destroy their cabinet. Ex: DeVos and public schools. Wheeler and EPA. Carson and HUD.
In my opinion, Trump is the worst president in the history of this country. So, in detail tell me WHY you support this Pussy-Grabber-in-Chief.
Trump defeated the evil HRC — the woman that Michael needed no stinkin’ evidence to call corrupt and a lot of other truly reprehensible slurs that he won’t use against Trump.
If you read Michael closely, his take on the Mueller report is EXACTLY like Barr and Trump’s and every other far right wing purveyor of propaganda.
I’m sure Michael would say that Trump and Barr just happen to be absolutely correct this time.
Anyone believe Michael when he claims that Barr and Trump just happen to be absolutely correct, and his implying that Democrats who don’t agree with him that Trump and Barr and absolutely correct — like AOC — are stupid idiots who have been out to get Trump from the beginning.
AOC looked at the Mueller report and saw it for what it was. How long before Michael starts attacking AOC with the ugly language he only uses against Democrats?
Michael, I ask you again — is Trump CORRUPT? Why do you refuse to answer that question as if admitting Trump is corrupt is not allowed?
Is Trump CORRUPT? If Michael can’t use that word to describe Trump, then that reveals a lot about what he condones in a right wing Republican President.
This is quite a useful chart. It shows a color-coded chart of the possible obstruction offenses and Mueller’s analysis of the three prongs of the statute. Yes/unclear/no markings are rough approximations of what’s written in the report (“yes” = “substantial evidence” or similar; unclear is self-explanatory; “no” in this case indicates that Mueller assessed the incident to concern lying to the press rather than to investigators).
Here’s a link to the original thread on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/qjurecic/status/1119414481434624000?s=20
Thanks for finding and sharing, Christine!
Poor Trump is frothing at the Twitter fingers. I didn’t realize that Mueller was an Angry Democrat Trump Hater. I learn something everyday. Now its a hoax that never should have happened? Poor man/baby. Guess Trump is learning that not everybody worships him and that some people tell the truth. Climate change is also a hoax. Wonder why Obama didn’t have so many hoaxes?
………………………..
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Statements are made about me by certain people in the Crazy Mueller Report, in itself written by 18 Angry Democrat Trump Haters, which are fabricated & totally untrue. Watch out for people that take so-called “notes,” when the notes never existed until needed. Because I never….
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Donald J. Trump
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@realDonaldTrump
…agreed to testify, it was not necessary for me to respond to statements made in the “Report” about me, some of which are total bullshit & only given to make the other person look good (or me to look bad). This was an Illegally Started Hoax that never should have happened, a…
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Stop wasting your time sending MAGA messages. I will never post them.
Here is President Donald Trump’s reaction upon learning of Mueller’s appointment to investigate. Pure frustration w/ guilt. Why did he react this way if there was nothing to hide?
…………………………
Trump said, “Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I’m F**ked.” Sessions recalled that the president said to him, “You were supposed to protect me.’ Or words to that effect. The president returned to the consequences of the appointment and said, “Everyone tells me if you get one of the independent counsels it ruins your presidency, It takes years and years and I won’t be able to do anything. This is the worst thang that ever happened to me.”
Here is the WH version:
Resolute Reads
REAL NEWS PRESIDENT TRUMP DOESN’T WANT YOU TO MISS
Mueller’s Report Speaks Volumes
-The Wall Street Journal
“President Trump has every right to feel liberated. What the [Mueller] report shows is that he endured a special-counsel probe that was relentlessly, at times farcically, obsessed with taking him out,” Kimberly Strassel writes. “What stands out is just how diligently and creatively the special counsel’s legal minds worked to implicate someone in Trump World on something Russia- or obstruction-of-justice-related. And how—even with all its overweening power and aggressive tactics—it still struck out.”
🎬 Watch: NO COLLUSION – NO OBSTRUCTION!
Mainstream Media Doubles Down on Trump Conspiracies
-New York Post
“Mainstream media coverage of the Russia-collusion story has been dead wrong for two years, yet the effort to smear President Trump continues — even after Thursday’s release of the Mueller report,” David Harsanyi writes. “In a responsible media environment, journalists who had been misled by their partisan sources for years would be clamoring to find out how the entire country could be plunged into a 22-month-long destabilizing investigation that amounted to nothing more than a now-debunked conspiracy theory.”
🎬 Attorney General Barr: No collusion. That’s the bottom line.
The Mueller Report Just Left Egg on Democrats’ Faces
-New York Post
“Trump’s election is now the most verifiably legitimate election in history. No other campaign has endured the kind of scrutiny that the Trump team has withstood. For nearly two years, 19 lawyers and 40 investigators questioned some 500 witnesses worldwide. They issued 500 search warrants and 2,800 subpoenas,” Abe Greenwald writes. “There was no underlying crime.”
Mueller Probe Was a Waste of Time and Money – No Collusion, No Obstruction
-Fox News
“As partisan Democrats and the liberal media hyperventilate over Attorney General William Barr’s release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report Thursday, they’re willfully ignoring the fact that they already know what the report concludes: Two years and $35 million was spent investigating a lie,” David Bossie writes.
Carol,
Are you sure that is the White House version? It sounded a lot like Michael Fiorillo’s version. Coincidence?
NYC public school parent: It sounded a lot like Michael Fiorillo’s version. Coincidence?
I’m serious when I want Michael Fiorillo to tell me why he supports Trump.
The only reason I can figure out why anyone supports Trump is that Fox omits a lot of what is happening so that Fox viewers really don’t understand the full picture. That fits with Trump’s belief that Fox is the only true station to watch to get ‘real’ news. CNN, MSNBC, WaPo, NYT etc. make up their facts according to the experts from Trumplandia. Add Rush L and the picture of Trump’s greatness is explained.
I ran out of my free articles from the New Yorker so don’t have the link. Thought this was interesting. DeVos and Prince, what a great family. Money does corrupt.
……………………
Erik Prince Funded a Covert Effort to Obtain Clinton’s E-Mails
By Jane Mayer, The New Yorker
20 April 19
Erik Prince, the billionaire founder of Blackwater, a former private-security company embroiled in controversy surrounding its use of lethal force against civilians in Iraq, makes a strange cameo appearance in the redacted version of the Mueller report, which was released on Thursday morning. Prince, who is the brother of Betsy DeVos, the Secretary of Education, is described as having provided some funding for a secretive effort to obtain Hillary Clinton’s private e-mails from shadowy operatives working on the so-called dark Web.
According to the report, Prince “provided funding to hire a tech advisor to ascertain the authenticity” of e-mails that conservative activists had obtained. Prince, who was interviewed by the special counsel’s team, said that the cache of e-mails in question turned out to be fakes.
The report, however, details a strange effort by Trump-campaign associates to hack into Clinton and the Democrats’ e-mail accounts that paralleled the Russian plot. According to Mueller, the effort began as early as December, 2015, and ramped up after Trump publicly declared, on July 27, 2016, that he hoped Russia would “find the thirty thousand e-mails that are missing” from Clinton’s private e-mail server. Mueller and his team never interviewed Trump, but the retired lieutenant general Michael Flynn, the campaign aide whom Trump later appointed his national-security adviser, told them that Trump repeatedly asked to get Clinton’s e-mails. According to the report, Flynn tried to do this by contacting multiple people who might be able to supply them, including two well-placed conservative operatives, Peter Smith and Barbara Ledeen…
Video: Opinion | The Mueller report is riddled with Trump’s lies and manipulation
The president tried to manipulate the justice system. Congress must not let this go, argues the Editorial Board.
https://wapo.st/2vbSyrz
Trump says Mueller’s report is an illegal “big, fat, waste of time”. I’d say, “Don’t celebrate too hard. The story hasn’t ended yet.”
…………………
End of Mueller shifts focus to existing probes
BY MORGAN CHALFANT – 04/20/19 05:04 PM EDT
…Some of the ongoing investigations and criminal cases could present political problems for a White House seeking to move on after Mueller.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan had gathered more evidence in the hush money probe through interviews with members of Trump’s inner circle, such as Hope Hicks, that implicated him in federal crimes. Federal prosecutors in New York are also said to be investigating Trump’s inaugural committee.
Justice Department policy is not to indict a sitting president, but it’s possible prosecutors indict Trump for campaign finance violations after he leaves office…
Following the conclusion of Mueller’s investigation, Democrats have shifted their attention to the details laid out with respect to 10 episodes where Mueller examined potential obstruction by Trump. The special counsel wrote that he lacked “confidence” to rule definitively that Trump did not criminally obstruct justice, and that his report did not exonerate the president…
“Even the redacted version of the report outlines serious instances of wrongdoing by President Trump and some of his closest associates,” Nadler said. “It now falls to Congress to determine the full scope of that alleged misconduct and to decide what steps we must take going forward.”
Trump criticized the report as an illegal “big, fat, waste of time” in a series of tweets Friday, while he and his allies have celebrated the report as proof of “no collusion.”
https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/439795-end-of-mueller-shifts-focus-to-existing-probes
Superb analyses of the report by a bunch of legal scholars. Trump was not exonerated, and there are a lot of legal issues to come for him:
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/04/19/mueller-report-analysis-legal-experts-226662?utm_source=pocket-newtab
Bob Shepherd: I liked the conclusion of this article:
The report contains substantial—indeed overwhelming—evidence that the president committed acts that would be criminal obstruction of justice if committed by anyone other than the president and may very well be criminal even if committed by the president. There are 10 instances in which the president tried to end or obstruct the investigation. Some of these instances arguably have a defense based on presidential powers, but that constitutional question is not resolved. It is very likely that it would not be resolved in the president’s favor with respect to all 10. The only way to find out is to indict Trump and let the courts decide.
Trump should be impeached. And if the Republicans don’t follow the law, then they should be marginalized out of existence. Illegality and corruption is not an acceptable political ideology. This is beyond politics as usual at this point. This is about the nature of this country, and the ongoing history of this experiment in democracy.
Akademos: “…Illegality and corruption is not an acceptable political ideology. ”
I agree totally BUT try convincing the Fox crowd and the Evangelicals who believe that Trump is the greatest thing since Jesus. They’d say you are following leftist ‘fake’ news from organizations like the NYT and WaPo.
My brother said, “Trump is the best president this country has ever had.” He didn’t believe that Trump’s budget included cuts to Medicare because Fox didn’t say anything about it. Rush L speaks the words of wisdom and Hannity is one from which we can all learn the truth.
How does this country change for the better when around 40% believe this nonsense? After all AG Barr has proven that this whole Mueller investigation was a money wasted ‘witch hunt’ which tried to get rid of Trump the Magnificent.
It’s exactly what people say about Trump projecting, but it’s not just Trump, it’s a movement (or stasis) of fake news and delusion. It simply can’t be 40% though. 20% must be plain desperate to change the game at almost any cost. Still, 20% is too much. We have a real crisis here. Part of it is has to do with what has and had been normalized among conservatives and so-called progressives. Church and state, merging on stupidity, abandoning worldly truth.
If it’s 30%, which it may be, 30% deluded and raving, that will be an ongoing crisis. Again, a certain amount simply must be reactive more than anything else, or we are in big trouble. Reactive and/or activated and empowered by the current everyday insanity.
If you look at the states the GOP controls, the corruption rates are usually much higher than states the Democratic Party governs. Florida is the perfect example.
Trump is learning the hard way that not everybody worships the ground he walks on. I love good news and Trump’s ratings falling is a GOOD sign. Poor Trump and his lame excuses on what was found in the Mueller report.
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President Trump stepped up his attacks against special counsel Robert Mueller early Saturday morning, claiming Mueller’s recently released report “was written as nastily as possible” by “true Trump Haters.”
Trump approval drops to 2019 low after Mueller report’s release: poll
BY TAL AXELROD
President Trump’s approval rating dropped 3 percentage points following the release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, marking the lowest level of 2019, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Friday….
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/439832-trump-approval-drops-to-2019-low-after-mueller-reports-release-poll
File this under No collusion my a$$!!!
Manafort instructed Rick Gates, his deputy on the Campaign and a longtime employee, to provide Kilimnik with updates on the Trump Campaign — including internal polling data, although Manafort claims not to recall that specific instruction. Manafort expected Kilimnik to share that information with others in Ukraine and with Deripaska. Gates periodically sent such polling data to Kilimnik during the campaign…
(Background footnotes)
Manafort also twice met Kilimnik in the United States during the campaign period and conveyed campaign information. The second meeting took place on August 2, 2016, in New York City. Kilimnik requested the meeting to deliver in person a message from former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who was then living in Russia. The message was about a peace plan for Ukraine that Manafort has since acknowledged was a “backdoor” means for Russia to control eastern Ukraine. Several months later, after the presidential election, Kilimnik wrote an email to Manafort expressing the view — which Manafort later said he shared — that the plan’s success would require U.S. support to succeed: “all that is required to start the process is a very minor ‘wink’ (or slight push) from [Donald Trump].”
The email also stated that if Manafort were designated as the U.S. representative and started the process, Yanukovych would ensure his reception in Russia “at the very top level.”
Manafort communicated with Kilimnik about peace plans for Ukraine on at least four occasions after their first discussion of the topic on August 2: December 2016 (the Kilimnik email described above); January 2017; February 2017; and again in the spring of 2018. The Office reviewed numerous Manafort email and text communications, and asked President Trump about the plan in written questions.
The investigation did not uncover evidence of Manafort’s passing along information about ukrainian peace plans to the candidate or anyone else in the campaign or the administration. The office was not, however, able to gain access to all of Manafort’s electronic communications in some instances, messages were sent using encryption applications). And while Manafort denied that he spoke to members of the trump campaign or the new administration about the peace plan, he lied to the office and the grand jury about the peace plan and his meetings with Kilimnik, and his unreliability on this subject was among the reasons that the district judge found that he breached his cooperation agreement.the office could not reliably determine Manafort’s purpose in sharing internal polling data with Kilimnik during the campaign period.
Me:
He was the Campaign Manager and a long time Trump acquaintance along with Roger Stone. There is only one person he would have to share this with. And here is what that person said; the word no is not in there. Note he met daily with Trump for months.
“according to the president’s written answers, he does not remember Manafort communicating to him any particular positions that Ukraine or Russia would want the united states to support. Written responses of Donald j. Trump (Nov. 20, 2018), at 16-17 (response to question iv, part (d). “ A photogenic memory with a delete button. And the man dangling the pardon. )
From the note 925.
Manafort also initially told the office that he had said to Kilimnik that the plan was crazy, that the discussion ended, and that he did not recall Kilimnik asking Manafort to reconsider the plan after their august 2 meeting. Manafort said ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ that he reacted negatively to Yanukovych sending — years later — an “urgent request when Yanukovych needed him. When confronted with an email written by Kilimnik on or about December 8, 2016, however, Manafort acknowledged Kilimnik raised the peace plan again in that email. Manafort ultimately acknowledged Kilimnik also raised the peace plan in January and February 2017 meetings with Manafort. ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■second, Manafort briefed Kilimnik on the state of the trump campaign and Manafort’s plan to win the election. That briefing encompassed the campaign’s messaging and its internal polling data. According to gates, it also included discussion of “battleground” states, which Manafort identified as Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota. Manafort did not refer explicitly to “battleground” states in his telling of the august 2 discussion,
Manafort ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ did not see a downside to sharing campaign information, and told gates that his role in the campaign would be “good for business” and potentially a way to be made whole for work he previously completed in the Ukraine. As to Deripaska, Manafort claimed that by sharing campaign information with him, Deripaska might see value in their relationship and resolve a “disagreement”—a reference to one or more outstanding lawsuits. Because of questions about Manafort’s credibility and our limited ability to gather evidence on what happened to the polling data after it was sent to Kilimnik, the office could not assess what Kilimnik (or others he may have given it to) did with it. The office did not identify evidence of a connection between Manafort’s sharing polling data and Russia’s interference in the election, which had already been reported by u.s. Media outlets at the time of the august 2 meeting. The investigation did not establish that Manafort otherwise coordinated with the Russian government on its election-interference efforts.
(“our limited ability to determine what happened to the information”. Seriously !!!!!
“Deripaska is considered among the Russian oligarchs closest to Putin. A 2006 U.S. diplomatic cable reported by The Associated Press described him as “among the 2-3 oligarchs Putin turns to on a regular basis” and “a more-or-less permanent fixture on Putin’s trips abroad.”)
From me :
None of these people expected to win including Trump who was also posturing for personal gain through Russian money after the election including negotiating a Trump Tower in Moscow. The chance that Trump was not in on this and the chance that Deripaska did not pass that data on to Putin and Russian intelligence are between ZERO AND LESS THAN ZERO. All of these People have the same motive money. From Deripaska to Trump all looking at Putin to keep the spigot open. And curiously sanctions relief was the first order of business after the election. One Initially rejected by the Republican Congress.
Failed because Flynn’s calls to the Russian Ambassador were picked up. Because the Ambassadors phones were being surveilled. Failed because the FBI had information on “that Greek guy” and had started an investigation.
After over a year of refusing to enforce new sanctions on Russian Oligarchs new sanctions were instituted curiously they never were instituted against Deripaska’s Aluminum company and then quickly lifted.
I spared everyone the bold type capitalization that went out in emails and on Facebook, Some of the names slipped by when I converted it back to the original format. Like gates vs Gates
Joel Herman (@jwherman11): “according to the president’s written answers, he does not remember Manafort communicating to him any particular positions that Ukraine or Russia would want the united states to support. Written responses of Donald j. Trump (Nov. 20, 2018)”
It’s amazing how bad one’s memory becomes when one’s status and power depend upon not remembering. However, I do believe Trump is suffering from dementia. He probably had lawyers telling him what to write and this was the best cover-up they could come up with.
Please recall that the Republican platform of 2016 was rewritten to delete any reference to supplying arms to Ukraine for self-defense, which was a traditional Republican priority.
No one knows who did it.
I wonder how that happened.
There are so many serious questions raised by this report.
Does anyone really think it is a coincidence that the very same two posters who spent all of 2016 insisting that Trump is absolutely no worse than the evil, corrupt HRC are now posting that the report completely exonerates Trump of any wrongdoing?
How does any reasonable person who isn’t completed blinded with pure hatred read the report and bash the Democrats for what they claim is a “politically motivated” effort to “get” Trump? Remember, this claim is coming very same people who insisted Trump was no worse than the Democrats all during 2016. Both in 2016 and right now they are repeating word for word the right wing talking points.
What makes these rabid Trump defenders so suspect is that these very two people called HRC and many prominent Democrats crooks and criminals and corrupt — words they insist may never be applied to Trump because they don’t yet have one smidgeon of “evidence” that Trump has ever done anything unethical or improper. These two rabid Trump defenders are good with you calling Democrats those names — but they attack anyone who criticizes Trump.
When people repeat right wing talking points over and over again, we should understand that arguing with them is like arguing with a right wing troll. Their only goal is to destroy the Democratic party and if that means defending Trump as if he were the most persecuted honorable President ever, they will do it happily.
I could understand if they bashed the Democrats AND Trump. But can anyone explain their need to defend Trump against all reason?
Upon your request;
“According to Denman, she spoke with Gordon and Matt Miller, and they told her that they had to clear the language and that Gordon was “talking to New York.” Denman told others that she was asked by the two Trump Campaign staffers to strike “lethal defense weapons” from the proposal but that she refused. Denman recalled Gordon saying that he was on the phone with candidate Trump, but she was skeptical whether that was true. Gordon denied having told Denman that he was on the phone with Trump, although he acknowledged it was possible that he mentioned having previously spoken to the candidate about the subject matter. Gordon’s phone records reveal a call to Sessions’s office in Washington that afternoon, but do not include calls directly to a number associated with Trump. And according to the President’s written answers to the Office’s questions, he does not recall being involved in the change in language of the platform amendment. ”
Now it is again worth noting that this was all over the news for weeks before the convention. And for months after the convention and after the Russian interference was known. Yet even before Trump knew anything was under investigation.
And for some strange reason, the only change made to the Platform.
Certainly, plenty of time to get a cover story.
And Trump again he doesn’t recall. Time for the 25th Amendment he’s senile.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/trump-campaign-guts-gops-anti-russia-stance-on-ukraine/2016/07/18/98adb3b0-4cf3-11e6-a7d8-13d06b37f256_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.a9fd03b68576
Joel Herman (@jwherman11): Trump said he would “get along very well” with Vladimir Putin and called it a “great honor” when Putin praised him.
Trump has admitted his love and admiration for Putin and Kim.
He loves dictators.
He hates democracy.
Joel,
Thanks for answering that question from Diane so comprehensively!
Can you answer mine? How can anyone read the entirety of Mueller’s report and STILL be saying that Trump didn’t do anything wrong and Mueller’s report proved it.
If the people saying that claim to be progressives and not far right wing trolls, do we believe them?
Is it remotely possible that someone who claims to be a progressive would not be totally outraged by Trump’s behavior in the report instead of focused only on whether the numerous contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia and the mutual help they gave one another is enough to legally prove a conspiracy and then claiming that if it doesn’t, that proves that bad people (i.e. democrats) were out to get Trump? And pretending all the corrupt behavior involving obstruction of justice is irrelevant?
I know a lot of progressives who despise the DNC and democrats, but they ALSO despise Trump and the last thing they would do is push the right wing propaganda that Trump is totally exonerated and the democrats MUST drop this and never speak of it again. They want Trump impeached!
In real life, I have never met a progressive who spouts the right wing propaganda about the Mueller report. But I have met lots of right wing racist Trump supporters who do.
Do these people exist in real life? I’ve never met a rabid Trump defender who claimed to be a progressive – they are very proud of Trump and their support of him.
Democrats are pressing forward with their investigations into President Trump’s personal finances…
…Waters may also explore Trump’s finances beyond any business connections to Russia, focusing on allegations of bank, tax, and insurance fraud.
The New York Times reported in March that Trump allegedly misled Deutsche Bank about the true nature of his wealth and the value of his assets while applying for loans. The Times also documented Trump and his family’s extensive history of tax schemes that critics say may have violated federal and state laws.
Trump’s former attorney, Michael Cohen, made similar allegations to lawmakers.
Testifying before the House Oversight Committee in February, Cohen accused Trump of manipulating the value of his assets to slash his tax bill, inflate his insurance coverage and rank higher on the Forbes list of wealthiest people….
https://thehill.com/policy/finance/439802-dems-digging-into-trump-finances-post-mueller
‘News’ from the WH:
West Wing Reads
Top 10 Things the Media Got Wrong About ‘Collusion’ and ‘Obstruction’
“The prestige press has some explaining to do — for subjecting the nation to a long, cruel ordeal named ‘collusion’ and ‘obstruction,’” Sohrab Ahmari writes in the New York Post.
“All that remains of collusion and obstruction is the media’s shattered credibility. The errant reporters and pundits — the ones who peddled the most outrageous falsehoods — want nothing more than to move on. But not so fast: There has to be some accountability for the biggest foul-ups.”…
“It’s time for Democrats and the country to move past the Russia collusion narrative and for the media to fess up. If we are not going to respect the outcome of the Mueller report, then what was the point of the whole exercise?” writes former Bill Clinton adviser Mark Penn in The Hill. “The country deserves a Congress focused not on investigations but on issues such as health care, infrastructure and immigration.”
Trumbull’s County, Ohio, where the Lordstown GM plant is located, voted for Donald Trump in 2016, shifting over 30 percentage points from the 2012 election.
Amazing how quickly Russian bots (most of whose Facebook posts occurred after the election) and White Supremacy can change things, isn’t it?
Or maybe, just maybe, Bernie Sanders is expressing solidarity with Lordstown GM workers because he wants to bring working class voters of every race back into a Democratic Party that actually represents their interests, and oppose the kind of trade deals Trump had such success campaigning against, even if it was a con.
Oh, and please don’t forget to post the messages of solidarity for Lordstown workers from Hillary and Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Pete Butigieg (the Official Stop Bernie Candidate, according to the NY Times) et. al.
But I won’t hold my breath.
Whoops, this was intended as a response to carolmayalsia’s comment about Bernie Sanders and Lordstown GM workers, whi h appears in the post about today’s Times editorial.