US Politics March 2019: “I can’t say I’m happy. I can’t say I’m thrilled”

exclusive footage of robert mueller addressing the #resistance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RzmjzP2GoM

especially excruciating:

trump obstructed justice, in the open, on a nearly daily basis for 2 years, through firing comey and explicitly saying on national tv that it was because of Russia, through his constant rage at jeff sessions for recusing himself from the investigation, through his barely veiled threats to the intelligence agencies and the special counsel’s team. (at least, all of that sure seeeeemed like obstruction to me, but what do I know, as I am officially losing my mind)

and yet, a real, actual defense of all this by trump’s team, including the genius, triumphant rudy giuliani, is that none of this was trump actually obstructing anything, it was just trump being trump. you know, gregarious, outspoken, emotional. and that you can’t actually KNOW that it’s obstruction unless you get inside trump’s head. and they wouldn’t let anyone interview trump about his intentions because they knew he’d implicate himself, either by admitting it on accident, or on purpose. so Mueller leaves it in the open – and then Barr (who received confirmation votes from Doug Jones, Joe Manchin, and Kyrsten Sinema) looks at all this and decides it’s ok that trump, the one person who could speak to trump’s intentions, didn’t need to be interviewed and there’s no evidence supporting obstruction. Besides all the obvious public stuff that we all just witnessed for the last 2 fucking years.

and also implied in the barr argument: because the thing that trump would have hypothetically obstructing (collusion with russians in the election) didn't happen, he can't be guilty of obstructing justice.

oooooooook

seriously, in cloud cuckoo land here

At this point, I'm just trying to take comfort in the low probability of Trump surviving to the end of his second term.

This guy is otm for once:

Barr’s logic is upside down. He is saying the finding of no criminal collusion undermines the findings that Trump obstructed justice. In fact, the obstruction undermines the findings of no criminal collusion.

Mueller has apparently found no criminal collusion between Trump and Russia, a finding that is hardly shocking. As Trump’s defenders have pointed out, collusion is not a crime. There are crimes that fall under the category of collusion — many former prosecutors have theorized that Mueller could indict Trump or his campaign under a conspiracy charge. Mueller did not find evidence strong enough to prove in a court of law, and possibly not at all.

It is bizarre, however, to spend two years insisting collusion is not a crime and then turn around and call the absence of crimes proof that there was no collusion. Of course Trump colluded with Russia. He literally went on camera and asked Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails, promising that Russia would be rewarded by the American media, and Russia responded to this request by attempting a hack to steal Clinton’s emails that very day. Trump’s campaign aides repeatedly welcomed and sought out Russian assistance. His campaign manager passed on 75 pages of intricate polling data to a Russian operative during the campaign. And he did all this while secretly pursuing a lucrative business deal with Russia.

To define this nexus of communication and shared mission as something other than “collusion” is to define the term in a way that nobody would have accepted before this scandal began.

yeah it's the "only Trump knows if Trump is a racist" thing again, it's idiotic

I have never seen anyone get more of a pass for being a dumb grifting asshole in my life. feels like next year we'll be griping about all the Trump Org investigations concluding with "of course he scammed people, but that's Trump for ya!"

I told a buddy yesterday that there's another thing to consider: had Mueller had waited until this weekend to announce the indictments of Manafort, Gates, Stone, etc, we'd be thinking, "Holy shit, this is serious!"

Obviously this could never have happened because he needed one to rat on the other or to indict one to pressure the other.

It’s all really weird.

well that's kind of the media's desperation to frame anything they can as a "big win for Trump" - like, I keep seeing the take that this was a waste of money and a fruitless "witch hunt" when in fact it produced multiple indictments

not getting Junior is pretty stunning though

Still somehow hoping there is another boot to drop.

Also, listening to the ladies from Mueller She Wrote saying that if all of this data can be collected and sorted through and no 'crime' found then maybe the definition of crime needs to be looked at.

Whatever. Back to the primaries!

I’m surprised mueller was so willing to let down his fans

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/25/politics/mueller-obstruction-conclusion/index.html

Seems weird

He should have interviewed trump then

If that was the case

Look, when you have a shot at a primo Mar-a-Lago parking spot, you have to play your cards very carefully.

Are special counsels supposed to push off a decision to the AG? Seems like the point of his role was to maintain independence

The most disappointing thing is lack of any new secret scandal revelations - but then why trust this guy Barr who looks like John Goodman constipated - he is obviously covering things up

Maybe trump is actually an ok guy

I'd be willing to accept "too out of it to be capable of collusion"

A lot doesn’t add up. The letter suggests russians solicited help from the campaign but were rebuffed by trump’s team. But why didn’t they report this to law enforcement then?

And then try to cover it up, necessitating this whole investigation? Maybe “russia” was the wrong hook to go after trump but he has definitely been secretive and weird about a lot of things.

Whatever. Back to the primaries!

― recriminations from the nitpicking woke (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

XP yeah Trump, maybehe's just got a bit of a behaviour problem. Somebody pretty similar to him seem sto have clouds of continually criminal behaviour happening all the time. Unfortunately they look so much like him that everybody thinks its him, they are almost identical and cospatial apparently.

Is taht the source of information r the information in that ccan't reach a conclusion thing. THought he had done things right in front of people. BUt since it's him it can't be criminal can it?

THing about how crime is defined is about an egalitarian leveled uunderstanding where similar behaviour across the board winds up with similar results,. I thought that was one of teh major problems people had with teh initial sentencing of Manafort, the idea of sentencing guidelines was supposed to make things far more equal across society & geiography so somebody sentenced for a similar crime anywhere would get similar sentencing. & similar behaviour from different people would be seen as at least nominally similarly treated. BUt wonder if that will ever happen.

Well that was certainly a run of posts

Avenatti arrested

Now Trump will REALLY be ina good mood

xpost soon to be frozen in carbonite

"I don't love you"

"i know"

"Still somehow hoping there is another boot to drop."

(whimpers....'oppodump')

Attorney General Bill Barr has known for three weeks that special counsel Robert Mueller would not be making a determination on whether President Trump obstructed justice, multiple outlets reported Monday.

A source told CNN that this “unexpected” move on Mueller’s part left it to Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to determine how to weigh in on the issue.

There has been much speculation over how it took Barr only 48 hours from the time Mueller’s final report was submitted on Friday to release his Sunday afternoon summary, in which he said he and Rosenstein concluded there was “not sufficient” evidence to bring such a charge. This new development reveals the two Justice Department officials had more time to reach this conclusion. It’s not clear how much of the evidence Barr and Rosenstein were shown before Friday.

Barr has been a Republican crony for years

"Barr was known as a strong defender of presidential power and wrote advisory opinions justifying the U.S. invasion of Panama and arrest of Manuel Noriega, and a controversial opinion that the FBI could enter onto foreign soil without the consent of the host government to apprehend fugitives wanted by the United States government for terrorism or drug-trafficking.[7]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Barr

ugh

"Barr is an avid bagpiper; he began playing the bagpipes at age 8, and has played competitively in Scotland with a major American pipe band. At one time, Barr was a member of the City of Washington Pipe Band.[31]

Barr and Robert Mueller have known each other since the 1980s and have been described as good friends. Mueller attended the weddings of two of Barr's daughters, and their wives attend Bible study together.[69]"

I keep hearing this. Exoneration means you were in Cleveland when the fire started. Lack of evidence means the gas can was for the lawnmower. But only lawyers care about that. https://t.co/k7CIBzcv5g

— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) March 24, 2019

god i can't imagine how embarbassing it must be one of those twitter "resistance" twerps that had done nothing but reply to trump and other repub figures with "tick tock" and game of thrones "mueller is coming" means

don't rely on heroes on white horses.
& shit floats.
Innit.

BUt just hope taht it does remain a catalyst for people to want to get up and get involved as it seems to have done for the last couple of years. But back then people still had hope, I guess.

god i can't imagine how embarbassing it must be one of those twitter "resistance" twerps that had done nothing but reply to trump and other repub figures with "tick tock" and game of thrones "mueller is coming" means

This was always super embarrassing so part of me thinks it can't be much different for them now

really delightful that Rush Lumbago is screaming HOAX

im not sure who need to get over themselves more twitter resistance twerps or their haters, but luckily neither of them are capable of embarassment so here we are

Just a reminder that @DaftLimmy is probably the most prescient political commentator we've had in recent history. pic.twitter.com/GDG7yh96o8

— Madeley (@Madeley) March 24, 2019

Why does he get away with everything though? Why him?

It’s still weird

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo8s5fuSwo8

Because he is the most unfairly treated president of all time

xp

I'm always here for Jane Child.

it is weird. I mean the guy is more Teflon than Reagan now.

is he just lucky? he definitely was dancing along the edge of impropriety his entire life and yet, while almost all of his inner circle was taken down by mueller--for reasons other than conspiracy--he is "vindicated" somehow.