Congress, Criminal law

Here is the Mueller Report

I am doing legal analysis for CBS News and BBC in New York today but, for those who have not read the report, it is linked below.

As I discuss in today’s column, the report does clear the President of the original allegations of collusion with little ambiguity or reservation. Ultimately, he was also cleared of obstruction through the decision of both Barr and Rosenstein.

I believe the report also vindicates Barr on the criticism of the expected redactions. There was surprising light redactions, particularly on obstruction. Moreover, while some are insisting that Barr’s summary to Congress was not reflective of the report, it did accurately give the conclusions. As for his press conference, it is doubtful that any description would be acceptable to many people. That is why he would have been wise to minimize those descriptions in favor of his discussion of the process.

Here is the Report: Redacted Mueller Report

265 thoughts on “Here is the Mueller Report”

  1. Democrats and the media were outraged that Barr produced a summary of the Mueller report in a paltry 48 hours after he received it. It was impossible, they claimed, that he could form an impression of such a massive report in as little as 48 hours.

    Today, the same Democrats and media are producing a detailed analysis of the criminal conduct portrayed in the same report, less than two hours after the report was delivered to them. Apparently they can do in two hours what they claimed Barr could not do in 48 hours.

    1. excerpted from the Mueller report:

      In evaluating whether evidence about collective action of multiple individuals constituted a crime, we applied the framework of conspiracy law, not the concept of “collusion.” In so doing, the Office recognized that the word “collud[e]” was used in communications with the Acting Attorney General confirming certain aspects of the investigation’s scope and that the term has frequently been invoked in public reporting about the investigation. But collusion is not a specific offense or theory of liability found in the United States Code, nor is it a term of art in federal criminal law. For those reasons, the Office’s focus in analyzing questions of joint criminal liability was on conspiracy as defined in federal law. In connection with that analysis, we addressed the factual question whether members of the Trump Campaign “coordinat[ed]”-a term that appears in the appointment order-with Russian election interference activities. Like collusion, “coordination” does not have a settled definition in federal criminal law. We understood coordination to require an agreement-tacit or express- between the Trump Campaign and the Russian government on election interference. That requires more than the two parties taking actions that were informed by or responsive to the other’s actions or interests. We applied the term coordination in that sense when stating in the report that the investigation did not establish that the Trump Campaign coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.

      [repeated for emphasis] We understood coordination to require an agreement-tacit or express- between the Trump Campaign and the Russian government on election interference. That requires more than the two parties taking actions that were informed by or responsive to the other’s actions or interests. We applied the term coordination in that sense when stating in the report that the investigation did not establish that the Trump Campaign coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.

      [end excerpt]

      Finally a clear statement of the legal distinction between “conspiracy” versus “collusion” with “coordination” as the dividing line between the two. Thus, Mueller concluded only that the investigation did not establish “an agreement–tacit or express–between the Trump Campaign and the Russian government on election interference.” Mueller did not conclude that there was “No Collusion” as Trump and AG “Whitewash” Barr keep repeating incessantly. Since “collusion” is not a crime, it figures that Mueller would not assert that “there was no collusion.” Since “collusion” is a political issue–and a big one, at that–it also figures that Trump would be especially keen on incessantly repeating the mantra “No Collusion.”
      By the same token, however, it does not figure at all the Attorney General of the United States, William “Whitewash” Barr, would be just as keen as Trump is on incessantly repeating the mantra “No Collusion,” since “collusion is a political issue, only–not a criminal issue.

      Is it the job of the Attorney General of the United States to get the sitting president who appointed that AG reelected to a second term of office? Or is that merely the job that Trump hired good old “Whitewash” Barr to do for him?

      1. Also repeated for emphasis from the Mueller report:

        “That [an agreement–tacit or express] requires more than the two parties taking actions that were informed by or responsive to the other’s actions or interests.”

        So a halfway decent definition of “collusion” would be “two parties taking actions that were informed by or responsive to the other’s actions or interests.” And that is, in fact, a political issue. A big political issue. There’s plenty of evidence to warrant the claim that the Trump Campaign and the Russian government “took actions that were informed by or responsive to the other’s actions and interests.”

        Some observers might even call that a national security issue. Are national security issues still political issues?

  2. He’s still got 2 years left, let’s keep it going. If they’re busy chasing Trump they won’t have time to pass any legislation that will hurt us.

    1. I. Bob,
      What if he actually has closer to 6 years left? I cited the oddsmakers giving Trump a 45% chance of winning again in 2020; the individual Democratic contenders are given odds of between 1% and 13%.
      Will those now “chasing Trump” have the stamina to go the distance and find reasons why he “cheated to win” in 2020?
      As a marathon runner and TV star, Adam ✏️ neck Schiff has the best shot at leading the pack chasing Trump all the way into 2025.
      Mad Max is getting a bit long in the tooth, but she’s wound up tight enough that her momentum should allow her to get to the finish line.
      Chuck and Nancy have similar age issues, but they pace themselves better than either Pencil Neck or Mad Max. So we can probably count on these four stalwarts to spearhead the TDS crowd’s efforts over the next c.six years.
      “Locally”, here on these threads, it’s highly probable that L4B can find enough WikiPedia pages and other material to cut and paste( or link) to keep her going.
      And the “excerpted from” posts she follows them up with gives her even more to work with.
      All things considered, Ind.Bob, are you as optimistic as I am that it’s “highly probable” that the chase can continue for 6 more years if Trump’s re-elected?

      1. What Mueller actually said in Mueller own words rather than Ag “Whitewash Barr’s words:

        “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.”

        “The President’s efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests.”

        “The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the President’s corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law.”

        “[T]he Constitution does not categorically and permanently immunize a President for obstructing justice.”

        O! Snap! I think that last line is a direct hit on AG “Whitewash” Barr.

          1. Excerpted from the Mueller report:

            We noted, among other things, that the President stated on more than 30 occasions that he ‘does not ‘recall’ or ‘ remember’ or have an ‘ independent recollection” of information called for by the questions. Other answers were ‘incomplete or imprecise. The written responses, we informed counsel, ‘demonstrate the inadequacy of the written format, as we have had no opportunity to ask follow-up questions that would ensure complete answers and potentially refresh your client’s recollection or clarify the extent or nature of his lack of recollection.

            [end excerpt]

            And that’s just for the “dozen or so” questions that Trump answered out roughly four dozen written questions that Jay Sekulow leaked to The NYT.

  3. Just think, if Hilary won the election we wouldn’t have had to go through all this B.S. The left just can’t accept the simple fact that Trump won the election.

  4. It must be a lawyer thing. How can a person who knows the investigation is nutty be accused, in public (where is the presumption of innocence), of obstructing an investigation which has only a political purpose: To dominate the news cycle for years, and to put the President on defense.
    If I call for the police to stop harassing me when I know damn well I’m not guilty, that is promotion of justice, not obstruction of justice. It must be a legal technicality.

    1. Communism 101

      (a) The end justifies the means.

      You need no ethical, moral or legal rationale, just beg, steal or borrow copious amounts of personal power and “free stuff” for the “workers,” even if it requires brute force.

  6. Really interesting about the scope of the investigation. See pages 10-11 of the Mueller report. The original scope included “a full and thorough investigation of the
    Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.”

    Rosenstein later authorized Mueller “to investigate allegations that . . .Carter Page . . . committed a crime or crimes by colluding with Russian government officials
    with respect to the Russian government’s efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.”

    We know that the government spied on Carter Page pursuant to a secret FISA court order that was based on the Steele Dossier, and that Rosenstein was in the middle of it. An interesting area for inquiry, is it not? But that is outside the scope of Mueller’s investigation, as scoped by Rosenstein.

    The net result is that Carter Page was subject to a criminal proctology exam, but Mueller ignored the government’s spying on Carter Page.Two years investigating Trump, but ignoring the elephant in the room.

    This is the result of careful scoping by the powers that be. It was no accident.

    1. American and British Intel, Mifsud, Halper, Downer, Dearlove, Campbell, Steele, et al., ran their “patsies,” Page and Papadopoulos to frame President Trump while

      “…POTUS (Obama) wants to know everything we’re doing.”

      – Lisa Page to Peter Strzok

    1. WSJ:

      “Mueller’s Report Speaks Volumes”

      What’s in the special counsel’s findings is almost as revealing as what’s left out.

      “Note as well what isn’t in the report. It makes only passing, bland references to the genesis of so many of the accusations Mr. Mueller probed: the infamous dossier produced by opposition-research firm Fusion GPS and paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign. How do you exonerate Mr. Page without delving into the scandalous Moscow deeds of which he was falsely accused? How do you narrate an entire section on the July 2016 Trump Tower meeting without noting that Ms. Veselnitskaya was working alongside Fusion? How do you detail every aspect of the Papadopoulos accusations while avoiding any detail of the curious and suspect ways that those accusations came back to the FBI via Australia’s Alexander Downer?

      The report instead mostly reads as a lengthy defense of the FBI—of its shaky claims about how its investigation began, of its far-fetched theories, of its procedures, even of its leadership. One of the more telling sections concerns Mr. Comey’s firing. Mr. Mueller’s team finds it generally beyond the realm of possibility that the FBI director was canned for incompetence or insubordination. It treats everything the FBI or Mr. Comey did as legitimate, even as it treats everything the president did as suspect.”

      https://www.wsj.com/articles/muellers-report-speaks-volumes-11555629994

    2. Excerpted from the Mueller report:

      The report describes actions and events that the Special Counsel’s Office found to be supported by the evidence collected in our investigation. In some instances, the report points out the absence of evidence or conflicts in the evidence about a particular fact or event. In other instances, when substantial, credible evidence enabled the Office to reach a conclusion with confidence, the report states that the investigation established that certain actions or events occurred. A statement that the investigation did not establish particular facts does not mean there was no evidence of those facts.

      [repeated for emphasis] A statement that the investigation did not establish particular facts does not mean there was no evidence of those facts.

      This is in response to Glenn Greenwald’s shameless nonsense to the contrary at the article to which Anonymous linked above.

      1. We have an L4D sighting folks…. perhaps batteries recharged and we can expect her to run with this no-legs/piece of shiite obstruction issue (Trump pushed back on investigation of a non-existent crime that was proven to be a hoax). Get your popcorn and let’s see how EverReady Bunny gonna spin this piece of shiite.

        1. There’s more than one obstructive act to consider. Witness tampering, for instance, was alleged against Bill Clinton at his Impeachment even though there was no underlying crime–merely a sex act between two consenting adults. Likewise, it is probable that Trump abused the pardon power to suborn perjury as well as to tamper with witnesses. And conspiracy would have been an actual underlying crime had Trump not successfully obstructed the investigation of that actual crime.

          The idea that successful obstruction of justice is not criminal obstruction of justice because the underlying crime was not alleged would be bizarre enough were it not also the case that Justice Department regulations claim that a sitting president cannot be indicted while in office. There is no Article II power of the president to obstruct justice. But if Trump still wants to pardon himself, he does have that Article II power to do thus and so.

          2. Maybe time to wrap it up L4D. In a couple of sentences tell us how pursuit of obstruction for push-back on a non-crime/confirmed hoax is a winning proposition for Dems. Please no excerpts or links, just two or three original sentences and then maybe time for us to say goodbye. In advance of your response, I say to you: good luck with that.

            2. Excerpted from the Mueller report:

              “When Flynn’s counsel reiterated that Flynn could no longer share information pursuant to a joint defense agreement, the President’s personal counsel said he would make sure that the President knew that Flynn’s actions reflected ‘hostility’ towards the President.”

            3. Excerpted from the Mueller report:

              “The evidence supports the inference that the President intended [former campaign Chairman Paul] Manafort to believe that he could receive a pardon, which would make cooperation with the government as a means of obtaining a lesser sentence unnecessary.”

            4. Excerpted from the Mueller report:

              At approximately 2:40 a.m. on November 9, 2016, news reports stated that candidate Clinton had called President-Elect Trump to concede. At [REDACTED] wrote to [CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund Kirill] Dmitriev, “Putin has won.”

            5. Excerpted from the Mueller report:

              The Office learned that some of the individuals we interviews 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 … 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.

            6. Excerptd from the Mueller report:

              [Former White House counsel Don] McGahn’s clear recollection was that the President had directed him to tell Rosenstein not only that conflicts existed but also that “Mueller has to go.” … In response to that request, McGahn decided to quit because he did not want to participate in events that he described as akin to the Saturday Night Massacre. He called his lawyer, drove to the White House, packed up his office, prepared to submit a resignation letter with his chief of staff, told Priebus that the President had asked him to ‘do crazy shit,’ and informed Priebus and Bannon that he was leaving. Those acts would be a highly unusual reaction to a request to convey information to the Department of Justice.

              1. L4D, sweetheart, your word count on these forums for the past 24 hours is, dare I say, more verbose than Hillary explaining while others were to blame for her stupidity.

                Here is your forum family intervention

                Get thee to a Nunnery!…..um, Meeting!

                L4D says: April 18, 2019 at 7:57 AM
                I’ve been spanking mischievous little imps since 1519. I’m not going to stop now.

                Twelve Steps of Narcotics Anonymous
                1. We admitted that we were powerless over our addiction, that our lives had become unmanageable.
                2. We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
                3. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
                4. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
                5. We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
                6. We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
                7. We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
                8. We made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
                9. We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
                10. We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
                11. We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
                12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
                We have all tried to do an intervention with you so now

                https://www.na.org/meetingsearch/

                1. What you’ve been reading are excerpts from the Mueller report. A fact that you would have adduced from the repeated introductory phrase, “Excerpted from the Mueller report,” if only you were not a Flaming Dipstick with a Broken-Off Tip.

                  But, since you simply must attribute Mueller’s “word-count” to L4D, then I have to wonder why you Flaming Dipsticks with Broken-Off Tips are now complaining most bitterly about having to read what you’ve all been demanding to read since last Summer.

    1. I think he posted under the handle ‘Marco’. The exact same text. Just about every time.

  9. “…the White House is running this.”

    – Redacted
    ____________________________

    August 5, 2016

    Peter Strzok:

    And hi. Went well, best we could have expected. Other than [REDACTED] quote: “the White House is running this.” My answer, “well, maybe for you they are.” And of course, I was planning on telling this guy, thanks for coming, we’ve got an hour, but with Bill [Priestap] there, I’ve got no control….

    LIsa Page:

    Yeah, whatever (re the WH comment). We’ve got the emails that say otherwise.
    ______________________________________________________________

    This singular conspiracy of willful “malicious prosecution” is but one aspect of The Obama Coup D’etat in America, the most egregious abuse of power and the most prodigious scandal in American political history.

    The co-conspirators are:

    Rosenstein, Mueller/Team, Comey, McCabe, Strozk, Page, Kadzic, Yates, Baker,

    Bruce Ohr, Nellie Ohr, Priestap, Kortan, Campbell, Sir Richard Dearlove, Steele,

    Simpson, Joseph Mifsud, Alexander Downer, Stefan “The Walrus” Halper, Kerry, Hillary,

    Huma, Mills, Brennan, Clapper, Lerner, Farkas, Power, Lynch, Rice, Jarrett, Sessions,

    Obama et al.

  10. Justice fails when it is politicized.

    The investigation shows no collusion. More than that, there is no evidence that the public can show that there was collusion.

    The only one proven to have colluded with Russian spies in an attempt to defraud voters was Hillary Clinton, and she was not investigated.

    Now Democrat pundits excuse Hilary, while demanding that Trump, having been found innocent, be thrown out of office anyway.

    Politicized justice is no justice at all.

  11. The Dums will continue on the path they have for the past two years. They offer nothing for America but resist and obstruct. The current list of Dum candidates for 2020 are all losers hyping socialism that will be soundly rejected by Americans. They look like a bunch of babies standing before the MSM making attempts to spin the results of their own investigation. Hopefully this AG will investigate who really violated our laws, it’s certainly about time. Wouldn’t it be something if those standing before the cameras now were involved.

    1. Yep – they all run straight to the obstruction nonsense and completely skip over their totally debunked hysterical claims that Trump is Russian agent, traitor, etc.

  12. After the Barr speech was over I watched CNN,MSNBC and Fox news shows. CNN had one blabber mouth after another rant about this or that. MSNBC was as bad. Fake news. Fox was tough on some issues but not full of BS.

    (music)
    Let it be, let it Be , let it Bee let it BEE!
    Issue words of wisdom…
    Let it Bee.

    1. get a chuckle out of this

      Media Members Call CNN’s Coverage Of Mueller Report Release, Barr’s Press Conference A ‘Meltdown’

      Members of the media took shots Thursday at CNN for their coverage following the release of the Mueller report, as well as for their reporting throughout the 22-month investigation.

      Glenn Greenwald
      @ggreenwald

      CNN should have a countdown clock for when their attacks on Robert Mueller start. It’s not long now.

      GregGutfeld
      @greggutfeld
      watching CNN is like peering in through the window of a group therapy session in which everyone keeps saying they’re over X, but they can’t stop talking about X.
      10:22 AM – Apr 18, 2019

      Brent Scher
      @BrentScher
      There are about 10 people on CNN’s special panel and about half acting like their head may explode at any second

      Glenn Greenwald
      @ggreenwald
      I’ve honestly never seen the type of media meltdown that I’m seeing on CNN. They are so emotionally invested in the storyline that they’ve been pushing for 2+ years and they know what Mueller did to it and how this will forever reflect on them.

      Buck Sexton
      @BuckSexton
      Not a single person on this CNN mega panel has a shred of credibility to analyze the Mueller report as a nonpartisan journo.

      Not one.

      Sean Davis
      @seanmdav
      CNN is currently doing a full-blown, scene-by-scene remake of the Jamestown massacre, but with deranged left-wing pundits and discredited conspiracy theories as opposed to cultists and Kool-Aid.

  13. Selected Quotations From AG “Whitewash” Barr’s Press conference This Morning:

    I see a little silhouetto of a man
    Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the Fandango?
    Thunderbolt and lightning, very, very frightning me
    (Galileo) Galileo, (Galileo) Galileo, Galileo Figaro magnifico

    But I’m just a poor boy, nobody loves me
    He’s just a poor boy from a poor family
    Spare him his life from this monstrosity
    Easy come, easy go, will you let me go?
    Bismillah! No, we will not let you go
    (Let him go!) Bismillah! We will not let you go
    (Let him go!) Bismillah! We will not let you go
    (Let me go) Will not let you go
    (Let me go) Will not let you go
    (Let me go) Ah
    No, no, no, no, no, no, no
    (Oh, mamma mia, mamma mia) Mamma mia, let me go
    Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me, for me, for me!

  14. Here’s the full sentence from the Mueller report that AG “Whitewash” Barr “quote-mined”:

    “Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”

    Here’s the portion of that full sentence that AG “Whitewash” Barr “mined” from that quote:

    “. . . the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”

    And here’s the most crucial part of the full sentence that AG Barr selectively cropped out of the picture:

    “. . . and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts . . .”

    Now ask yourself, on what basis, with all of the proven contacts between the Trump campaign and the Russian government in its election interference activities or with Russian-affiliated individuals, would the Trump campaign “expect” that they “would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts . . .”?????

    They don’t call him AG “Whitewash” Barr for nothing. You know.

    1. In other words, all Republicans stood to benefit from the Wikileaks data dump, as well as when John Podesta negligently used “password” as his password. The DNC declared its servers had been hacked, but refused to turn them over for independent analysis.

      Since truthful information was released that showed fraud in the Democrat Party, then…Republicans, and especially Trump, must be considered to have colluded with Russia. Because they enjoyed these data dumps, as did half of America? Because Hillary’s and the Democrat’s Party’s lies proved we conservatives were telling the truth, we are guilty of collusion?

      The only person proven to have actually paid Russian spies for false information against her political opponent to defraud voters was Hillary Clinton.

      If you actually cared about a foreign nation interfering in our affairs, then you would be demanding that Hillary Clinton was investigated.

      This is your bombshell? That the Republican Party stood to gain by the exposure of Hillary Clinton and the DNC’s lies? And that is somehow wrong or a measure of guilt of…what, exactly? Anything that damages one party will benefit another.

      You are mistaking a passive benefit for working with a foreign government. That is an unjust comparison that has been disproven by evidence.

    2. @L4D you quote: “Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”

      From that you make the assertion that the Trump Campaign believes they will benefit.

      The way I read that sentence is that the Russians believed that the campaign would benefit. That’s a big difference in interpretation.

      Your posts generally have the same agenda, so it is not surprising you would read it that way. Nonetheless Mr. Barr accurately represents the final clause.

      1. “Your posts generally have the same agenda, so it is not surprising you would read it that way. ”

        Send us new trolls because the present ones, like Hillary and DNC servers, compromised.

  16. The Worst Executed Cover-Up of All Time

    Bill Barr said the Mueller report will be lightly redacted, that the president made no claim of executive privilege, that Congress will see an unredacted version of the report (except for grand jury material), and that he has no problem with Mueller testifying before Congress. Yet the press is outraged that he’s supposedly covering for Trump. Incredible…
    https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/donald-trump-robert-mueller-report-worst-cover-up-ever/

  19. For the Left it will be fresh meat to attack as ravenous wolves
    For regular Americans it will be an education on how the Left offers nothing no solutions for the problems Americans say this country has, other than “get Trump”, the elected President Americans chose….and not Hillary

    No worry. Americans will despite Democrats for fornicating over Trump while they sense Democrats really don’t care about Americans other than themselves.
    Nothing new here

    Theater never looked so rich with Democrats dressing, screaming and looking grotesque…. better than drag queens

    Have fun!
    🙃

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