Below is my column in The Hill newspaper on the press conference held by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his refusal to answer questions from the media (or any questions from Congress beyond what is written in his Report). Mueller not only demanded silence but faith from the media, which surprisingly obeyed. Few reporters noted the direct contradictions in Mueller’s brief statement or the many unanswered questions that he left in his imperious wake. Since Attorney General Bill Barr has already testified on the process and his decisions related to the Report, there was nothing preventing Mueller from answering questions about his own decisions. Instead, Mueller simply said that the media would listen and remain silent . . . and the media dutifully complied.
Here is the column:
The very first and purportedly only press conference by special counsel Robert Mueller had the feeling of a Mount Sinai moment for Washington this week. Indeed, his message seemed to be the same as that of Moses, which is have faith and do not question. Mueller spoke some 1,200 words before virtually admonishing the press corps that “I hope and expect this to be the only time that I will speak to you in this manner.” After refusing to answer questions, he went back to the place from whence he came.
Last week, I wrote that it has become sacrilegious to question the motives or performance of Mueller. His press conference was the greatest test of such blind faith. Mueller announced that “the report is my testimony” and that he would not answer questions from Congress either, beyond what is already in his final report. From anyone else, such a statement would be denounced as arrogant, evasive, or both. However, many members of Congress and the media accepted it as the gospel according to Mueller.
The problem is that Mueller was uttering absolute nonsense about his inability to reach a conclusion. He likewise did not offer a principled basis for refusing to answer any questions. This includes obvious questions such as why he refused to comply with the request from his superiors to identify grand jury material, which delayed the release of his report. The disconnect in the coverage of his remarks was striking. Attorney General William Barr testified for hours on his role and has answered dozens of questions. He was promptly dismissed as evasive and even perjurious. Mueller declared he would tolerate no questions and declined to address any of the criticism of his work with very little objection from the media.
The press conference this week should be an embarrassment for the Justice Department. The agency has long maintained that the special counsel could perform the same function as an independent counsel in determining whether high ranking officials committed criminal acts. For two years, Congress and the Justice Department expressly anticipated findings of any criminal conduct. Mueller employed a massive staff and spent tens of millions of dollars. Yet, it now appears that he never intended to make any findings of possible crimes by President Trump.
Mueller insisted that, because there is a Justice Department policy not to indict a sitting president, he interpreted that to bar him from finding the basis for criminal conduct. According to Mueller, you can investigate but not reach basic conclusions on what the investigation found. One could understand why he would not be eager to answer questions about such an absurd interpretation, when his cited sources directly contradict him.
I testified on these flawed memos from the Office of Legal Counsel during the Clinton impeachment. Like many other academics, I view the policy as unsupported by either the Constitution or the convention debates, but that does not matter because the memos have simply nothing to do with a special counsel finding criminal conduct by a president. The memos focus entirely on the indictment and prosecution of a sitting president. They do conclude that being a defendant in a criminal case would thus prevent any president from performing his duties, but they do not challenge the need to investigate a sitting president. History shows presidents routinely accused of criminal conduct, including in impeachment proceedings.
Indeed, President Clinton was investigated and found to have committed crimes by an independent counsel. The Justice Department memos did not find that the investigation or such findings were improper. When the Independent Counsel Act subsequently expired, Congress was assured that the same investigatory function would be performed by any special counsels. The memos only addressed when a president can be indicted and said that prosecution must wait until he leaves office, since he could not function while in the docket of a criminal court or a federal prison.
Mueller has insisted that the policy “says that the Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing.” That is not actually what it says. The Justice Department concluded that its view “remains that a sitting president is constitutionally immune from indictment and criminal prosecution.” It focuses on the prosecution of sitting presidents, not the investigation of sitting presidents. In referencing a process other than the criminal justice system, it refers to the only legal way to remove a president from office.
Nothing in the memos even remotely bars a special counsel from reaching conclusions on the basis of possible criminal charges. Indeed, the memos accept that the Justice Department needs to establish such evidence to preserve a record for possible later charges. That is why Mueller was told by his superiors that there was no policy barring him from finding criminal conduct, only the policy against indicting while the president is in office. Even if you twist the memos to suggest some prohibition to reaching conclusions on criminal conduct, that debate should have ended when his two superiors, the attorney general and deputy attorney general, told him there was no such policy and asked him to reach a conclusion.
His instructions and mandate were crystal clear. His position is even more nonsensical when you look at what he has already done. Mueller declared that “we concluded that we would not reach a determination one way or the other about whether the president committed a crime.” Yet, Mueller contradicted that statement when he declared that “if we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime we would have said so.”
So which is it? Mueller actually did reach a “determination one way or the other” on crimes related to collusion. In his special counsel report, he found that he could “not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.” In effect, Mueller ultimately came across as almost coquettish in his declaration that he would not make a clear finding of a possible crime but could not rule out criminal conduct by the president.
In other words, Mueller can produce hundreds of pages of evidence of possible criminal conduct and repeatedly refer to not exonerating Trump of crimes but somehow cannot reach a conclusion on the weight of the evidence. Of course,Mueller did not address such questions because he would not tolerate questions. The media simply listened obediently as he claimed that he was only being “fair” when he repeated that he could not clear Trump of the crime. That, of course, led the media to declare that Mueller really was searching for criminal conduct with a wink and a nod.
Whatever space Mueller occupied in maintaining such a position, it was neither created nor countenanced by federal law or Justice Department policy. Instead, he accepted the job of special counsel and then radically redefined it, without telling anyone outside of his staff. In that sense, he failed as special counsel. Mueller was not appointed to be a chronicler of allegations. Mueller was appointed to perform a prosecutorial function in the investigation of a president and his associates. Moreover, he does not get to dictate what Congress can investigate, or to stonewall the media.
I agree with Mueller on his hope and expectation that this will be “the only time that I will speak to you in this manner.” Next time, I hope and expect Mueller will finally address the growing questions about his investigation.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. You can follow him on Twitter @JonathanTurley.
Mueller throws out the red herring of impeachment in a feeble attempt to distract the democrat lemmings and mislead the DOJ and prosecutors who are hot on Mueller’s trail.
Mike Nifong, the DA of Durham County, North Carolina, was convicted and jailed for “malicious prosecution” against the eminently innocent Duke Lacrosse team members.
Mueller knew there was no probable cause indicating a crime had occurred and that there was no justification for the appointment of a special counsel at the outset; that the hypothesized act had merely the potential to have been counter-intelligence activity.
______________________________________________________________________________________________
“…you and I both know the odds are nothing. If I thought it was likely, I’d be there no question. I hesitate in part because of my gut sense and concern there’s no big there there.”
– Peter Strzok to Lisa Page – Two Days Before Mueller’s Appointment On May 19, 2017
Mr. Mueller, what did you know and when did you know it?
Mr. Wray, what did you know and when did you know it?
The “swamp” is deep.
it is a pleasure to see a beautiful feminine elegant First Lady, Melania Trump. She looks stunning in the UK visit.
The foreign media love her.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7098297/The-Donald-landed-President-Trump-Lady-Melania-touch-London.html
Stunningly hot Melania has the best ankles of any first lady in history
Isn’t she stunning? She is fashion perfection and something beautiful to behold indeed.
Only horny old men like you and Kurtz see the former nudie model with a high school education who parades around with the world’s biggest bully, despite her “anti-bullying” “be nice” campaign as anything but pathetic.
Hillary is on suicide watch yet again this week.
Go to her. She is spitting rusty nails on the glorious treatment Trump is getting
😉
“glorious treatment’? Don’t you know that Fatty was NOT invited to address Parliament, and was NOT invited for a carriage ride through the streets of London, honors which were given to Barak Obama? The reason is because people in the UK hate his fat guts.
Barack Obama is the biggest fraud ever perpetrated on the American people. Not much substance beneath his slick, cool, carefully created phony persona. Truth.
Obama sure got skunked a lot in SCOTUS for a “constitutional law professor” (he was an “Associate Professor”, which is academia-ese for “rent-a-prof”).
Using the Fourteenth Amendment to push the debt ceiling up would never have come up if Obama hadn’t crowed “Elections have consequences” in 2009 to the Republican leadership, then lost the House in the next round of Federal elections as America demonstrated buyer’s remorse.
Statesmen don’t do what Obama did, cheat and chisel their way around their nation’s lawmakers over and over again and brag about it.
President Obama was an adjunct lecturer, nothing to be ashamed of however, not a university “professor” regardless of title. That they continued to retain him is to his credit so he must have been OK as a lecturer.
“Statement Regarding Barack Obama
The Law School has received many media requests about Barack Obama, especially about his status as “Senior Lecturer.”
From 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served as a professor in the Law School. He was a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996. He was a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004, during which time he taught three courses per year. Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors, although not full-time or tenure-track. The title of Senior Lecturer is distinct from the title of Lecturer, which signifies adjunct status. Like Obama, each of the Law School’s Senior Lecturers has high-demand careers in politics or public service, which prevent full-time teaching. Several times during his 12 years as a professor in the Law School, Obama was invited to join the faculty in a full-time tenure-track position, but he declined.”
https://www.law.uchicago.edu/media
He declined because he knew his handlers were grooming him for his unheard of rapid ascension from a literal nobody to the position of puppet in chief. (With a LOT of help from his pals in the corrupt media who protect him to this very day). We call him Zero for a reason.
Who is this ‘Anonymous’ loser??
Current, he’s probably another UoC law professor, or perhaps fellow Harvard Law Review member who still seethes with jealousy, or maybe it’s W feeling snubbed that Obama was chosen in a recent survey of historians as our 12th best president.
The Current P.H. aks’d who dat? Who dis “Anonymous” loser? It is I, Current PH, it is I. The all knowing “I” 😉
Au contraire Anon, my man. Now go on and get with the program, dude…Obama is called Zero for a reason. Haven’t you heard?
Ah, I was wrong! It’s Maurice Chevalier.
Tout alors!
Or something.
With the worst kind of sycophants holding up his train.
there’s no shame in being a supermodel who’s super confident in her own naked skin, i am proud not to be prude (like you?) and enjoy the naked human form.
I also don’t shame women for making money the honest way, from their natural gifts
you’re a typical feminist. scratch a feminist and you’ll find a women who is jealous of beautiful women who are successful with men
you’re a typical feminist. scratch a feminist and you’ll find a women who is jealous of beautiful women who are successful with men
Well, Betty Friedan appears to have been a lapsed red-haze journalist / head case who made everyone around her miserable.
Bella Abzug was another hyper-aggressive quondam red haze creature who was spoiled by the patient and forgiving men around her (her father, then her husband); Ed Koch was once asked why she lost her home precinct in a Democratic primary; his reply, “Her neighbors know her”. Both of her daughters took up lesbianism by the time they hit middle age.
Gloria Steinem was notable for having grown up in a weird dysfunctional family (her mother was a useless drug addict, among other things) for which she seems to have blamed various men (her father in particular). She was notable for having been unwilling or unable to build a satisfactory domestic life (insisting she didn’t want one). She’d also had an illegal abortion in 1958 and spent the rest of her life implicitly making excuses.
Eleanor Smeal was led astray by a small sample (her bridge group) and a sample-of-one (her husband); her bridge group was studded with women who had be prescribed valium and other psycho-active drugs by doctors who just wanted them to go away; her husband was, well, unusually patient. She fancied women in general were on valium because they were miserable and that everyone should have a husband like hers.
As for Patricia Ireland: too many pathologies and betrayals to mention.
Somewhat unfair to be sure, as cherry-picked. (Letty Cottin Pogrebin seems perfectly normal).
Repair to Joan Didion’s critique of the feminist writing of the early 1970s, which can be found in The White Album. Her assessment: a flight from adult responsibility. Erma Bombeck was more qualified, offering that Betty Friedan was a woman who approached life without humor. More recently, you have Helen Smith’s assessment: they’re in the habit of approaching human relations with the assumption that women have options, and men have obligations.
It’s quite plain, of course, that Natacha is not a person at piece with herself, and almost certainly a trial for anyone who has to deal with her in meatspace.
Eleanor Smeal had such a blue collar way of speaking…..She was genuine and sincere, in my opinion, but she drove me crazy with that gruff yankee-fied dialect…..And always saying “woman” whenever the word was supposed to be “women”.
I liked her but she drove me nuts. Men hated her, of course.
Kurtz: what do nakedness and looks have to do with being a quality human being? As Marilyn sang: “we all lose our charms in the end”. Melania chose being married to vulgar narcissist old enough to be her father and who consorts with porn stars over an education and valid contribution to society. She is aging badly, too, and will end up just like Ivana, looking like hell and being bitter. She makes a fool of herself by her anti-bullying campaign and public support for children despite being married to one of the biggest bullies in the world, who cages innocent children and lies constantly.
Kurtz: what do nakedness and looks have to do with being a quality human being?
I quoted Fred Nietzsche once today so why not again.
““Oh, those Greeks! They knew how to live. What is required for that is to stop courageously at the surface, the fold, the skin, to adore appearances, to believe in forms, tones, words, in the whole Olympus of appearance. Those Greeks were superficial – out of profundity.” ”
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/18/arts/design/the-body-beautiful-the-classical-ideal-in-ancient-greek-art.html
im here to report that i finally saw a picture of crazy kristin gillibrand, since she’s insulting the NRA today
I FULLY ADMIT she has a beautiful face.
that’s about all she’s got going for her.
Tulsi Gabbard’s got a pretty face too. There’s a lot more to a candidate than just looks
and yet, i’m haunted by Nietzsche on this:
“Oh, those Greeks! They knew how to live. What is required for that is to stop courageously at the surface, the fold, the skin, to adore appearances, to believe in forms, tones, words, in the whole Olympus of appearance. Those Greeks were superficial – out of profundity.”
She’s quite ordinary. And the hair dye is vulgar.
For once, I have to agree with you, but running for POTUS is not about beauty. Fake bleached hair is always vulgar, and it usually emphasizes complexion flaws. Naturally blonde hair doesn’t have the brassiness that fake blonde hair has, and most phony blondes don’t have the complexion tones that compliment fair hair, especially natural brunettes and those with brown eyes.
it looks from her fair skin that she is likely a blonde. a lot of blondes add a little dye. by now she probably has some grey in there too. i find her policies displeasing, not her appearance
Tulsi Gabbard is a better speaker by far
She’s 53. She may have been a blonde 40 years ago and a dishwater blonde 30 years ago. Not any time recently. Strawberry blondes sometimes retain it (or their hair turns red), but hardly anyone else does. I am acquainted with a natural blonde past 50. He’s an albino and legally blind.
Fun fact
It takes 8 seconds for smoked Crack to reach the brain plus it has the same effect as snorted pure Cocaine. Ask the MSM to demonstrate how it works after they get their supply from their dealer Robert “this is the best batch ever” Mueller
The world is laughing their butts at our DEM-awkard-cy
The rest of the world is laughing at the fat slob narcissist woman assaulter with his absurd pompadour comb-over and his former nudie-model third wife, pretending to be a lady. 2/3rds of Londoners begged the Queen to cancel the invitation. 70% of Irish citizens made a similar request. In London one million protestors are expected to demonstrate, with the Trump Baby blimp in tow.
a quarter of a million people who reside in London and its mayor were from Pakistan anyhow so who cares
This just in: Trump called Meghan Markle “nasty” in an interview with The Sun, but apparently didn’t know it was being recorded, so he tried to deny it. He was upset because she had commented on his narcissism and misogyny in the past. That put Prince Harry in an awkward position, so he hung back and scowled at Fatty at a luncheon he was required to attend. Harry was forced to escort dumb blondie Ivanka. I really wish he had kicked Fatty’s broad butt, threw a drink in his orange face or did something other than suck up an uncalled-for insult to his wife. Next, the Queen showed him a pewter horse figurine, asked him if he recognized it, and he denied it, so the former nudie model reminded him it was a gift from him to the Queen. After that, he called the London mayor a “loser”. All he does is alienate people wherever he goes and prove his lack of fitness for the office of POTUS. Doesn’t everyone know you don’t go to another country and insult the mayor of the city you are visiting or a member of the ruling family?
Exactly why would the Queen care what the Irish think? It’s the UK of England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, not all of Ireland. Who cares, seriously, the Irish need lay off the sauce, their country is not doing well of late under an alcoholic fog of liberalism
Fatso was planning to visit Ireland after England. He may have cancelled due to overwhelming opposition, but that was the context for the comment.
I didn’t know our Great Leader POTUS Donald J Trump was planning a trip to Ireland. I urge him to avoid this petty distraction from the agenda to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN
https://youtu.be/ALGkQq3RJ7k
this song is a few years old but i love it, enjoy!
Kurtz, “the agenda”, every day, is “look at me….look at me…..look at me….adore me……worship me…..applaud me….”. He has no agenda.
america first is the agenda, simple !
Kurtz, you’re joking I hope. Trump cares about Trump first and last and then America, as long as Putin isn’t in the room.
Bingo!
Since Ireland’s not a treaty partner of ours any more than, say, Guinea-Bissau is, and POTUS has apparently no family connections there, a trip across the Irish Sea from Great Britain would be pointless. Mr. Trump doesn’t drink alcohol, so pub-crawls and distillery tours wouldn’t have the draw they might for the House leadership.
https://www.democratsabroad.org/klly82/welcome_to_democrats_abroad_ireland
Mr. Kurtz,
I have no doubt that some of these Americans living in Ireland will come out to protest Trump’s visit.
I’ve seen the name (the organization’s name) and the names of some of their more vocal members.
If there are sizeable protests in Ireland, it’d be interesting to know how many are Americans living abroad and how many are Irish.
Estovir, your stupid distractions are becoming a major drag on this blog.
Peter is bad drag
WHAT IF MUELLER RECOMMENDED TRUMP’S INDICTMENT..
AND TRUMP CALLED IT ‘AN ATTEMPTED COUP’?
WHERE WOULD WE GO FROM THERE?
I first broached this issue last night and wish to expand on it today. Mueller may suspect that Trump would react like the reckless bully we know. So let us say, for the sake of argument, that Mueller clearly stated that ‘Trump engaged in Obstruction of Justice’.
What if Trump responded, in character, with an angry tirade; denouncing Mueller as a ‘partisan tool for Hillary’? Trump then concludes by saying the entire probe was an ‘attempted coup’ and calls on supporters to ‘resist the coup attempt’.
Predictably rightwing media would fall in line behind Trump by repeating the ‘attempted coup’ mantra. This, in turn, would compel congressional Republicans to circle around Trump in a show of unity. Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy might issue a joint statement saying that ‘Republicans wholeheartedly reject Mueller’s conclusions’ .
If events played out in this fashion, and there’s a better than even chance they would, we would have a constitutional crisis the likes of which this country has never seen.
To begin with, if the President of the United States was actually using the term ‘attempted coup’ to describe an impeachment recommendation, that could have far-reaching effects beyond the Culture Wars. The financial markets might react in a very negative way. The dollar could plunge on fears that the U.S. has entered a crisis stage.
That 45% of the country that supports Trump might honestly believe that the ‘attempted coup’ is real. Logically many of them would demand that the coup conspirators be arrested. Trump himself might be reckless enough to call for Mueller’s arrest. That could inflame tensions to a boiling point. Media sources like ‘InfoWars’ would certainly stoke those tensions.
Trump’s willingness to utter the most reckless of pronouncements could take us to a boiling point in only a few days. At that point our constitutional system could basically jump the tracks and veer into the unknown. The entire world would then see how dysfunctional the United States has become. Even if cooler heads prevail and walk the crisis back, the damage to U.S. prestige could be irreparable.
I believe that Robert Mueller may have foreseen the very strong possibility that such a criss could result. This would logically explain why Mueller chose his mysteriously noncommittal approach. Mueller is essentially punting to Pelosi and letting Democrats sort it out; knowing that with an election so close, Democrats might focus on campaigning instead.
Pete: you hit the nail on the head. Pelosi, Mueller and others know what they are dealing with–an emotionally-unstable narcissist who is supported by Republicans who fully know this, but who want those tax cuts, SCOTUS and federal judgeships and regulation roll backs more than they want integrity and support for American values. Mueller didn’t close the door to criminal prosecution of Trump on purpose, and he took the path of least resistance in the outrageous and unprecedented course this country is on. He knows that one day, probably soon, Barr and the syncophant squad will be forced out of the DOJ, and then actual justice will see the light of day. Pelosi and Democrats have their eye on the prize: getting that fat, lying slob out of the White House. Biding their time is the right way to do this. And, no, Jon Turley isn’t going to bully them into starting impeachment, indicting Trump, or forcing Mueller to give Faux News more fodder for headlines.
So, let him have his little vainglory tour with his high-school educated former nudie model third wife pretending to be a woman of substance. London will spend millions trying to keep away the protesters so he can pretend he is a world leader and important person. The rest of us know the truth. Brits do, too, but they’re just trying to be nice to the rest of us.
I don’t think Natacha is in a position to label anyone else as “emotionally unstable”.
stop trying to shame the supermodel who you are so obviously jealous about
you’ve gone from talking every day about her husband grabbing puxxies to her being a nudie model. on the plus side, your sexual obsession with the first couple, enhances your otherwise boring posts.
Honestly. the Democrats are much creepier for playing back a secretly recorded locker-room conversation in which Mr. Trump thought he was joking around about the pudendal clutching.
At least POTUS has confined his contact with women to consenting adults, which is more than the Democratic front-runner Joe Biden can say.
Anyone who feels the need to do impromptu massage on young girls without the consent of their parents at town halls would be asked to stop, were he not Joe Biden. this time even the Houston Chronicle called it an “awkward moment”, while less-tactful folks called it “hitting on little girls”. He’s Maurice Chevalier without the charm, a walking #metoo incident.
But sure, it’s time to have a road company production of “Wag the Dog”..
REGARDING ABOVE:
If Mueller had recommended impeachment, and Trump labeled it an ‘attempted coup’, the crisis could be intense.
To begin with, if Mueller, the legally appointed Special Counsel, were accused by Trump of leading an ‘attempted coup’, Trump, in effect, would be attempting a coup.
By rejecting a constitutionally legal probe, Trump would be challenging the constitution. This would mean that Trump had entered rogue territory. Which would justify his immediate removal from office.
But if Congressional Republicans, backed by rightwing media, sided with Trump, the rogue president could prevail taking the country into uncharted territory.
Would Trump then honor the upcoming elections? One should note that Trump threatened not to recognize the last election if defeated. By ‘quashing’ the ‘attempted coup’, Trump would, in essence, have executed a coup of his own. This could then cast doubt on the 2020 elections. Trump might be audacious enough to threaten ‘suspending’ the elections because of the ‘attempted coup’.
Again, Trump’s willingness to make any reckless statement could lead our government into a very grave crisis.
L4D says–Mr. H., I have reason to believe that AG Whitewash Casting Couch Barr would have redacted or otherwise suppressed almost anything that Mueller might have explicitly alleged against Trump in Mueller’s report. Thus, had Mueller explicitly concluded that Trump should be Impeached, none of us would have known that Mueller had made such an explicit recommendation. What Mueller did, instead, is beginning to look to me like . . . sheer genius.
Mueller’s detractors are now in the unenviable position of having to argue against the OLC opinion and the attendant Justice Dep’t regulations that Mueller faithfully observed and obeyed. And yet, at the same time, Mueller’s detractors also have to preserve and defend the position that a sitting President cannot be indicted while in office that Mueller faithfully observed and obeyed. That is the source of their “anger” at Mueller. I call this phenomenon by the name of a “want knot.”
They want what they don’t want. And they don’t want what they want. They’re all tied up in want knots. While Mueller returns to private life as a legal genius who is now footloose and fancy free. Ha-Ha!
What if Mueller did what was expected of a Special Counsel and reached a conclusion?
He did not have to indict or recommend indictment to reach and present a conclusion. He’s well aware of DOJ policy on that, so he was always extremely unlikely to indict Trump, and probably would be wary of recommending indictment.
Which did not prevent him from saying either “Trump obstructed justice”, or Trump did not obstruct justice”, or “there is insufficient evidence to conclude that Trump obstructed justice”.
Since he did not present a conclusion on the obstruction issue, and is not making himself available for questions, he left it “in limbo”.
In order to conclude the President obstructed justice, he’d have had to interpret existing statutory law contrary to standing policy. And, keep in mind, he’d be contending the President ‘obstructed justice’ when there was no underlying crime and he’d quit investigating any underlying crime 18 months before completing his report.
Again, reaching a conclusion is not the same as “recommending impeachment”, or “recommending indictment”.
The Mueller apologists are doing all sort of contortions and “what ifs” to cover for him.
Tom, do you think Trump would distinguish between ‘reaching a conclusion’ and ‘recommending impeachment’? Would rightwing media make that distinction?
Peter, can i have a list of this right wing media you keep talking about? I want to try it out!
Peter,
If your view is that Mueller was afraid to present a conclusion because of what Trump might say, I doubt that was the case.
“What if” Mueller cleared Trump on the collusion issue, then left the obstruction issue up in the air?
Trump “might” say that he was “totally exonerate”.
A Special Counsel is not supposed to base his report on what a president might do or might say.
“WHAT IF MUELLER RECOMMENDED TRUMP’S INDICTMENT..”
He would then have to provide evidence that could be used in a court of law. That is something he couldn’t do.
Mueller, Weissman, McCabe, Sztrok, Brennan, &c all remind us that the people in charge of our public institutions are unfit to hold the positions they do. Worst political class in history.
OT: Latino Voters in US Back a Border Wall
https://newsamerica-24.com/latino-voters-in-us-back-a-border-wall/
Don’t leave out the subsequent joint memo from DOJ and the Office of Special Counsel to “clarify” Mueller’s 9 minute Lecture. Kerri Kupec, spokeswoman for the Department of Justice and Peter Carr, spokesman for the Special Counsel’s Office, released the following statement:
The Attorney General has previously stated that the Special Counsel repeatedly affirmed that he was not saying that, but for the OLC opinion, he would have found the President obstructed justice. The Special Counsel’s report and his statement today made clear that the office concluded it would not reach a determination – one way or the other – about whether the President committed a crime. There is no conflict between these statements.
I agree with Turley that Mueller came off as coy, a regular bubble dancer.
Christine:
” … a regular bubble dancer.”
*******************
Love it! You wordsmith, you.
Mueller spends a cool 30 Mil well into his retirement with henchmen recruited from the political opposition; writes a report that, by its very length, guarantees it will never be read by the masses; leaks his findings when convenient; prosecutes folks for lying to him and for other crimes decades old that weren’t considered prosecutable at the time; then writes he’s found nothing even as he tells us he might have found something; all the while sticking it to the guy who refused him the top job at FBI and fired his best bud.
I can’t remember a better carney scam. Maybe he’s a Nigerian prince!
Well said!
Well, MESPO, with the confiscations of Flynn’s properties, the taxpayers actually came out ahead financially. Mueller never leaked anything to anyone. The leaky administration is the White House. Mueller never said he found “nothing”. He found plenty, which is set forth in detail, and which Faux News and Trump have consistently lied about. He also said, at the news conference, that his hands were tied, something that Turley is trying to make a big deal of, but the only person to refute this was Barr, a key member of the syncophant squad and proven liar. You only have Trump’s word that he refused the FBI job to Mueller and that Comey is his “best bud”. Trump is a pathological liar.
You have proven once again that you are a true Trumpster and Faux News disciple.
https://quillette.com/2019/05/29/its-not-your-imagination-the-journalists-writing-about-antifa-are-often-their-cheerleaders/
here is an article about how “journalists” are often partisans in drag
that’s why we call it fake news.
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On February 1, 2017, Milo Yiannopoulos was scheduled to give a talk about free speech at the University of California, Berkeley. But he was prevented from speaking by a group of 150 or so masked, black-clad members of a then-obscure movement calling itself “Antifa.” The protestors caused $100,000 worth of damage to the campus and injured six people as they threw rocks and Molotov cocktails. Nine months later, again at Berkeley, an “anti-Marxist” rally descended into violence as approximately 100 masked Antifa members harassed journalists and beat rally organizers and attendees.
Berkeley was where Antifa rose to national attention, but it hasn’t been the only place where the group has engaged in sustained acts of violence. At a Washington, D.C. Unite the Right rally in August 2018, Antifa members hurled objects at police and assaulted journalists. In Portland, Oregon, violent street clashes involving Antifa have become regular events. Notwithstanding claims that Antifa is a peaceful, “anti-fascist community-defense group,” it has adopted tactics that often are more violent than those of the right-wing movements that the group opposes.
Andy Ngo
✔
@MrAndyNgo
· May 1, 2019
Replying to @MrAndyNgo
Was assaulted outside the @CiderRiot on 807 NE Couch by masked Antifa thugs.
Andy Ngo
✔
@MrAndyNgo
I was sprayed in the face point blank with pepper spray outside the @CiderRiot, where Antifa had amassed. They cheered as I was blinded. Before that, they threatened me & brought up my mother’s name. A woman helped me across the street. Please help me identify person: pic.twitter.com/BUxlk94fz4
9,767
11:32 PM – May 1, 2019
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And yet, Antifa often receives media coverage that is neutral or even favorable, with its members’ violence either being ignored by reporters or vaguely explained away as a product of right-wing provocation. What’s more, anecdotal evidence has suggested that many of the mainstream reporters who are most active in covering Antifa also tend to enthusiastically amplify Antifa’s claims on social media.
In October 2018, my research partner and I decided to investigate the truth of this impression by using a mix of network mapping and linguistic analysis to see which prominent journalists who covered Antifa also were closely connected to leading Antifa figures on social media. We then inspected the Antifa-related stories these journalists had written.
We created a data set of 58,254 Antifa or Antifa-associated Twitter accounts based on the follows of 16 verified Antifa seed accounts. Using a software tool that analyzed the number and nature of connections associated with each individual account, we winnowed the 58,254 Antifa or Antifa-associated Twitter accounts down to 962 accounts. This represents a core group of Twitter users who are connected in overlapping ways to the most influential and widely followed Antifa figures. Of these 962 accounts, 22 were found to be verified—of which 15 were journalists who work regularly with national-level news outlets.
It should be stressed that a journalist’s close social-media engagement with any particular group should not be seen as incriminating per se. Many journalists follow—and even interact with—all manner of figures online, either out of personal curiosity, professional interest, or even as a means of developing sources. In identifying this group of 15 journalists whose engagement with Antifa is especially intense, our goal was not to accuse them of bias out of hand, but rather to identify them for further study, so as to determine if there was any overall correlation between the level of their online engagement with Antifa and the manner by which these journalists treated Antifa in their published journalism.
That correlation turned out to be quite pronounced: Of all 15 verified national-level journalists in our subset, we couldn’t find a single article, by any of them, that was markedly critical of Antifa in any way. In all cases, their work in this area consisted primarily of downplaying Antifa violence while advancing Antifa talking points, and in some cases quoting Antifa extremists as if they were impartial experts.
“Well, MESPO, with the confiscations of Flynn’s properties, the taxpayers actually came out ahead financially.”
******************
As usual Natacha, you’re close but no cigar. Flynn’s assets don’t amount to much. He sold his condo for $835,000 after paying $700,000 for it and used most for legal fees. You probably mean Manafort. Manafort may have forfeited assets valued around $26 Million but that is optimistic for a fire sale. Your other factual presentations are equally sloppy and you fail to address the thrust of my argument that Mueller offered nothing of value for around $30 Million to the American people.
“Syncophant”
To anyone questioning the intelligence of this “Natacha” psycho TDS chick, who claims to be highly ‘edumacated’….she thinks the word is “syncophant” and she spells it the same way every time she uses it. I’d laugh, but it’s really just sad, insn’t it?
You don’t have to go to Venezuela to see socialism. Go to Compton.
In the Introduction to Volume II of his Report, Mueller argues that it would be unfair to assert that the President committed a crime unless he can be indicted. Without an indictment, there is no forum for him to contest the finding of criminality and clear his name. But by listing 10 (more if you count various “Cohen-related” conduct) instances that Mueller says may constitute obstruction, he’s being unfair in precisely the manner he purports to condemn. The President has no forum to “clear” himself of these maybe yes, maybe no “charges” either.
I conclude that Mueller was deliberately serving up impeachment fodder for Congress, something not within his mandate.
JT is surely right that Mueller should be compelled to testify, although it is likely that his testimony will advance the cause of impeachment. Sample Dem question: “Mr. Mueller, on the assumption that obstruction of justice is an impeachable offense, please explain to us what factors Congress should weigh in determining whether Pres. Trump’s attempt to have you fired constituted an obstruction of justice.” An on and on and on.
L4D says–The House of Representative is not a United States Court. Impeachment proceedings in The House of Representatives are not required to result in Articles of Impeachment being brought against Trump. Nevertheless, if Trump truly wants to clear his name, then Impeachment proceedings in The House of Representatives might be one way to achieve that end. Another way for Trump to clear his name might be to take his case directly to the people at the polls on election day and see if Trump can win re-election to a second term of offices as President of the United States. The Special Counsel is under no obligation to get The President re-elected. And neither is The House of Representatives.
It’s high time to stop feeling so sorry for Trump. “Vote for me. I’m an innocent victim of a failed coup d’état. It’s so unfair. Vote for me.”
Moses, huh? The irony is rich with you Turley. You cite Moses and include an image of Moses holding up the law God commanded the Israelite’s follow. Mueller is no Moses. Moses had evidence, Mueller effectively came down empty-handed bearing false witness. Moses brings law that no man is above and Mueller rejects the law with his own interpretation.
I believe these progressives need to be sent packing for 40 years in the wilderness.
“I believe these progressives need to be sent packing for 40 years in the wilderness.”
Olly, I believe Venezuela would be just fine.
ha ha nice one olly. came back only bearing false witness. touche!
Your only known error above is that Moses’ law was solely and specifically for and directed toward only the then-Ioudaios (wrongly interpreted today as “Jew”…a related matter is that water baptism was apparently solely and only a sacrificial practice for OT Ioudiaos, and was never intended for “gentiles. AFAIK there is no known case in Scripture of a “gentile” being water baptized.)
Scripture knows of no such thing as a “cultural” Ioudaios. In Scripture, religion and a view of G-d are permanently intertwined.
The OT Ioudaios ceased to exist as a nation and as a people and as a culture in 70 AD when Nero (the numeric alphabet for Nero adds up to “666”) utterly demolished the last Mosaic temple. According to the OT Mosaic Law to which you refer (Deuteronomy, Leviticus, etc.), the Mosaic Law ceased to exist the moment the Temple was leveled. There is no such thing as Mosaic Law without a temple.
The next time a man tells you he follows the OT Law of Moses, ask him on which two days he visited the sacrificial temple in the last year. When he says he did not perform such task because there is no such temple, refer him to Deuteronomy, which gives no exception to the rule for Ioudaios males: to not visit the temple twice yearly is to deserve only one fate: death, to be utterly cast out of the gate and to die a horrible death. There is no G-d ordained exception to this rule, only man-made excuses in modern Kabala, etc.
Mosaic Law ceased to exist in 70 AD when the last sacrificial temple ceased to exist.
It must be very tough to be brain dead.
Wrong on so many points. Since you want to mince words.. it’s fair to point out that there never was a law called Mosaic Law in scripture..only Torah. There is ample evidence to believe it existed prior to Moses. The administration of that law changed hands from the Levitical priesthood to the current priesthood. That understanding leaves the basic rendering of Matthew 5:17-20 intact.
Big “jot” and “tittle” guy, myself! 😀
There is no such thing as Mosaic Law without a temple.
How progressive of you. So they were lawless until the first temple was built? And then the law ceased to exist every time the temple was destroyed? Hmm, that’s a familiar argument regarding natural rights. They don’t exist if the institution created to secure them is destroyed.
tohar, this is got a lot of problems. here’s a few tips to aid you in self education
1. Ioudaios is a Greek word. Jew is a legit translation.
2. Israel in the OT means the nation comprised of the 12 tribes.
3. After the Babylonian capitivity, Jew means, a member of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, repatriated to Palestine by Cyrus, who is observant of Jewish law
4. the traditional Christian teaching is that Jesus Christ was the FULFILLMENT OF THE LAW
that means, as he said, not that he abolished it, but he fulfilled it.
5. the two commandments “love God with all your heart” and “love your neighbor as yourself” are reflective of the two main imperatives of the Decalogue. Thus, they are not inconsistent with the Decalogue, but are theological simplifications of the sacred imperatives.
6. Paul and the apostles of the early Church made it clear that the minutiae of the mosaic law and customs was not important for Gentile converts to Christianity to observe and that has always been the stock position. The other position, which had been wrongly advanced by the Jewish converts inside the early Church, was later come to be known as “Judaization” by St John Chrysostom, and sometimes has appeared and reappeared as the Sabbatarian heresy, now most obviously held by the Seventh Day adventists.
7. I smell the stink of C.I. if you have been influenced by this bizarre and incorrect strain of Christian heresy, wise up fast for your own good.
8. Nero sent the troops to crush the rebellion in Palestine. But Vespasian was Emperor in 70 and his son Titus as commander of Legio X Fretensis, was responsible for the destruction of the Second Temple.
NOW all that out of the way, there is something true in what you say that the Mosaic law was frustrated by the destruction of the Temple, and the notion that rabinnical Judaism is a different religion than the OT Judaism which preceeded it, due to this important qualitative difference.
I have seen these facts misquoted, and often used and abused by Jew-haters and it gets tiresome.
Well said, Olly!
God this is so boring! I’m starting to think that is Washington’s strategy. Keep this boring Mueller thing going until we are so bored that we just ignore the news entirely.
Turley wrote, “Mueller declared that ‘we concluded that we would not reach a determination one way or the other about whether the president committed a crime.’ Yet, Mueller contradicted that statement when he declared that ‘if we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime we would have said so.'”
Possibility 1) The President committed a crime. Possibility 2) The President did not commit a crime.
Material Implication:
If The President had committed a crime, then The Special Counsel supposedly must say that The President committed a crime.
Given that The President committed a crime,
It supposedly follows that The Special Counsel must say that The President committed a crime.
(The argument above looks like modus ponens, but is actually a non-sequitur. The conclusion that The Special Counsel must say that The President committed a crime does not follow from the premise that The President committed a crime.)
If The President had committed a crime, then The Special Counsel supposedly must say that The President committed a crime.
Given that The Special Counsel did not say that The President committed a crime,
It supposedly follows that The President did not commit a crime.
(The argument above looks like modus tollens, but is actually yet another non-sequitur. The supposed conclusion that The President did not commit a crime does not follow from the premise that The Special Counsel did not say that The President committed a crime.)
Now go back up to the fake modus ponens above that was the first non-sequitur. That first non-sequitur makes the second modus tollens non-sequitur possible. And that second modus tollens non-sequitur, in turn, makes the first non-sequitur supposedly necessary by means of an impermissible use of tautology. Such is clearly and distinctly not the case. It was never strictly necessary that The Special Counsel must say that The President committed a crime. And that leaves only the second non-sequitur to the effect that The President supposedly did not commit a crime because The Special Counsel did not say that the President committed a crime. We already know that it is entirely possible that The President did commit a crime–even though Mueller refused to say so. Maybe Trump should grant himself a pardon while the granting is good.
Contributed by The–Does Anybody Not Know Who Wrote This Post–Project
Your post is nonsense. Mueller’s boss Barr told Mueller to decide on obstruction. THAT was Mueller’s marching orders, not the legal BS you list to defend Mueller.
Mueller refused. Mueller should NOT have been paid, and he should be sued to return his pay, as should every other member of this DNC hack team.
You completely ignore several other of Turley’s superb points over the past week, which case huge doubt on Mueller’s intentions, but I won’t bother repeating them.
anonasense, or Anonymous the Sophist, or L4D’s writings have the same characteristics, Princess T.
She probably reached the million word club faster than anyone in this threads history, and yet her silly propaganda never gets old🙄😒.
No Final Report Seen in Inquiry on C.I.A. Leak – The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/19/politics/no-final-report-seen-in-inquiry-on-cia-leak.html
Oct 19, 2005 … Special prosecutor Peter J Fitzgerald reportedly has no plans to issue … Valerie Plame, whose name was later publicly disclosed; Fitzgerald …
L4D says–Lookee, lookee! A Special Counsel who refused to issue a final report. Cazart!
Excerpted from the article linked above:
A final report had long been considered an option for Mr. Fitzgerald if he decided not to accuse anyone of wrongdoing, although Justice Department officials have been dubious about his legal authority to issue such a report.
By signaling that he had no plans to issue the grand jury’s findings in such detail, Mr. Fitzgerald appeared to narrow his options either to indictments or closing his investigation with no public disclosure of his findings, a choice that would set off a political firestorm.
Her Royal Highness claims, “Your post is nonsense.”
L4D had previously said, “It was never strictly necessary that The Special Counsel must say that The President committed a crime.”
It should be abundantly clear that Her Royal Highness is incapable of telling the difference between an opinion versus an argument. I have now highlighted the critical statement in the post that Her Royal Highness dismisses as “nonsense.” It should be interesting to see if The Cartoon Princess can rebut or refute that critical statement by showing that it was somehow strictly necessary that The Special Counsel must say that The President committed a crime in the final report.
Princess Trohar says: June 3, 2019 at 11:08 AM
“Your post is nonsense. Mueller’s boss Barr told Mueller to decide on obstruction.”
L4D says–So the statement above is the only answer available from Her Royal Highness. Barr ordered Mueller to accuse President Trump of having committed a crime without indicting President Trump of the crime that Barr ordered Mueller to accuse President Trump of having committed. But the one and only way for any prosecutor to accuse anyone of having committed any crime is for that prosecutor to ask a Grand Jury to return an indictment against the accused. There is no other way. Therefore Mueller did the only thing that Mueller could do. Refuse to accuse and refuse to exonerate. There was no other way.
If you don’t like it, then get rid of the OLC opinion and the Justice Dep’t regulations based upon that OLC opinion and allow Special Counsel’s in the future to indict sitting President’s while they are in office. And if you won’t do that, then you have to lump it.
L4D says–The apostrophes are really annoying. Wait. Check. Double check.
Allow Special Counsels to indict sitting Presidents while in office.
L4D says–Never mind.
Scolling over the bull**** posted above, I have a pretty good idea who wrote it.
L4D says–Did The Special Counsel’s investigation target anyone else besides The POTUS, Trump? Wait a second. Was The POTUS, Trump, ever a target of The Special Counsel’s investigation?
Before you dismiss an argument as nonsense, you might want to ask yourself whether it was ever strictly necessary that Mueller should say that Trump committed a crime? Patrick Fitzgerald never said that Bush Jr. committed a crime. Patrick Fitzgerald never said that Bush Jr. did not commit a crime. In fact, Patrick Fitzgerald never issued a final report in the Valerie Plame Special Counsel investigation.
Do you people even know what nonsense really is? I doubt it.
Anonymous/Oblivious,
#1. Yes
#2.Yes
#3. No
# 4. Yes, and thanks for providing an example.
Anonymous/ Oblivious,
Correction on #4 – Thanks for providing multiple examples.
“Mueller not only demanded silence but faith from the media, which surprisingly obeyed.”
Why would anyone be surprised?
Mueller simply said that the media would listen and remain silent . . . and the media dutifully complied.
But the RUSSIANS!
Thank you!
At his press conference, Meuller said that he was not able to prove that there was no obstruction. This does not imply that someone else could not prove there was no obstruction. But let’s actually make Mueller’s statement stronger and see where it leads.
It is not possible to prove that there was no obstruction.
Heck, why not make it still stronger.
The probability of no obstruction is less than 100%.
So, what are the implications of this statement?
The probability of obstruction is greater than 0% and less than or equal to 100%. For example, it could be 0.0000001% or even 99.999999% or even 100%!
Nothing in the statement narrows the probability of obstruction down to anywhere in the interval (0%,100%].
The statement conveys essentially no information whatever about the probability of obstruction.
Mueller’s weaker statement conveys slightly less than essentially no information whatever about the probability of obstruction.
So, the next time you hear someone claiming that Mueller’s statement bears meaningfully on the likelihood of obstruction, you will know that either they don’t know what they are talking about or are purposely trying to mislead you. In either case, you may want to consider ignoring them in the future. It may be a good idea not to vote for them, either.
Robert, the report details 11 instances of obstruction by Trump and to date over 900 former federal attorneys to date have signed a letter stating that the report should lead to prosecution of anyone not a sitting president.
What confidence can we have in political hacks that get advanced in life for acting stupid? Here we have one of the leading political hacks, Mueller, making a speech that was unbecomming of a person in a low level office. “Mueller was uttering absolute nonsense about his inability to reach a conclusion. ”
How many on this blog still don’t recognize that? Fools never learn.
There is exactly one way for any prosecutor to accuse any person of any crime. Ask a Grand Jury to return an indictment against the accused for the crime alleged in that indictment. There is no other way for any prosecutor to accuse anyone of having committed a crime. Special Counsel Mueller did the only thing that he could have done. Refuse to accuse Trump of a crime. And refuse to exonerate Trump of a crime. There was no other way.
No name who is afraid of its own voice and ideas:
Prosecutors present one side of a story that has two sides. That is the reason they are supposed to show the evidence that might indicate ‘not guilty’ even if it hurts their case.
Mueller played the dirty prosecutor who aimed to destroy a certain individual rather than investigate a crime that may have been committed by many individuals. That is a failure of our prosecutorial system. Listen to what Dershowitz has said unless you wish to change our system of justice into guilty until proven innocent.
Additionally Mueller was a special prosecutor for one reason. In this case we could not expect the justice department which is under the control of the President to adopt a completely non biased enquiry. That is why Mueller was called from outside of the government. (Unfortuantely he did not have an arms length detatchment from what was under observation and that made him unethical in accepting the position)
In the end nothing Mueller did was necessary after the first 24 hours or perhaps 1 month to dot the I’s and cross the T’s. It was clear the President was not involved day one. Therefore a total enquiry of Russian activities could have been managed by counter intelligence and other agencies. You might make the arguement that the matters of Hillary and other political figures required a special counsel but here I won’t delve into the picadillo’s of Hillary Clinton.
You say ” There was no other way.” indicating a grand jury was needed. Not so. There was no stated crime for a grand jury to pass judgement on. The appointment of a special prosecutor was not the problem. The problem was who was appointed and the fact that the special counsel could evaluate and see he was not needed after a very short period of time.
A prosecutor can bring charges, directly, without a grand jury.
So it is not true that “there is exactly one way” for a prosecutor to bring charges.
Additionally, Mueller was free to come to a conclusion that Trump committed a crime if he’d made that determination.
He could have expressed that view irrespective of the DOJ policy on indicting a president.
Tom, yes Mueller could have made that decision and I wish he had, but he explained his reasoning about fairness and it’s logical if not mandatory.
Anon, Leaving aside the question of Mueller’s reasoning, it doesn’t look like he wants to stick around to defend either his reasoning or his report.
Tom, while I would love to hear him talk about the details, personalities, and the law in his report, his position is admirably about avoiding the politics and sticking to his limited view of the job. I believe he will have to testify before Congress, but that he’ll be as tight lipped as possible. While Trump supporters complain about that, the odds are very high they’d be doubly unhappy if he was a Chatty Kathy.
The ‘details’ are a conception of ‘obstruction of justice’ which rendered the president guilty of ‘obstruction’ should he exercise his Article II powers, resist any measures undertaken by the special counsel’s office, or even criticize the office via tweet. A prosecutorial perpetual motion machine. No one not a shyster like Andrew Weissman would take this seriously.
For manifest reasons, Mueller doesn’t want to talk about it.
In your dreams absurd. Now over a thousand former federal attorneys of both parties have put their name on a public letter saying that anyone else but a sitting president would be prosecuted for obstruction. Doesn’t mean that makes them right, but it’s not Joe Blow on the internet like you and I and Tom or even a publicity hound like Dershowitz.
Wake up.
https://medium.com/@dojalumni/statement-by-former-federal-prosecutors-8ab7691c2aa1
“In your dreams absurd. Now over a thousand former federal attorneys of both parties have put their name on a public letter saying that anyone else but a sitting president would be prosecuted for obstruction.”
It was said that the letter consisted of former prosecutors. Where do prosecutors go after they leave the prosecutors office? Law firms is one place and Anon’s total naivete indicates he has little knowledge about lawfirms.
Mueller has opted to avoid defending the OSC Report.. The lack of a conclusion expressed by Mueller on obstruction guaranteed that Congress and the public could and will spin that aspect of Mueller’s report any way they want.
There were a couple of Mueller’s comments in his press conference that were odd. He claimed it would be unfair, if he concluded that Trump had obstructed justice, to state that since he could not indict, and unfair since the accused would not have to opportunity to defend himself (as one would in the criminal justice system).
If Mueller had found that Trump criminally conspired with Russia in 2016, that same “reasoning” would presumably precude expressing an opinion on whether Trump conspired with Russia.
The other odd statement Mueller made right of the bat, in the first or second sentence of his address, was that he was directed by DOJ to examine the issue of Russian interference in the 2016 campaign, “including” interference with and on behalf of the Trump campaign.
Had he been directed to do that, or interested in doing that, he would have investigated the Steele/ Russian Dossier. And those involved in producing it.
The OSC clearly targeted one campaign for investigation, so Mueller’s claim that he was directed to examine Russian interference in the 2016 campaign is a half-truth at best.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2019/05/06/what-that-former-prosecutors-letter-aimed-at-trump-really-did-concerning-this-rus-n2545922
So, the big conspiracy about the letter is ….. Bill Weld?
WTF? If the other 999+ signers announce for the Democratic nomination – and they might – this guys got something
Tom, that Townhall article reads like it was written by Alan. Why did you post that? What ‘insightful’ point where we supposed to take from it?
“Tom, that Townhall article reads like it was written by Alan. Why did you post that? What ‘insightful’ point where we supposed to take from it?”
Peter, no one expects you to understand much of anything. You are a functional illiterate.
For your information I definitely did not write that specific Townhall article.
Not sure what you find objectionable or inconsistent about the idea that by his reasoning Mueller could not have made a finding of guilt on criminal conspiracy. Yes, that’s true.
As to the Steele Dossier, how do you know he was not already familiar with it as evidence but found nothing remarkable or investigation worthy? That Trumpsters – including AG Barr – have worked themselves up about it as an alternative reality that helps take heat of their hero does not mean anyone else has.
Anon, Tom think’s it’s highly insidious that a man in London was asked to investigate Trump. Never mind that Trump runs a multi-national business with interests around the world. Never mind that Business Media had reported on Trump’s Russian links for almost 20 years. Never mind that dossiers are dossiers and not peer-reviewed research. Tom just believes its highly unprincipled that a Russian expert was asked to look at an American businessman with extensive Russian links.
Anon,.
“So what. Trump is still president”. Also, I still haven’t seen Mueller’s signature on the letter. Some Democratic menbers of Congress did sign it, however.
PH,
The “man in London” was hired to use Russians as fodder for opposition research. On the other other issue of the ex-prosecutors, you and Anon are easily impressed. You seem to assume that these are objective, dispassionate players in the aftermath of the Mueller Report.
That is doubtful.
Tom, when it comes to Special Counsel appointees, no one is going to be totally acceptable to everyone. Mueller, however, was a real Republicans chosen by real Republican Rod Rosenstein.
Ken Starr, by contrast, had been with a law firm that represented a major tobacco company at a time when the Clinton Administration was cracking down on big tobacco. Starr’s political-leanings were far more questionable than Mueller’s. Yet Bill Clinton largely refrained from attacking Starr personally.
That’s not accurate. The report set out 11 factual scenarios and suggested possible legal theories. And some of of the supposed 11 are absurd or untenable, with 3 being a more accurate number. Unfortunately in its 200 pages Team Mueller failed to deal with several important issues. For example the Article II issue, Separation of Powers issue, whether obstruction could exist w/o an underlying crime, whether obstruction could exist if the actions of federal authorities in 2015/2016 were improper or illegal, etc., etc. indeed, the report should have discussed any findings of obstruction if the Mueller investigation stayed open long after an absence of conspiracy w/Russia was determined Any honest investigation should have investigated and addressed all the relevant issues.
“whether obstruction could exist if the actions of federal authorities in 2015/2016 were improper or illegal”
since they are cops, they stayed away from that one like toxic nuclear waste
the thing on every falsely accused person’s mind, is whether to go asymmetrical on the authorities abusing their power.
by that I mean, engage in things that normally would be very questionable behavior, like say, warning witnesses to tell the truth, which the government may charge after the fact as “Tampering” Well, is telling someone to be truthful, tampering? Ha ha, only when the government says so!
investigating investigators is always a dicey business because it can undermine public confidence in the government itself. that’s a dangerous business because in a revolution, everyone can hang in the end, and those who initially “win” often do, as Saturn devours his children
anarchy is always lurking closer to the home, than the average person thinks.
Warspite, maybe you could flesh out your objections, and especially the article 2 and separations of powers arguments.
On obstruction without an underlying crime, 2 points.
1. The SC determined that he could not find for a criminal conspiracy, but did not state that the crime did not occur. Part of his determination was based on the stonewalling by campaign members, including the president.
3. In a related sense, a person could obstruct justice based on their expectation that they or their associates had committed a crime, whether or not they were later charged.
It is not necessary that an underlying crime is charged for obstruction to have occurred.
L4D adds–nor is it strictly necessary that the person who obstructed justice had also committed the underlying crime. For instance, if the underlying crime had been committed by Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Michael Cohen and Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, then it would still be possible for President Trump to obstruct justice without having, himself, committed the underlying crime.
L4D adds a little more–If The President’s obstruction of justice succeeded at preventing the indictment of Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Michael Cohen, Lt. Gen. Flynn and who knows who all else for Conspiracy to Defraud the United States, then the absence of that superceding indictment on that underlying charge would not exculpate President Trump of obstruction of justice.
“It is not necessary that an underlying crime is charged for obstruction to have occurred.”
Technically that might be true but to prove it would be excessively difficult since there are so many reasons for an action to be taken. When obstruction is only one of the reasons how does one prove the other reason isn’t valid? Very difficult and here on this blog no one has been able to provide a cogent claim of obstruction while at the same time proving other explanation invalid. Mueller couldn’t either or he would have done so. Instead Mueller did the unethical by not following his mandate, by not participating in the summary and then by clouding the issue while explaining why one shouldn’t cloud the issue because there is no legal remedy for the party that sufferes from theinsinuation of being called guilty.
https://images.app.goo.gl/D3TXjeGbz6Fw64jU6
900? i saw the commercial and they say it was a thousand
it can be a chorus of bishops but only certain opinions matter
1) meullers.
2) barr’s
3) Congress which apparently has decided not to impeach but confuse voters into thinking maybe htey will, lol
so all those underemployed former AUSA are just scrambling for attention and a chance to say they met robert deniro
Mr. Kurtz,
Do you know how about how many prosecutors work in the 93 U.S. Attorneys offices?
I can’t find that number anywhere. I think the DOJ employs a total of about 35,000 people, but I don’t know how many are prosecutors.
good question~!
no clue to the answer
here’s an interesting article about the job, as a job
https://hls.harvard.edu/content/uploads/2008/06/fast-track-final.pdf
maybe 5,300. prolly more.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assistant_United_States_attorney
Thanks….if there were about 5300 in 2008, there are probably a lot more today.
Other than keeping up with population growth, why would there be a lot more now? One of Kurtz’s links mentioned a hiring freeze in 2009-2010.
I didn’t see Mr.Kurtz mention a hiring freeze. Overall, government bueracracies tend to grow faster than the population.
It was in one of his links.
PS Despite a large increase in population, the non-military federal workforce has stayed pretty constant at around 2 million since WWII.
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2018/jan/22/taking-measure-federal-workforce/
I don’t think AUSAs are properly described as “bureaucrats”.
You left out alleged, but honesty is not expected among persons like yourself desiring to undo the 2016 election.
Is that what Mueller concluded? That there were 11 instances of obstruction?
I didn’t hear him say that.
On the issue of “the 900 or whatever number” of former U.S. prosecutors signing a letter accusing Trump of obstruction, did Mueller sign it? I still haven’t seen that his signature is on it.
There are 93 U.S. Attorneys. I don’t know how many prosecutors support all 93 offices, but some U.S. Attorneys’ office
are staffed with hundreds of prosecutors.
I’ll take a guess and estimate that there are c.10,000 U.S. federal prosecutors. Who knows how many retired U.S. prosecutors there are, so 900 is not necessarily a huge number, percentage-wise.
The argument is that Trump was obstructing the obstruction investigation. Weissman invented a self-licking ice-cream cone.
Anon,
Mueller in fact could have come to a conclusion on obstruction and presented that conclusion. If Mueller concluded that Trump was in a criminal conspiracy in the 2016 campaign with Russia, by his reasoning, he could not say so.
To be consistent, if one is going to use the “a president can’t be indicted” dodge to cop out on drawing and presenting a conclusion on obstruction, then that dodge would have to be used on the “collusion” issues as well if Mueller had found criminal conduct in that area.
Mueller’s theories, or interpretations, of the limitations of a Special Counsel investigation largely defeat the purpose of even appointing a SC.
Tom, we agree that he was apparently freed to make his own determination on how to proceed with a sitting president and that consistency would demand that if he had found a criminal conspiracy – there was no collusion issue since that is not a legal term and he adhered strictly to what he thought properly legal – he would not say so. While that determination did seriously limit his options and the clarity of the outcome, it is his reasoning – not illogical, though not what everyone might find – that it was more important to hold to the DOJ policy and what he deemed fair. Remember also that the SC law is not limited to investigations of the President and this one included other individuals.
Trump opponents like me are no more happy with this outcome than you and while bashing Mueller helps Trump, I think you should be relieved he didn’t feel more free to give a finding on obstruction and talk about it all.
Anon,
It appears to be Trump opponents who are crestfallen and discombobulated by the Mueller Report.
Tom, then why are you not celebrating instead of grousing? I already said you should probably be happy Mueller withheld a finding on obstruction, though I get that bashing him props up the PR campaign Trump has been waging against him since he was appointed.
also those were probably all FORMER AUSAs not acting. and there are probably tens of thousands of former ones if you count the assistants too.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2017/11/17/sasse-to-aba-the-american-bar-association-is-not-neutral/
Mr. Kurtz,
I don’t think the ABA itself has taken an official position on the obsruction issue, but their leanings and their members are probably well – represented among those who signed.
The report lists – I think – 10 instances of evidence for potential obstruction. I’m almost certain Mueller did not sign letter, nor would he. It is out of sync with his personal character and certainly no in character as the special counsel. DOJ has well over 100K people but on average it would be surprising if there were 107 per office. SD NY is one of largest, not sure it has that many. I think the entire office staff = 400.
Chris, Mr. Kurtz provided a link that contained the numbers from 2009.
There were 5300 prosecutors working under 93 U.S. Attorneys.I think that works out to an average of about 57 per office, but I don’t know how much that 5300 number has changed in 10 years.
And here in a nutshell is a great example of why thinking people do not trust the MSM.
The partisan Pinkos have their minds made up and go to the MSM media for validation.
Thinking people look for other sources that are more fair and present alternative view points.
Mueller is the perfect example of “the fox watching the hen house”. He should never have been chosen as he had a conflict of interest from the get go: Comey’s his partner.
I never trusted him after I heard who he chose for his team: Hillary donors.
This investigation was a sham from the beginning and should be forgotten, totally. Now it’s up to AG Barr to clean up his mess.
#Russianhoax #SPYGATE
“from whence” is redundant. But you’re in good company! https://grammarist.com/usage/whence-from-whence/
‘Neath the harvest moon we’ll pledge our love anew (higher) our love anew!
So my darling, though we’ve parted
Come back to whence we started,
Artist:
WHENCE!
Jack:
Yes, WHENCE! It’s a poetic form of the word WHERE!
Artist:
But, Jack…WHENCE?!?!
Jack:
(This punch line also varied with the artist. For Lawrence Welk, it was “Look, if you can say WUNNAFUL, I can say WHENCE!”)
Look, just let me finish the song!
So my darling though we’ve parted,
Come back to WHENCE we started,
And sweetheart, then I’ll come back to yooooooouuu
JMRM,
Your comment reminded me of the Jack Benny episodes where he was desperately trying to get somebody to record a godawful song he’d written.
They still run those 1950s and early 1960s Jack Benny episodes on Antenna TV and some other networks.
He had some great guest stars, actors and others who were major stars of that period.
In a cavern, in a canyon
Excavating for a mine
Dwelt a miner, forty-niner
And his daughter, Clementine
Light she was and like a fairy
And her shoes were number nine
Herring boxes, without topses
Sandals were for Clementine
Drove she ducklings to the water
Ev’ry morning just at nine
Hit her foot against a splinter
Fell into the foaming brine
Ruby lips above the water
Blowing bubbles, soft and fine
But, alas, I was no swimmer
So I lost my Clementine
How I missed her! How I missed her
How I missed my Clementine
But I kissed her little sister
I forgot my Clementine
Oh my darling, oh my darling
Oh my darling, Clementine
You are lost and gone forever
Dreadful sorry, Clementine