Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy (Post 521814)

My prediction, by the way, is that Barr keeps stonewalling on this but someone decides to just drop a copy in the mail, and it then finds its way on to the internet.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 521829)

Agreed. Every generation needs its Daniel Ellsberg.

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall (Post 521744)

No. You are in Crazytown and you've built yourself quite the comfortable life there.

We already know he obstructed justice. He did it in the fucking open. He publicly stated that he fired Comey because of the investigation. He fired Sessions because he recused himself. He asked for his own guy to be put in place at the SDNY. I believe there is lots of evidence showing this in the report. I'd like to see it.

Barr auditioned for this job because he believes, fundafuckingmentally that the President cannot obstruct justice. Trump got the message loud and clear and installed him. And guess what? Barr has concluded Trump didn't obstruct justice. It's a complete joke.

It is so obvious that there is enough in that report--re collusion and obstruction--to impeach this asshole and charge him with obstruction (you know, if you believed that a sitting President could be guilty of obstruction) that the White House, Barr and the entire Republican Party do not want to be held accountable for not being involved in doing so.

Your rants about what the media (again, not a monolithic entity) "implied" by reporting on the actual comings and goings of this criminal fucking Administration are pure ether above the clouds. Maybe you can't separate the opinion pieces and talking heads from the actual reporting. But your ravings are meaningless, empty, bullshit because they are based on a bullshit memo written by a man whose reputation you think is something other than what it actually is about the report that we all absolutely need to see.

You are a sucker because you have swallowed the Republican strategy hook, line, and sinker.

TM

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy (Post 521830)

Barr's current line appears to be "it will take us weeks to get the redactions done" before he can release anything, even to Congress.

I'm a corporate attorney and I've heard judges laugh at that line.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 521832)

Really? Because it routinely takes people weeks to redact discovery responses of a similar size. Why do you think most discovery deadlines in state and fed rules allow 30 days for response (which is routinely extended by agreement of counsel)?

Also, why wouldn't the brevity and speed of Barr's letter, along with the fact that he has admitted Mueller gave him a heads-up on the report weeks ago, indicate that:

1. Barr had a summary of the report, either verbally or written or both, from Mueller long before the actual report was given to him; and,
2. He worked with Mueller in advance to get a letter together (they are friends and have a professional history), which allowed him to offer one so quickly (he certainly didn't read 300 pages with exhibits over the weekend).

When Mueller delivered his report, by law a notice he'd done so was required to be filed in Court. Barr and Mueller both knew this, and so knew that there would be immense pressure put on Barr to issue something to the public very quickly. While I absolutely believe that the report will contain saucy, sleazy, and ugly bon mots regarding Trump, and Barr may attempt to avoid their disclosure, the speed and brevity of the Barr letter may be 1 part conspiracy to hide bad facts and 5 parts coordination between Mueller and Barr in advance to release something as quickly as possible.

I mean, we all agree there's no way:

1. Barr is misrepresenting Mueller on the material, big issue (collusion);
2. Barr wrote that letter over the weekend; or,
3. Barr or his staff read all the material in the report over the weekend.

This letter and its release were weeks in the making, and that planning could only occur if Mueller was coordinating on some level with Barr, and we already know that his office had tipped off Barr regarding the report a few weeks ago.

Given this timing, if you think Barr's letter is a ratfuck, you also have to think or at least suspect that possibly Mueller was partly in on the ratfuck. One can think anything he likes, but that would some wildly unusual thinking.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 521833)

From a former federal prosecutor, at TPM:

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 521832)

Really? Because it routinely takes people weeks to redact discovery responses of a similar size. Why do you think most discovery deadlines in state and fed rules allow 30 days for response (which is routinely extended by agreement of counsel)?

Also, why wouldn't the brevity and speed of Barr's letter, along with the fact that he has admitted Mueller gave him a heads-up on the report weeks ago, indicate that:

1. Barr had a summary of the report, either verbally or written or both, from Mueller long before the actual report was given to him; and,
2. He worked with Mueller in advance to get a letter together (they are friends and have a professional history), which allowed him to offer one so quickly (he certainly didn't read 300 pages with exhibits over the weekend).

When Mueller delivered his report, by law a notice he'd done so was required to be filed in Court. Barr and Mueller both knew this, and so knew that there would be immense pressure put on Barr to issue something to the public very quickly. While I absolutely believe that the report will contain saucy, sleazy, and ugly bon mots regarding Trump, and Barr may attempt to avoid their disclosure, the speed and brevity of the Barr letter may be 1 part conspiracy to hide bad facts and 5 parts coordination between Mueller and Barr in advance to release something as quickly as possible.

I mean, we all agree there's no way:

1. Barr is misrepresenting Mueller on the material, big issue (collusion);
2. Barr wrote that letter over the weekend; or,
3. Barr or his staff read all the material in the report over the weekend.

This letter and its release were weeks in the making, and that planning could only occur if Mueller was coordinating on some level with Barr, and we already know that his office had tipped off Barr regarding the report a few weeks ago.

Given this timing, if you think Barr's letter is a ratfuck, you also have to think or at least suspect that possibly Mueller was partly in on the ratfuck. One can think anything he likes, but that would some wildly unusual thinking.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 521829)

Agreed. Every generation needs its Daniel Ellsberg.

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy (Post 521836)

I mostly deal with Delaware Chancery, whose view of such things generally is, take the weekend, have fun. I think there is less urgency in ambulance chasing cases where the Judge probably thinks the Hospital has better things to do than keep responding to your spurious motions.

As to what "we" all "know" or don't: let's get the facts out. This isn't stuff we need to speculate on.

Originally Posted by Adder (Post 521834)

So now you're just making up your own facts?

I'll grant you that it would make sense for Mueller to have had a say in Barr's summary. The problem is if that were true, don't you think Barr and the right wing media would be repeating that "fact" until blue in the face?

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 521838)

I agree the report should come out in full. But then what will we talk about in the interim?

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 521839)

The battle here is over obstruction. Even that ex-prosecutor cited by Ty had to engage in “logical jujitsu” in his first paragraph to try to somehow find collusion that Mueller hadn’t.

Originally Posted by LessinSF (Post 521840)

Avenatti. Extortion or negotiation?

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 521841)

The battle is political, whether people will find out what Trump and his campaign did.

Mueller found collusion, you brick. As multiple people have pointed out, we know about it from Mueller's work. "Collusion" is not a crime, as you have pointed out. Mueller did not find sufficient evidence to bring criminal charges for conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, something different from and narrower than "collusion."

Originally Posted by Icky Thump (Post 521842)

Straight up gangster stick up.

Originally Posted by LessinSF (Post 521840)

Avenatti. Extortion or negotiation?

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 521843)

If it’s political, you lost already, you naive shmuck. Let’s talk about Avenatti.

If you don’t understand the only thing left for you given the political climate and D/R split in the Senate is proof Barr misrepresented Mueller in regard to ability to criminally charge, and win, you’re in Crazyland. I’ve no interest in wading into that place.

If you think “collusion” sticks without a criminal charge, you’re delusional.

Drive this through that brick between your ears: Go to SDNY and nail this guy in a forum where you can win. This Russiagate thing is Over.

Don’t get pissy. You asked for the pragmatic take. I’m being polite.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 521846)

Go fuck yourself and stop being polite. We all understand that Mueller was never going to indict Trump, given DOJ policy, and that this Senate was never going to impeach Trump unless things changed a lot. Things could change a lot if Mueller's reports shows facts that Republicans can't spin away. Or not, if the report is not that damaging or if Barr can keep the report bottled up.

But mostly, go fuck yourself. You parrot the conventional wisdom of the latest news cycle and conservative talking points sanctimoniously even as you pretend you're having an original thought. You simultaneously regurgitate the combined wisdom of CNN, MSNBC and Fox, and complain about how the media got it wrong. Try having an independent thought.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 521847)

Might I start with a fashion tip? A long flowing robe is the perfect accompaniment for a tinfoil mitre. You'll want silver piping, of course.



You didn't expect that Mueller was going to issue a report in which he said that regardless of the DOJ reg on not charging a sitting President, there was not enough to charge Trump or his campaign with conspiracy with Russians. That's a gut punch from which the hardcore Trump haters and a majority of the media that wanted Watergate II is still reeling.

That fucks up the core of the narrative about Russian collusion both politically and legally. Of course you never expected an indictment. But what you wanted, and you did not get, was a finding there were crimes. What pisses you off is that Mueller said, even if Trump were a private citizen, there's not enough to charge conspiracy with Russia. That's the obelisk from 2001 that stares you in the face every time you try to resurrect a claim that Trump conspired with Russians. And so a vague "collusion" assertion is all you have left. And that is a lot of the media's claim now. A sour grapes, petulant, "We didn't care. We knew he'd never indict Trump. But Trump 'colluded' nevertheless, and that's just awful." To that I'd say:

We all knew that already. He did that on national TV. So then what was the significance of this Mueller report you've been telling us was going to change everything and torpedo Trump?

The significance, of course, is that, lathered in your disgust for this man, wrapped up in a self-righteous fervor, You Wanted Him in Criminal Crosshairs. And Mueller fucked you.

You're so deluded that you'll argue with me about whether a majority of the media was at fault here. You can't abide any criticism of anything that attacks Trump. To many here, and on the Left generally, to be a skeptic of the anti-Trump camp is indistinguishable from being pro-Trump. You're emotional. You care too much. It's clouding your powers of reason.

Sometimes, the bad guy wins. Actually, most of the time. In this instance, because the good guys made a strategic blunder by making such a big deal of this report.

And your last pathetic argument, an ad hominen (because when you ain't got much else...), is to assert I parrot mainstream media. Taibbi and Greenwald are many things. Mainstream media they most certainly are not. Where I did cite mainstream media supporting the argument that the majority of the media was to blame here, it was Bloomberg and the Nation. These are not right wing sources and the articles were written by people who dislike Trump.

And the silliness of criticizing me for parroting mainstream media is you've been doing exactly that since the Barr letter was issued. Almost every media outlet that was engaged in a conviction-before-report here has been trying to salvage itself from embarrassment by saying that we don't have all the facts, and Barr is engaged in a cover-up. I just drove ten miles and heard Joe Scarborough rattle off those very points. If anyone's swallowing mainstream media kool aid here, it's you.

It's true we don't have all the material facts on obstruction, and you still have some cards to play there. Barr's declination can be criticized. I ultimately think it's ludicrous to assert that obstruction can be based on things a President does in plain sight, defending himself. I think, equitably, you have a right to try to damage and impede an investigation in any means you like aside from destruction of evidence and witness tampering. (Prosecutors already have a deck stacked far too much in their favor.) But some would disagree. And those people are entitled to see the entire report, as are we all, and use the evidence of what they think constitutes obstruction to make an argument that it should have been charged.

But relitigating the Russian conspiracy? Stop. Your team got outsmarted in the election. (Those of us on neither team, like me, were also outsmarted, figuring Hillary had it in the bag.) And it's not a crime to opportunistically, on national TV, invite the Russians to do what they did. If you want it to be a crime, go pass a law. But stop fucking whining.

ETA: If you want to hear how Trump actually won the election, with the assistance of Cambridge Analytica and Facebook, by suppressing millions of likely Hillary votes and bringing out millions of likely Trump votes, through entirely legal manipulation, listen to Brain McNamee, Zuckerberg's early mentor and now critic, walking Sam Harris through the strategy: https://samharris.org/podcasts/152-trouble-facebook/

Originally Posted by lessinsf (Post 521840)

avenatti. Extortion or negotiation?

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy (Post 521848)

I think he's actually arguing on behalf of the Fox folks against NBC and wants us to be CNN, giving equal time to morons. Otherwise, yeah, a lot of hot air, no original thoughts. And no worry about whether any of his thoughts have any basis in reality.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 521851)

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy (Post 521852)

[IMG]*

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 521839)

But anyone thinking Barr is materially misrepresenting Mueller on collusion is in Crazytown. That’s just too insane.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 521843)

If you think “collusion” sticks without a criminal charge, you’re delusional.

Originally Posted by Adder (Post 521855)

Oh, I definitely think there can be lost votes without a criminal charge.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 521847)

Barr's declination can be criticized.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 521856)

Lost votes in the Senate and lost votes in the election, I agree. But not enough in Senate to convict on impeachment. Mueller gave him too much cover for that, and McConnell will ensure the line holds. Because McConnell knows if the GOP was seen as part of a convicting majority, they'll lose the Trump base, and that's pretty much the end of the GOP.

Originally Posted by Adder (Post 521854)

I don't know about "materially misrepresenting," or even what that means, but that fact that Barr's summary does not quote even and single entire sentence is consistent with my belief that the report contains evidence of collusion that we've not yet seen.

Obviously, not enough to cause Mueller to reach a different conclusion, but something.



Yes, and this is where Barr really does seem to be playing fast and loose.

Originally Posted by Adder (Post 521857)

You have, from the beginnings of these discussions, accepted the GOP frame that's laser-focused on "crimes." Which has been such a wildly successful strategy that no one is talking about how Mueller found that the Russian were actively interfering with the election, Trump new about it and was lying about it and thus compromised from an intelligence perspective from the jump. Putin literally had information he could use to influence Trump - the fact that Trump knew and lied about Russian involvement in the campaign - from day 1.

That alone should be a massive scandal.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 521853)

"For my next comedic masterstroke, I think I will condense The Brothers Karamazov to Barr length... Only question is whether I can fit a humblebrag into the thread suggesting I read a 19th century translation. Maybe I'll suggest I read it in French."

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XMd4V9T5K...h-plan-amc.jpg

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 521859)

Material means Barr isn't changing any of Mueller's fundamental conclusions on the two issues on which Mueller reported.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 521860)

But instead, a majority of the media, and the rabid Trump haters, led a large portion of the country to believe Mueller was going to come back with proof of criminal acts.

Originally Posted by Adder (Post 521863)

And, again, I don't think you're correctly diagnosing where the "criminal" expectations came from. "It's not a crime" is literally a Giuliani talking point and it was meant to, and did, narrow the scandal to only crimes and thus relegate outrageous misconduct and being compromised by a foreign-power to non-issue status.

That wasn't the media's idea, even if many of them fell for it.



Mueller's investigation exists entirely because Trump fired Comey and then said he did it to end the Russia investigation, which, recall, began as an intelligence investigation into whether Trump was compromised, not a criminal investigation.

What we need is to elect people who are smart enough lie less, or lie better, or, if they actually believe themselves to be innocent, let the process play out.

Of course, he isn't innocent and the investigation was going to demonstrate that he was compromised, so I guess their strategy worked perfectly.

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy (Post 521861)

What's the point to reading Karamazov in French? And it's kind of pitiful, you know, to suggest that reading a book is a brag of any sort.

Now, if you'd read Nabokov's commentary on his translation of Eugene Onegin in both Russian and English because that is the only way to truly understand it, that's different. There's a brag.

But did I mention a national publication quoted my #billbarrletters tweet on Moby Dick today? #nothumble

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy (Post 521864)

Pew poll just came out, by about a 2:1 margin Americans believe Trump engaged in criminal conduct, only slightly larger margin think his conduct was unethical.

That basically means that post-Barr summary almost everyone outside of the foxholers think he's a crook.

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy (Post 521864)

Pew poll just came out, by about a 2:1 margin Americans believe Trump engaged in criminal conduct, only slightly larger margin think his conduct was unethical.

That basically means that post-Barr summary almost everyone outside of the foxholers think he's a crook.

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski (Post 521867)

What difference does what the public thinks is in it make? I don't know what is in it, so if I answer the poll, so what? On the other hand, the % that wants it made public, that is important.

But on a more basic note, Icky was starting to tell groupie fuck stories, and you lot started another sebby thread and shut him down. Why?