Re: Mueller Report
 

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

Barr's weakness on obstruction is the reliance on lack of underlying crime. You can engage in obstruction without having committed a crime. That's a flatly absurd conclusion he should have omitted from the letter.* The way around obstruction is Barr's other position: That Trump clearly demonstrated a belief from the start that he did not commit a crime, as shown in his statements, and therefore did not have the intent to avoid the uncovering of anything, but was merely defending himself. That statement alone gets Barr where he needs to be. The existence or non-existence of a crime is immaterial. What's material is whether Trump was doing what he was doing to frustrate an investigation, or merely doing it to defend himself. That's a case that's really hard to make because ultimately, only Trump knows why he did what he did. Good luck getting to that answer.

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* ETA: Barr may have included that statement because to the general public, "no crime, no cover up" closes the case. Politically, it's smart. But to the people who'll assess his letter on logic and legal reasoning, it's damaging. I think Barr assumed, correctly, there are far fewer of us than there are people in the general public who'll accept "no crime, no cover-up."

Re: Mueller Report
 

I think I'm being misunderstood. Do I agree that asking the Russians to hack Hillary is a huge scandal? Of course. It's insane. You and I agree about that being something so wrong and irregular that it should have disqualified Trump.

I highlight the lack of criminality in large part to demonstrate how crazy a majority of the media and Trump haters who drank its kool aid were from the start. If this thing had never gone where politics always seems to go - criminal prosecutions for political reasons - we'd be looking at the issue of "How fucked up is Trump to have courted Russian interference?" That's a political discussion worth having. And it harms Trump among sane people.

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. That was a high standard, a really tough promise to keep. And in it's failure, Trump has now been given a gift. He gets to say "I'm exonerated" of criminal charges where the discussion should have remained, "Trump asked Russians to hack us. Are we really going to re-elect someone so crazy?"

I understand there was enough smoke to warrant Mueller's probe. But I think there's also a lesson in this, and the Stevens case, and the Menendez case, about the criminalization of politics. I'm loathe to say we need new laws, but we definitely need some sort of legislation or regulation to stop dragging prosecutors and investigators into political battles. Particularly where we've all know from the start, the only real way to beat this guy is at the ballot box.

Re: Mueller Report
 

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

Re: Mueller Report
 

Oh, but we know that he is changing the fundamental conclusion regarding obstruction.

And yes, Barr's statement was for political consumption, not legal. Which is smart as the only remedies on the table are political anyway.

Re: Mueller Report
 

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.

Re: Mueller Report
 

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.

Re: Mueller Report
 

Saying one is reading a book is never pitiful. But that's not what I said, which you grasp.

Congrats on your Twitter quote.

Re: Mueller Report
 

In other news, the Earth completed its rotation around the sun once more. If you look outside, you will see light from this sphere of hot plasma.

Re: Mueller Report
 

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?

Re: Mueller Report
 

missed that, sorry, icky, carry on

Re: Mueller Report
 

Mueller said "idk on this obstruction stuff, Bob... you take it."

Barr said, "okay... not enough to charge, and here's why."

It's not a conflict, but a hand-off. I don't blame Mueller. Next to Trump, he was probably the person in DC most often repeating to himself, "how in the fuck did I let myself get talked into this shit."

Re: Mueller Report
 

I'll stop. It's my fault.

I watched some of The Dirt. Don't do it while sunning on a machine next to an older lady. Had to shut it off rather quickly. (It's her fault for taking the machine next to me, however. She had other options.)

Re: Mueller Report
 

Trump won't be impeached unless and until a significant number of Republicans believe that he is hurting them politically. As long as he can keep the base with him, that won't happen, because Republicans on the Hill are more worried about primary challenges than losing in the general.

I didn't think that Trump could unify the GOP around himself in 2016, and obviously that was very wrong. So the idea that Mueller could issue a report about things Trump and his campaign have done that would alienate a significant number of conservatives from him -- that seems like a possibility, but far from a likelihood.

Trump is not the real problem. The real problem is that we share the country with the sizable minority of people who are so committed to their politics that they continue to support him in spite of what everyone knows about him.

Re: Mueller Report
 

Exactly what Mueller said about his decision not to make a recommendation is one of the things we need to see from the report. Given DOJ policy on charging the president, I'm not sure he meant to leave it to Barr. He may specifically have meant to leave it to congress, or he may have said nothing about who should make the call.

Yeah, you don't know that. At minimum, Mueller made one judgment - no recommendation either way - and Barr made a different one.

Re: Mueller Report
 

Mueller is not a free agent. He is a counsel within the DOJ, reporting to the AG, who reports to the President. The report that he drafted was not his own invention, and is governed by specific procedures that were drafted before the current events. Kenneth Starr's investigation led many people to recoil from an independent special counsel, so Mueller's office by design was not independent. The law gives Mueller no way to overcome an AG who values protecting the President over the rule of law and accountability. Mueller doesn't get to decide whether to leave anything to Congress.

Either someone is going to leak the report, or Congress is going to subpoena it (and Barr and the White House will resist, and the Supreme Court will decide), or Congress will lose interest, or the White House will change hands and a new President and AG will relent.

I'm not going to say that Mueller will leak anything, but if I were Mueller and I were worried that Barr were going to act in a corrupt fashion, I might make sure that everyone working on the investigation has an unmarked copy of the report, and would trust their oath to the Constitution, their role as a DOJ lawyer, and their ethical judgment.