During my walk this morning a couple of things dropped in my mind….
While Donald Trump and Republicans are doing a victory dance…..
While Trump is tweeting and yelling to anyone in sight that there was no ‘collusion ‘…..
And the Democrats scratch their heads …..
I think something doesn’t add up….
Robert Mueller was sent on a mission to find out if there was any ‘collusion’ between the Russians and the Trump campaign , and to go after any crimes discovered along the way….
Last first….
34 people where charged with criminal behavior …..
Some of the cases are STILL going on despite the media reports that things are over…
Attorney General Barr reported to Congress and all of us that there was ‘No’ collusion…..
Trump and company ran with THAT…..
But this dog and others are scratching their heads….
Rod Rosenstein had been telling Donald Trump all along that he was NOT under investigation…
Turns out he wasn’t lying….
Why?
Mueller and the US Attorney in New York HAVE people who confirmed that they had been dealing with Russian’s and their people from the Trump campaign…
Trump fired people for NOT stopping investigations against HIM….
I’m no lawyer…
But any OTHER person with the evidence Mueller and Rosenstein had against them would be IN jail….
So?
What is going on here?
Let’s start with Donald Trump…..
From the jump?
Mueller and more Rosenstein had to be going to work everyday worried that Donald Trump fire them …..
Thus stopped ANY investigation and throwing the country into a political turmoil….
Mueller and Rosenstein are lawyers…
They are not politicians…
Added to this is something else….
Other lawyers have given those two an out against tangling with Trump….
Justice Department lawyers have a policy view that sitting President cannot be charged with a crime …..
This is an untested view….
There is NOI LAW against a sitting President being indicted….
So in the end?
Barr looks at the whole 2 years and says …..
Donald Trump’s campaign was had Russian ‘attempts’ in contact….
All the stuff that was reported about extensive contacts with Manafort , Corsi and others?
One might get the impression that Mueller and Rosenstein do NOT want to go into the part early on that involved intelligence community ‘sources and methods’?
Or?
A big question hanging over William P. Barr’s nomination to be attorney general this year was whether, once he got the job, he would do President Trump’s bidding. Barr had made statements critical of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation, and he even wrote a long memo rejecting the need for the obstruction of justice portion of Mueller’s inquiry. Trump also repeatedly made clear his desire for a loyalist to oversee the investigation.
On Sunday, Barr made a big decision in Trump’s favor. And he did so in a way legal experts say is very questionable.
In his four-page letter describing the report’s major findings, Barr noted that Mueller didn’t conclude that Trump committed obstruction of justice but that Mueller also said, pointedly, that he wasn’t exonerating Trump either.
Then Barr stepped forward to offer his own exoneration.
“After reviewing the Special Counsel’s final report on these issues; consulting with Department officials, including the Office of Legal Counsel; and applying the principles of federal prosecution that guide our charging decisions,” Barr wrote, “Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein and I have concluded that the evidence developed during the Special Counsel’s investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.”
He further explained. “In making this determination, we noted that the Special Counsel recognized that ‘the evidence does not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference,’ and that, while not determinative, the absence of such evidence bears upon the President’s intent with respect to obstruction.”
There are a few reasons this conclusion is problematic….
Common sense seems to point to a few things….
Since Trump is not supposed to be charged criminally?
Maybe Rosenstein and Mueller decided NOT to sacrifice the whole thing by going after Trump, since that would involve a long contentious legal fight….
Donald Trump’s technique of ‘going hard’ against anything in his way works again…..
Even if he bends the rules that we others have to worry about….
So could say?
Mueller and Rosenstein choked…..
And the new Attorney General seems to have followed his feelings all along….
That the probe was bogus in the first place….
The Office of the Presidency survives with arrests at it doors and occupant with dirty hands….
Barr says that the President may have acted to obstruct justice, but that for an obstruction conviction, “the government would need to proved beyond a reasonable doubt that a person, acting with corrupt intent, engaged in obstructive conduct”.
…
But Special Counsel Mueller clearly and explicitly is not exonerating the President, and we must hear from AG Barr about his decision making and see all the underlying evidence for the American people to know all the facts.
twitter….
image…esquire
The Mueller throw down is generating even more questions then I have….
Garrett Graff: “Whatever happened to the extensive testimony Mueller sought and cooperation of would-be Middle Eastern power broker George Nader, dealing with questions of foreign influence related to the Middle East? What did Mueller mean with the various breadcrumbs he left scattered throughout his hundreds of pages of court filings, like how he appeared to single out that Russian hackers attacked Hillary Clinton’s email server ‘for the first time’ after Trump made his ‘Russia, if you’re listening’ comment? Was there any significance to the arrest of Russian spy Maria Butina and her ties to the National Rifle Association, which Mueller also appeared to be probing, or was that case totally unrelated?”
“What was Mueller’s interest in the political data firm Cambridge Analytica, which worked during the 2016 campaign with Trump’s then digital media director (and now 2020 reelection campaign director) Brad Parscale? What was the truth behind the efforts of Michael Flynn associate Peter Smith—who apparently committed suicide in the early days of Mueller’s probe—to contact Russian hackers during the campaign? Why was presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner trying to set up a secure communications backchannel with the Russian government that couldn’t be heard by U.S. intelligence?”
Philip Bump: “Why… wasn’t conservative author Jerome Corsi charged by Mueller’s team after being offered a plea agreement? … What happened when former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort gave poll data to Konstantin Kilimnik, who was believed to have links to Russian intelligence, an issue that in February a Mueller attorney described as getting at the heart of the Mueller probe? … Who were the Trump campaign staffers who were contacted by Russians working for the Internet Research Agency? Who was the Florida congressional candidate who sought and received hacked information about his or her opponent? Who was the senior Trump campaign official who asked Roger Stone to reach out to WikiLeaks after the initial document releases in July 2016 — and who told him to make that outreach?”
Politicalwire…
It appears that Barr was told about the report a week ago…..
Notified that Mueller would NOT give a conclusion on the obstruction question….
Barr has walked that ahead….
Check the one week time line….
Barr was notified THREE WEEKS ago that Mueller would NOT pass judgement on an obstruction charge….
Mueller told Rosenstein and Barr that he HAD arguments AGAINST and FOR an obstruction charge….
There have been numerous lawyers on the TV that are challenging Mueller’s holding back on legal grounds….