Mueller Report 'Summary' Delivered to US Congress (cnn.com) 794
America's recently-appointed Attorney General William Barr has submitted to Congress his summary of the main conclusions from special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, CNN reports.
"While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him," special counsel Robert Mueller says, as quoted in Barr's summary.
It does, however, reiterate that there was clear Russian interference in America's 2016 election: The Special Counsel's investigation determined that there were two main Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election. The first involved attempts by a Russian organization, the Internet Research Agency, to conduct disinformation and social media operations in the United States designed to sow social discord, eventually with the aim of interfering with the election.... The second element involved the Russian government's efforts to conduct computer hacking operations designed to gather and disseminate information to influence the election. The Special Counsel found that Russian government actors successfully hacked into computers and obtained emails from persons affiliated with the Clinton campaign and Democratic Party organizations, and publicly disseminated those materials through various intermediaries, including WikiLeaks.
Based on these activities, the Special Counsel brought criminal charges against a number of Russian military officers for conspiring to hack into computers in the United States for purposes of influencing the election.
Barr also writes that the report leaves it to him to determine whether president Trump is guilty of obstructing justice, then adds "I have concluded that the evidence...is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense."
CNN has the complete text of the four-page summary. Barr's letter concludes by saying he's still "determining what can be released."
"While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him," special counsel Robert Mueller says, as quoted in Barr's summary.
It does, however, reiterate that there was clear Russian interference in America's 2016 election: The Special Counsel's investigation determined that there were two main Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election. The first involved attempts by a Russian organization, the Internet Research Agency, to conduct disinformation and social media operations in the United States designed to sow social discord, eventually with the aim of interfering with the election.... The second element involved the Russian government's efforts to conduct computer hacking operations designed to gather and disseminate information to influence the election. The Special Counsel found that Russian government actors successfully hacked into computers and obtained emails from persons affiliated with the Clinton campaign and Democratic Party organizations, and publicly disseminated those materials through various intermediaries, including WikiLeaks.
Based on these activities, the Special Counsel brought criminal charges against a number of Russian military officers for conspiring to hack into computers in the United States for purposes of influencing the election.
Barr also writes that the report leaves it to him to determine whether president Trump is guilty of obstructing justice, then adds "I have concluded that the evidence...is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense."
CNN has the complete text of the four-page summary. Barr's letter concludes by saying he's still "determining what can be released."
Quick, Move Them!! (Score:4, Insightful)
"While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him
"While the ball did not go through the goal posts, it clearly would have if the goal posts had been somewhere else instead."
Re:Quick, Move Them!! (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think you read it in context. That quote is specific to the charge of obstruction of justice, and the report says that Mueller gathered up the facts and declined to evaluate whether the activity constituted a crime. That's the context of "While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him."
The implication is that the President did things which are debatably criminal, but Mueller felt there were enough legal/constitutional issues that it was proper to have the AG decide whether those actions constituted a crime. We can't be sure why that is without having seen the report, but we could guess:
There's been an ongoing debate because the President explicitly stated that he fired Comey to stop the Russian investigation, which is, in non-legal terms, obstructing an ongoing criminal investigation. On the other side, there have been variations of the Nixonian argument that "when the President does it, it's not illegal." Attempting to charge the President in this case would almost certainly go to the Supreme Court and create a bit of a constitutional crisis, and Mueller seems to have decided that it was simply "above his pay grade" as the special counsel, and a decision the AG should make.
It's also noteworthy that the AG decided not to prosecute on the grounds that it was a question of corrupt intent, and the President's intent couldn't be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
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Attempting to charge the President in this case would almost certainly go to the Supreme Court and create a bit of a constitutional crisis
It's not really a crisis, it's a detail that would need to be decided, and following procedure the supreme court would decide it.
Re:Quick, Move Them!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you have any evidence for any of this, that Steele was a known foreign agent at the time, or the Clinton hired him to fabricate the dossier, as opposed to researching it?
Nope, not a crime (Score:3, Insightful)
yes, it's a crime despite
Given that Mueller spent two years and tens of millions of dollars checking on things like that with no resulting charges against anyone, the entire U.S. government (including a bevy of Democratic lawyers who fervently hate Trump) very obviously agrees it's not a crime.
You've going to have to come up with something better than a "townhall.com" link yourself, since the evidence YOU posted was (A) Jack and (B) Squat, hey emphasis on the "Jack" since you obviously spent the last two
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Ummm...? Obama had affairs with multiple pornstars? Paid them off to keep it secret within weeks of his election? Got others - his own company and a friendly 'news' outlet to make the payments for him and disguise them as legitimate expenses?
Wow, how did I never hear of any of that? I guess I don't watch Fox enough. Or would I have to have delved even deeper into the alternative universe to get that info?
Re: (Score:2)
Anti globalist sounds very pro common man to me.
Did you really want Clinton selling out to big tech firms?
Fancy the idea of training your replacement that is willing to take â..." your salary?
So you are basically arguing, by bringing Clinton into this, that if Clinton is entitled to commit crimes it's OK for Trump to commit crimes too? Wasn't Trump supposed to drain the swamp?
And two years of investigations found none of it? (Score:3, Insightful)
> it's more like there's a couple hundred different posts.
> There's campaign finance. There's tax evasion (lots and lots of that).
Yeah there are thousands of different crimes defined by law, thousands of laws. Hundreds that Mueller's team and other investigators looked for. Over two years of investigations found clear evidence that Trump commited how many of the hundreds of different things Dems wish they could charge him with? Zero.
I don't think the conclusion which your post indicates is the one y
Re:And two years of investigations found none of i (Score:5, Funny)
Trump is very clearly a jackass, though.
That's the other party. Trump is a pachyderm.
Some numbers re investigating the asshole (Score:5, Insightful)
You mentioned "hundreds of crimes" they looked for.
Here are some more numbers.
Nineteen attorneys and 50 FBI agents "issued more than 2,800 subpoenas, executed nearly 500 search warrants, obtained more than 230 orders for communication records, issued almost 50 orders authorizing use of pen registers, made 13 requests to foreign governments for evidence, and interviewed approximately 500 witnesses".
All that and they found nothing he hasn't posted to Twitter. Why? I have a theory.
Let's compare some other investigations.
Investigating Bill Clinton turned up Gennifer Flowers, Jaunita Broderick, Leslie Millwee, Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, etc. In short, it revealed he's a serial sexual predator and that was the bombshell.
Investigating Gary Hart turned up Donna Rice. Bombshell, Gary Hart was a womanizer.
With enough investigation might we find that Trump, too, likes to "grab em by the pussy"? We knew that before the election. He doesn't make any effort to paint himself as the all American boy, a good boy. His jackass is on full display for everyone to see and he likes it that way. Perhaps, investigating Trump reveals that he's exactly the asshole he portrays on Twitter.
Good point. Still, Clinton denied it (Score:3)
That true, Flowers came forward on her own.
My point was that Clinton tried to deny it. Even after the tapes were played on national television. Over and over, for decades, various women accused him of sexual assault, sexual harassment, and other similar behavior, and Bill always put on that smile and tried to play completely innocent.
Trump doesn't hide that he's - what the word? A bit of a perv? He and Bill Clinton would get along together well, especially in the company of some Colombian prostitutes. Cli
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
We saw the King on television obstructing justice on a nightly basis.
If we did maybe you should have brought that to the attention of the Muller team. You could have been a star with that kind of evidence. Oh wait. There is a problem with this. We didn't see Trump on television obstructing justice in any way.
We have been enduring the Muller farce for the last 2 years. All that time Democrats have been screaming to protect it and 'wait for the Muller report to be released.' Well it has been released and just because the out come doesn't match your warped view of rea
Re:Some numbers re investigating the asshole (Score:5, Insightful)
Is Trump Derangement Syndrome when you lie and believe it? Or when you lie and expect people to ignore it?
Plenty of examples in this article: https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
You're confusing Muller not having access to information with, as I said, the King's Man being willing to prosecute it.
The report has not been released.
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TDS is what you have. It's when you refuse to accept reality. Repeat after me. There was no Russian Collusion. There was no obstruction of justice. Trump won in 2016, Hillary lost.
Now repeat this every morning if you are a US citizen. "Trump is my president. Nothing I can say or do will change that. Trump is my president an I accept that. "
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The point is that the report doesn't say what Trump supporters (including you, apparently) says it says. It explicitly says it does not exonerate Trump - just that Barr thinks there's no basis to prosecute. Big surprise, since he made his position clear before being nominated as A.G.
By the way, Comey did exonerate Hillary on the email thing. Something like "no prosecutor in his right mind would bring charges". He also breached protocol in a major way by condemning her - and releasing a ton of documentat
Mueller would be very surprised to hear that (Score:3, Insightful)
You're claiming Muller didn't investigate Cohen and dig evidence related to the crimes for which he was charged, and hand that evidence over to prosecutors like any investigator does? Muller would be very surprised to hear that! Muller would also be guilty of perjury if that were so, since he submitted sentencing recommendation for Cohe to the court, and in it made statements to the court about him investigating the crimes Cohen was charged with.
Here's the government's sentencing recommendation for Cohen.
Re:Mueller would be very surprised to hear that (Score:4, Insightful)
Mueller got a guilty plea from Cohen about lying about the Moscow project, which was a matter within the special's mandate given to him by Deputy AG Rosenstein. Mueller did not get the guilty plea from Cohen about the other financial and campaign finance crimes, that was the SDNY portion of the Department of Justice (who was less considerably less thrilled with Cohen's level of cooperation than the special counsel was). The investigators obviously shared evidence obtained by the FBI, but the parts of the criminal investigations outside of Mueller's mandate were handed off to the other more permanent law enforcement agencies, and those are pretty clearly not resolved by the conclusion of the special counsel investigation.
This is in contrast to the old post-Watergate independent counsel law that Ken Starr and the like operated under, which had way more latitude in what they went after.
Re:"any matters that arise", "any federal crime" (Score:5, Interesting)
There was a more specific classified order that outlined what in particular Muller was supposed to investigate that was released in partially redacted form during Manafort's trial, here: The Scope of Investigation and Definition of Authority [google.com]
Mueller was ordered to handle particular investigations in that classified memo, including the Manafort business, and could ask to expand his probe in request to the acting AG Rosenstein.
Barr's report said that there was never a case where the DoJ overruled the special counsel on prosecutorial orders, so presumably Mueller and Rosenstein (and perhaps subsequently Whitaker and Barr as well) agreed to the scope of the investigation and investigations and prosecutions on unrelated matters were handed off to other authorities.
Which is the point I'm trying to make that you seem to have trouble with: Mueller was only investigating a limited set of matters, and if he expanded his scope at all it was also in a limited manner made in consultation with DoJ. The other stuff, like Cohen's financial chicanery and the campaign finance crimes and whatever else were handed off to other authorities.
Despite the picture that Trump was painting as this being an open ended witch hunt looking at anything and everything to bring him down, it very much was not. Which is both good and bad for him, good since he has nothing more to worry about from Mueller prosecuting him or more of his associates and only has to worry about what he has already collected and put in his report, bad in that any other issues that were outside Mueller's scope are distinctly unresolved by the closure of the special counsel's investigation as well as any potential political fallout that occurs when more details are released.
Welp, looks like a big old nothing burger (Score:4, Insightful)
He doesn't seem to be involved at all in day to day governing let alone campaigning. He's a figurehead. It becomes obvious when he has to interact with world leaders. In that case he can't just hand it off to folks really in charge since it's expected to be him. The most telling example was that phone call with Turkey where he got talked into pulling out of Syria. He backed down on the pledge as soon as his handlers got ahold of him again.
He's still openly flaunting the emoluments clause. And that bit with Deutsche bank where they loaned him $2 billion but there's an email chain showing he likely couldn't pay it back stinks to high heaven. That said it looks like nobody cares enough to bother with those. A few attorney generals will sue but I don't think anything'll come of it. Ultimately, we here don't spill the blood of kings.
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A nothingburger? You should tell the 8 people in jail that they were jailed over nothing. I'm sure they'll be happy to know.
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They already know. Some like Papadopoulos and Flynt were really jailed for nothing. Manafort at least committed tax fraud, but he did nothing related to collusion claims.
there is even someone at the wapo willing to say that the whole Mueller enterprise was a massive failure , with press complicitness
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]?
Meanwhile you're still clutching at straws.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Oh, he's done stuff. He's certainly committed crimes. This report was specifically addressing two questions:
1) Did Trump actively and knowingly conspire with the Russians to hack Hillary's emails in a way that constitutes a specific crime? The short answer here was, "We didn't find enough evidence to charge him with a crime."
2) Did Trump technically commit the crime of obstruction of justice? The short answer here was, "He at least kind of did, but it's a difficult legal question and I'll leave it to
I agree there's still a lot there (Score:2)
On the plus side if Pelosi does her job right it'll keep Trump's administration busy and keep him from doing any more harm until 2020.
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Gridlock is always good, it was great in '10.
What's going to stop Trump after 2020?
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They wouldn't turn on him if he fucked Ronald Reagan's corpse with an American flag while wearing a black lives matter t-shirt.
Everyone's a loser (Score:5, Insightful)
From Barr's summary: "The Special Counsel states that 'while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him'"
Now picture Homer Simpson watching that soccer game: "A tie? Everyone's a loser".
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this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him
Subsequently it also says the decision of whether to pursue obstruction is, therefore, left to the AG and the AG has declined.
It's over. Accept it.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Your response is interesting to me, because when I made this comment on reddit [reddit.com], they assumed I was pro-Trump and downvoted accordingly.
As somebody who isn't particularly fond of the president, but also not fond of the condescending attitudes from the Democrats, I may stand in an unusual position here--destined to be taken the wrong way by the vast majority who appear to be more polarized.
But surely, SURELY you must be rooting hard for one team or the other? No, and stop calling me Shirley.
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Yeah, keep knocking back MSNBC kool-aid.
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From Barr's summary: "The Special Counsel states that 'while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him'"
Now picture Homer Simpson watching that soccer game: "A tie? Everyone's a loser".
Just like when court concludes one's not guilty.
It doesn't mean the person under trial is innocent.
It just means that the evidence submitted wasn't enough to convict. The fella is then "let off the hook."
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Now picture Homer Simpson watching that soccer game: "A tie? Everyone's a loser".
You will be surprised when Trump declares complete victory then.
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Now picture Homer Simpson watching that soccer game: "A tie? Everyone's a loser".
You will be surprised when Trump declares complete victory then.
I don't think anyone will be surprised when he does.
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You will be surprised when Trump declares complete victory then.
Not really, he would have declared that, even if he were in handcuffs going to jail for life.
Report actually goes beyond a lack of collusion (Score:5, Informative)
The report actually goes beyond a lack of collusion. it did not find that Trump's campaign or affiliates conspired or coordinated with the Russian government "despite multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign." Implication is that Russia offered but was turned away.
Also specifically states that the decision not to seek indictments was done "without regard to" the constitutional considerations that surround the indictment and criminal prosecution of a sitting President.
Re:Report actually goes beyond a lack of collusion (Score:5, Informative)
Unless you somehow have access to Mueller's report, you cannot tell us the specifics of what it does or does not find.
What you are responding to is Attorney General Barr's summary. Given that Barr is a member of the Republican Party, a Trump Appointee and someone who has been notably critical of Mueller's investigation, can he really be trusted to write an unbiased summary?
Release the actual report and we will see the specifics.
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The report actually goes beyond a lack of collusion. it did not find that Trump's campaign or affiliates conspired or coordinated with the Russian government "despite multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign." Implication is that Russia offered but was turned away.
If all the offers of help were turned down then how did George Papadopoulos know that Russia had stolen DNC emails before Wikileaks had dumped them?
If everyone from Trump's campaign turned away Russian offers of help then how do you describe Carter Pager running around Russia trying to make contacts?
And if no one from Trump's campaign coordinated with the Russian government then why was his campaign chair sending internal polling data to Ukrainian oligarchs with connections to Russian intelligence?
Barr's su
This is news for nerds?? (Score:2, Insightful)
There are plenty of other places people can go to argue about this kind of stuff.
Re: (Score:3)
Yes. Political nerds are a kind of nerd too. The story has been up for only a short time and it has over 100 posts so it's clearly the thing a large portion of this site is interested in.
If this is unexpected for you maybe you should find another site to suit your more particular tastes.
What can be released? (Score:5, Insightful)
All of it. Seriously, what business do governments have, keeping secrets from the citizens who create them? With very few exceptions, no secrets should be allowed. They are our employees.
Obviously, there is a problem with most governments...
All kinds of BS all around (Score:4, Informative)
What came out after Comey was fired was that:
1. Comey had called up Preibus out of the blue, told him that the Russia-gate stuff being reported in the press about the FBI was nonsense. Preibus then asks if Comey can make a clarifying statement to the press to that effect. Comey says no, AND leaks to the press that he was being pressured by Preibus. Despite having been the one to initiate the conversation and bait Preibus into the ask. Classy.
2. Comey starts leaking his "memos" to the press via his law professor friend with the explicit and expressed purpose of getting a special counsel appointed to probe his firing. Despite some of those memos technically being classified by virtue of the fact that they described a conversation between Trump and Comey acting in their capacities as POTUS and FBI head, respectively and talking over classified matters (because counter-intelligence?). Classy.
3. Turns out that a number of people plead guilty and went to jail for far less than what Hillary was being accused of, but Comey pretty much says he quashed it because of political considerations. Classy.
So now we have the report of the special counsel, who was appointed to probe whether Trump obstructed justice by firing Comey...coming up completely empty on the question of whether a crime even occurred for Trump to have been covering up and absolutely declining to make a decision on whether obstruction occurred. Read that again: the thing he was mandated to investigate...he makes no determination of. Despite failing to find evidence that a crime even occurred.
But it gets better. Since Mueller declined to make a determination to either incriminate or exonerate Trump...it fell to Attorney General Barr to evaluate the evidence and make the call. Except Barr says he consulted with Rosenstein. The same exact Rosenstein who signed off on the memo to justify firing Comey to begin with. So Rosenstein's coming out of this smelling like a rose too: he appoints the special counsel to investigate whether the justification he wrote for firing Comey was actually part of an act of obstruction of justice...and now at the end he gets to make the decision on whether or not the thing he had his name all over constituted a crime.
Yeesh.
Never mind the Pee Dossier, never mind the trickle of less than flattering information about Peter Strzok and Andrew McCabe and Evelyn Farkas and Brennan and Clapper the rest of them trying to tip the scales and leak shit to the press and out-and-out try to bait Trump officials into perjuring themselves. The basic fact is that the assistant AG wrote a memo justifying the firing an FBI head who clearly had it coming to him...then appointing a special counsel to investigate himself...and then declaring himself to have not taken part of a crime. Lovely.
Kids...if you're reading...this is not what accountable government looks like. In fact, this is what an out-of-control Deep State looks like: all court intrigue and a colossal circle-jerk for the purpose of...what for all the world looks like...generating a smoke screen in the press to divert attention away from wrong-doing by the very people claiming the mantle of Protectors of the Republic(TM).
there was clear Russian interference (Score:2, Insightful)
Bullshit! Buying ads and posting on social media is not "interference". You gotta prove they hacked the machines and fudged the count.
If you want to see interference, look at what the DNC did to Sanders
Re: (Score:2)
Look at the 13 indicted Russians.
but... (Score:2)
But, but Hillary's emails!
Russian interference in the election (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is, asking people riding the subway how often they use the subway introduces two selection biases. (1) It eliminates everyone who doesn't use the subway from your sample. And (2) people who ride the subway more often are more likely to be encountered in your polling (you're 10x as likely to randomly encounter someone who rides 10 hours a week as you are someone who rides 1 hour a week), skewing your polling data high. To properly measure subway ridership, you have to do a random sample orthogonal to subway use, which means asking random people in public places was the proper way to do it. A random telephone poll would probably have been best.
Similarly when you target one specific country for investigation, you're introducing a sampling bias. If you accuse a restaurant of being infested with roaches, and that prompts an investigation that finds roaches in the restaurant, that doesn't prove your accusation. All that proves is that the restaurant has roaches, not that it is "infested." Other restaurants may have roaches too. In fact, for all you know, the restaurant you accused may actually be the cleanest building in the city, and even your own house has more roaches than that restaurant. But by limiting the investigation to just that one restaurant, you can misleadingly create the impression that your accusation that the restaurant is infested with roaches is true.
Over and over, I saw this sampling bias being abused by those wishing to push the Russian interference story. e.g. Google and Facebook reported they searched their 2016 records for ads purchased by Russian agents, and found some. But in order for that to mean anything, they should have also searched for ads purchased by anyone else, and compared. I suspect if they had, they would've found attempted interference by China, by the EU, by Mexico, by Canada, by Anonymous, etc. The magnitude of the "Russian interference" (a few dozen to a few hundred people, and around six dollar figures in magnitude ) makes me suspect all these investigations found was the random noise that just happens everywhere all the time.
I didn't vote for Trump and I think is Presidency has been a travesty. But I think the abuse of statistics and manipulation of facts through selection bias by the media and those pushing this story is an even bigger travesty. If you really, truly believe that those few Russians managed to affect the outcome of the election using that little money, then every politician would be tripping over themselves to hire those guys. The amount of money spent in that election was staggering - tens to hundreds of dollars per vote [wtop.com]. Trump actually spent close to the lowest at $5 per vote. Yet these people pushing this Russian interference angle somehow believe that these Russians were able to affect the election for pennies per vote.
If this report had found that the Russians had spent tens or hundreds of dollars per vote to interfere with the election, then I'd agree there was something worrying going on. But the amount of interference I've seen reported seems more like just the normal noise that comes from normal people from the sketchy side of the population's bell curve doing their normal sketchy things.
The intent of the IRA was to "sow discord" (Score:3)
(Note: IRA = "Internet Research Agency")
To that end the hysterical reaction to Trump did more for them than Trump himself could have ever done. Also most damaging are identity politics and its polarizing effects. Some of the IRAs (still can't get over that acronym) trolling explicitly took extreme positions in identity politics or used misleading/false information to incite identity subgroups, a good example of this is the expert trolling by "LGBT United":
https://medium.com/@sue.donym1... [medium.com]
Note that these actions are not partisan to the "left" or the "right", the intent is to weaken the USA as a whole, to make them less effective in the international arena, to weaken their president and to bog him (or her) down with whatever serves that purpose.
They needn't have bothered though, because others did their work for them. It is highly questionable that this "Troll factory" with its lean funds really made any change to the bigger picture. Most of the hysterical reaction to Trump, the campaigning for his impeachment by whatever means as well as the extremist identity politics were genuine and didn't need any outside "nudging".
Re:Trump's campaign manager and personal lawyer... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, Manafort and Cohen both been convicted of cheating on their taxes in cases unconnected to Trump and his campaign.
As for the rest, here, directly from the report:
and
and this
Wow! That's the exact opposite of what you said! There was no underlying crime of "collusion" or "conspiracy", AND there was no evidence that Trump attempted to obstruct any investigation even if there had been one.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Actually, Manafort and Cohen both been convicted of cheating on their taxes in cases unconnected to Trump and his campaign.
Cohen was convicted of making an excessive contribution to the Trump campaign, "for the principle purpose of influencing the election," at the request of Individual 1.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Trump's campaign manager and personal lawyer... (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, Manafort and Cohen both been convicted of cheating on their taxes in cases unconnected to Trump and his campaign.
Cohen was convicted of making an excessive contribution to the Trump campaign, "for the principle purpose of influencing the election," at the request of Individual 1.
No, Cohen ADMITTED to this, he was not tried in court. He entered into a Plea bargain deal, he wasn't convicted in court so nobody had to prove he violated campaign finance law. I know there is little practical difference for Cohen, but there IS a difference here.
Further, the "Russian Collusion" angel has nothing at all to do with Cohen and the campaign finance charges taken up by the Southern District of NY.
Cohen also plead guilty to tax evasion charges. And a plea bargain is technically a conviction. Yes they didn't have to prove it in court, the evidence was so overwhelming that Cohen would have been a fool to go to trial.
And the tax charges were ALSO brought by the SDNY.
See the AC was trying to claim "Cohen's crimes had nothing to do with the campaign", which people called BS because Cohen was convicted of a campaign finance violation.
So you tried moving the goal posts by claiming that this is a discussion of the Mueller investigation. But then the AC's statement makes no sense because they're referring to tax crimes which happened the SDNY. The only charges that Cohen was convicted from Mueller's office was lying to congress... about the campaign.
This is just some rhetorical game to make people think that when they hear of "Cohen's crimes" they somehow think it has nothing to do with the campaign. Unfortunately for you the meaningless distinctions that would usually help to confuse people don't actually apply here.
Re: (Score:3)
RIght,
Cohen took a plea. Cohen is a guy with his hands in many of cookie jar by all appearances and its likely he was threatened with being charged with much much worse. The same way a boarder line DUI offender might plea to equipment failure to account for their weaving. That sort of thing happens literally every day.
The John Edwards case casts a WHOLE HECK OF A LOT OF DOUBT on if payments to Clifford's would ultimately be determined by a court to constitute a campaign contribution or not. If Trump wer
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, Manafort and Cohen both been convicted of cheating on their taxes in cases unconnected to Trump and his campaign.
Cohen was ALSO convicted of campaign finance violations [wikipedia.org]. And lying to congress (about the campaign).
Though to my knowledge you are correct that Manafort's convictions were unrelated to Trump's campaign.
Wow! That's the exact opposite of what you said! There was no underlying crime of "collusion" or "conspiracy", AND there was no evidence that Trump attempted to obstruct any investigation even if there had been one.
Actually, except for the Manafort bit, the AC was fairly on-base your counter is either irrelevant or overblown.
The AC didn't claim collusion, he claimed that Trump encouraged Russian attacks on TV, which is true [youtube.com].
As for the obstruction charge, there's definitely evidence [youtube.com]. What Mueller basically said is that h
Re: Trump's campaign manager and personal lawyer.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Evidence can be (if the case was a murder trial.) you were angry at the person murdered, you made a call to the person in the week before they were murdered and there was an argument that was witnessed between you and them.
Evidence is far from proof and it does not mean he committed a crime.
I wondered if I will get modded down for such a factual unbiased post.
Re: Trump's campaign manager and personal lawyer.. (Score:5, Insightful)
There is evidence, but someone decided it wasn't enough to convict the president.
You keep consoling yourself with that delusion sweetheart
I'd like to take this moment to point out that the president has not in fact been convicted of anything. Reality may not agree with your feelings, but it's still reality.
Re: (Score:2)
Correction: Cohen was not convicted -- he pleaded guilty. Thanks to others in this thread who pointed that out.
Re:Trump's campaign manager and personal lawyer... (Score:5, Insightful)
His businesses have been performing less since he has been in office
It's not since he's been in office. His businesses have always not performed. Back in the 80s, he floated his company on the public market (i.e stock exchange). For the ten years he personally ran that company, it never turned a profit even though at the exact same time, everyone around him was making money hand over fist. However, while this was happening, he bled his casinos dry and was proud of it. [nytimes.com]
In fact, a careful investigation of his businesses show they either fail outright (over one dozen and counting), or simply never turn a profit. Look at his golf courses in Scotland and Ireland. To date, none of them has earned money for him. The have lost money year after year. Even more interesting is he is pouring tens of millions more into his Scotland courses using cash, but no one knows where that cash if coming from since he is already so highly in debt.
Here's something else to consider. Several court cases have held the purpose of a business it to make a profit. Yet, none of the con artist's businesses turn a profit. One has to wonder if the investigations (yes, plural) by the Southern District of New York will find anything about his interesting note.
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> Trump encouraged Russian attacks on America on TV.
Hillary's famous email server that was run out of the bathroom of someone's private residence. I remember Trump joking that since those emails were seemingly lost. That the entire US government had lost access to the records of Hillary's stint as Secretary of State, and only had what she voluntarily turned over before illegally wiping the server, then perhaps the Russians should release them, since they likely had full copies of everything that had be
Re:Trump's campaign manager and personal lawyer... (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, Trump's campaign manager, son, and son-in-law met with an agent of the Russian government for the purpose of coordinating campaign assistance. I can believe that there isn't enough evidence of a specific crime to charge them with anything, but it's still collusion and it should still be an enormous scandal.
So.. That's the point here. Mueller clearly investigated this "evidence" and found nothing that showed that there was any behind the scenes coordination between Trump's campaign and Russians. This was Bob Mueller's focus, his mandate, the whole purpose of his efforts. So He didn't find that this meeting was what many have claimed for the last 2 years.
In short, Mueller doesn't agree. Mueller is saying this meeting wasn't Trump and the Russians coordinating their campaign efforts. The Trump Tower meeting is apparently not evidence of what you've been told.
Re:Trump's campaign manager and personal lawyer... (Score:5, Insightful)
But we have the AG's summary.
Which is inadequate. We need to see the full report. And congress agreed unanimously. [nytimes.com]
It's pretty clear from the summary, nobody in Trump's campaign was colluding with the Russians. This clearly includes the Trump Tower meeting.
Then why did Trump and his associates keep lying about it? That certainly didn't help him look innocent.
I'll accept what Mueller found out. But we need to see the full report.
I suppose you could invent a wild conspiracy theory to explain Mueller's report... After all it seems this whole thing was based on a conspiracy theory, so why not go whole hog?
Trump has himself to blame for the conspiracy theories. See above.
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Deferred to the AG on the subject of obstruction, not collusion. The collusion angle is stated flat out - there was none.
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The Clinton campaign did the same thing [telegraph.co.uk]. The difference is, we've had 2 years of investigation into the Trump campaign and it was found to not be collusion. Shall we now do the same with the Clinton campaign and the DNC, who financed the dossier [washingtonpost.com] which was written by a foreigner, with Russian influences, to damage their opponent? Or is that not collusion?
Eh, no, It was the Republicans who commissioned the 'dossier', the Democrats just picked up where the Republican left off after they decoded Trump was their new god emperor.
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Eh, no, It was the Republicans who commissioned the 'dossier', the Democrats just picked up where the Republican left off after they decoded Trump was their new god emperor.
No, that is not correct. It was started by the Free Beacon, but then dropped. It was not funded by the GOP [politico.com]. However, we do have the Clinton campaign and the DNC paying Fusion GPS [forbes.com]. So no - you're wrong. The GOP did NOT commission the dossier. That's a lie. The Democrats own that one - and like most things, they want to get rid of their connection - so they lie about it.
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On the other hand, if a campaign co-ordinates with foreigners to engage in activities aimed at influencing an election (such as, oh say, hacking your opponent's email servers) then that is collusion.
Yeah, but Mueller stated, and Barr reported, that they found NO evidence (zip, nada, zilch) evidence that anyone in the Trump campaign ever coordinated anything with the Russians, despite the Russian's repeated explicit attempts to do just that.
And if a foreign government handed a campaign unsolicited information about its opponent, then that would be an illegal campaign contribution
But if you pay for the information from the same foreign government it's OK?
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You asked rhetorically whether hiring a foreigner to do research was collusion. It is not. And the FEC link you provided is silent on this matter. There is a mention of volunteer work by foreigners, but the context pertains to unsolicited volunteer work by a foreigner that might otherwise be considered a contribution. When a foreigner's activities cross the threshold of participating in the decision-making of the campaign, then it's a violation.
As for your original comment on both campaigns meeting with a f
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Then why didn't they leak that dossier before the election? You know, when it would have actually been useful.
Used for what? To make news? Because the story would read like this:
"Someone you never heard of has just given us a file containing a bunch of innuendo and amazing claims with no supporting facts. It's about one of the Presidential candidates. That candidate has denied the allegations in the file."
Soo.... you claim that the dossier, that has generated massive news coverage, wasn't leaked because the press would find it uninteresting???
To which I repeat the question... why write a fake dossier to win an election if you're not going to leak it?
Funny how none of the Trumpists can never answer that iceberg sized plot hole.
Funny how you guys make up stories and decide to believe they're true, and then when they are proven false, you just make up new stories. The real world and what really occurs never seem to matter.
In other words your "fake dossier" narrative is so weak you didn't even bothering to make a story.
Now here's my story. The dossier was a legitimate and entirely normal attempt at opposition research, performed by a former intelligence official. The campaigns who
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Re:Trump's campaign manager and personal lawyer... (Score:4, Interesting)
Sigh, I'm so sick of whataboutism and fake controversies from the trumpkins. At least they've stopped saying nuclear material was physically transported from Canada/US to Russia. That's progress I guess. Like, a 'getting your kid to stop eating the boogers but not the public nose picking itself" level of progress.
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Re: Seek help for emotional stress you will fact (Score:4, Insightful)
If you purjor yourself while having a conversation about your alleged collusion, chances pretty good you were colluling. At the very least you did something worse than purjor yourself.
The cognitive dissonance you get to see over this is fascinating.
Re: Seek help for emotional stress you will fact (Score:4, Insightful)
It's like those people who say Hillary committed a crime (email server) yet all those lawyers and agents at the FBI said otherwise.
It's almost as if those people know what they're doing and do it without regard for who is being investigated.
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So it's like the current case where there is evidence of obstruction of justice, but not enough for a prosecution.
Got it. Same thing. Evidence of a crime but the prosecutors chose not to prosecute.
Re:The real question (Score:5, Insightful)
The real question is why did our president just have a Twitter fight with a dead man?
Because it's only now that they're intellectual equals?
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The real question is why did our president just have a Twitter fight with a dead man?
Because it's only now that they're intellectual equals?
Listen, he spends his weekend obsessing over great men because he knows it, and I know it, and all of you know it: he will never be a great man [...] My father was his kryptonite in life, he was his kryptonite in death. On a personal level, I agree with you, all of us have love and families, and when my father was alive, up until adulthood, we would spend our time together cooking, hiking, fishing, really celebrating life, and I think it's because he almost died [...] And I just thought, 'your life is spen
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The real question is why did our president just have a Twitter fight with a dead man?
Because he thought he'd finally be able to win an argument with him.
He was wrong.
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The real question is why did our president just have a Twitter fight with a dead man?
I think George Conway has you covered on that subject: https://twitter.com/gtconway3d... [twitter.com]
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They simply determine whether the evidence indicates a person committed a crime or not.
Not quite. They determine whether there's enough evidence to punish someone for having committed a crime. The evidence might still indicate that they've committed a crime, but there might not be enough of it.
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The evidence might still indicate that they've committed a crime, but there might not be enough of it.
This is not a "shades of grey" issue. Either a crime was committed or not. If there is sufficient evidence to support a criminal conviction then a crime was committed. Anything short of that constitutes "not a crime."
You're getting into a very dangerous area when you want to classify people as "criminal but without sufficient evidence to support the claim." This is a nation of laws, not a mob. How would you respond if someone called you a criminal in a public forum with intent of destroying your charact
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They simply determine whether the evidence indicates a person committed a crime or not.
Not quite. They determine whether there's enough evidence to punish someone for having committed a crime. The evidence might still indicate that they've committed a crime, but there might not be enough of it.
For crimes.. You need enough evidence to prove "Beyond a reasonable doubt" to convict of a crime.
For Civil law, it's "most likely"
Which is why Criminal Juries must be unanimous and why civil juries are majority rule.
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it's always a gamble. but prosecutors aren't in the business of not prosecuting people. so saying there's not enough evidence is a pretty good indication of innocence.
No, it just means the prosecutor doesn't think there is enough evidence to obtain a conviction. Prosecutors are not in the business of prosecuting when it appears unlikely they will win.
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After all, courts never truly exonerate people. They simply determine whether the evidence indicates a person committed a crime or not.
They don't deal in "innocence".
Which is why the "innocent until proven guilty" concept is an important part of our justice system.
You cannot prove a negative...
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Schadenfreude.
Yes and no (Score:2, Insightful)
Trump's supporters seem willing to excuse anything in exchange for what he gives them. I don't think it's going to turn out to be worth it, but to be blunt a lot of the folks voting for him are older and, well, they'll be dead before the problems he's causing come home to roost. Doesn't help that the right wing of the Democratic party has pretty much abandoned working c
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The right wing Dems were counting on this to shut Trump down so they could put Biden or Beto in office. The effect would have been the same as Trump without the pointless trade wars. It'll be harder to do that now. Hopefully that means we get a populist like Bernie or Warren who will make actual, positive changes.
Interesting analysis.
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Re: "Summary"? (Score:3, Insightful)
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Trump (not the Republicans) win because the Democrats ignored the "little people" on their quest for "progression". You know, the "little people" that work and pay taxes and wonder what the hell is it in for them? The Democrats don't even pay them lip service anymore. And no, I'm not a Republican or a Trump fan. But Hillary was a "progressive" idiot. And her husband was a shyster who should be selling used cars somewhere.
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"Probe finds no proof of Trump campaign collusion with Russia, no conclusion on obstruction: Barr letter"
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Prosecutors _never_ exonerate. There are no votes in exonerations.
That line was just a parting shot from Mueller.
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The report was delivered as a PDF.
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Come and see the victim of a 'slow grift'. He's internalized the bullshit ('certainly not a con man'), ready to be harvested.
You believed some small lie, decades ago, it's come to this.
If you had seen 'OT3' on day one, you would have laughed. But there you are.
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"Sure, I killed my wife. Just like Jeffrey Dahmer has killed a lot of people. Nothing to see here... move on."
There are a lot of us here in America (Score:2)
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Team Blue wants the entire report so they can comb through it line by line searching for something, ANYTHING they can use to continue to push as much negative ( factual or otherwise ) information about
You mean just like Benghazi?
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Actually the red team likes Trump just fine. They've become the team of Trump.
Re:Show me the man and I’ll find you the cri (Score:5, Insightful)
Muller had two years and achieved a come FAIL!!!
37 indictments, 6 guilty please, and one conviction. That doesn't sound like a fail to me.
If you want to talk about failure, look at the R's obsessive investigations of Hillary before the 2016 election. E-mails? zero indictments. Benghazi? zero indictments. But of course, indictments really weren't the objective. They just wanted to tarnish her because she was the presumptive 2016 nominee for the Ds.
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Please look at Lisa Page testimony released last week.
DOJ told the FBI was not to criminally charge Hillary. They were denied access to laptops with deleted emails. They were told to stonewall the investigation, by Loretta Lynch.
Might be a reason nothing was done there. DOJ was corrupt. Its been found out by Congress and they chose to do nothing about it.
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37 indictments, 6 guilty please, and one conviction. That doesn't sound like a fail to me.
"please"?
So a detective, driving to a murder scene, stops and writes someone a speeding ticket. The Detective never closes the murder case - that's a fail. Mueller was investigating collusion and obstruction of justice, he found none of either - so yes, fail.
If you want to talk about failure, look at the R's obsessive investigations of Hillary before the 2016 election. E-mails? zero indictments.
Take a look at the folks that got immunity in the email case, that explains no convictions.
Benghazi? zero indictments.
Congratulations, incompetence isn't a crime.
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After two and a half years of liberal russophobia and accusations of treason, we arrived to this? Did anyone actually with at least half a brain believe this was going to end somewhat different? Anyways, it's hard to believe that Congress and the corporate news media will leave the President alone after this. So watch the news echo chamber closely over the next few days as Russia investigation now morphs into "obstruction of justice" and "campaign finance" investigation.
Well, Steve Bannon did say at the beginning that Trump was too stupid to collude with his own campaign so him colluding with Russia was a ridiculous idea since that would exceed his extremely limited mental capabilities.