In some ways, it was always going to happen – the cable news networks had worked themselves into a frothy lather by the time Robert Mueller sent his final report to Attorney General William Barr on Friday. Then they worked themselves up to near hysteria throughout Friday evening, all day Saturday and into Sunday. They set the bar so high that people believed that Mueller’s Report was going to be the smoking gun and anything less than that was “good news for Trump.” Well, the report has still not been released. Instead, AG Barr released a “summary” of Mueller’s findings and Barr’s version of events is that Mueller found Trump innocent of conspiring or coordinating with Russians. Yeah.
The Mueller investigation is done — and according to a summary of the special counsel’s conclusions written by Attorney General Bill Barr and submitted to Congress on Sunday, Mueller did not affirmatively find either collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, or obstruction of justice on the part of President Donald Trump. We don’t yet have Robert Mueller’s report to read it for ourselves. But Barr does quote the special counsel’s exact words on a few key points.
On the topic of collusion, Mueller writes, “The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
That means Mueller did not find — or at least could not prove — that Russian government officials worked with the Trump campaign in their effort to help elect Trump president.
Second, on the topic of obstruction of justice, Mueller declined to issue a recommendation either for or against prosecution. “While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,” Mueller wrote.
However, Barr and Rosenstein then add that they examined the obstruction evidence themselves, and decided that Trump’s conduct was not criminal. Mueller’s reluctance to make a judgment call on this issue, however, will likely spur demands from House Democrats to see the underlying evidence themselves.
Barr and Rod Rosenstein were in their DOJ offices all day Saturday and Sunday working on Barr’s statement and summary of what the report says. I think that if the report was really all good news for Trump and his Deplorables, then A) the summary wouldn’t be so carefully worded and it would have quoted Mueller at length, rather than just using partial sentences from Mueller and B) Barr should have no issues with releasing the full report. I mean, if it’s all good news for Trump, let’s see it. But of course not – House committees are going to have to drag this out of Barr’s DOJ. It will probably take months.
"Complete and Total Exoneration." – Donald Trump
"While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him." – Robert Mueller
— Neal Katyal (@neal_katyal) March 25, 2019
Context as you read: am told Special Counsel Robert Mueller was not consulted on this letter. This was the product of the Attorney General Bill Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, per DOJ official.
— Laura Jarrett (@LauraAJarrett) March 24, 2019
I feel like it’s “COMPLETE AND TOTAL EXONERATION” in the sense that you sometimes see a review quoted as “…THE BEST MOVIE EVER MADE” when the full sentence reads “it would be a mistake to call this ‘the best movie ever made’”
— Alexandra Petri (@petridishes) March 24, 2019
AG Barr’s letter raises as many questions as it answers. The fact that Mueller’s report does not exonerate the president on a charge as serious as obstruction of justice demonstrates how urgent it is that the full report & documentation be made public without any further delay.
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) March 24, 2019
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
Ugh now we are in for another long wait while we try to extract the full report. Extracting teeth is less painful!
yep! If it’s a “total exoneration” then let’s see the full report.
I hope the full report will be released…Barrs letter angered me so freaking much
Barr was completely cherry-picked to hand out this exact result. He admitted it in his confirmation hearings, and even in a derogatory memo he wrote way back last summer, deriding Mueller and the report.
I truly didn’t expect anything less. What I want to hear is WHOSE names are in the rest of those sealed indictments, and when are those going to be acted upon in the other Fed AND STATE jurisdictions. THAT will be interesting….and, I am pretty sure, will ensnare Dump and his Devil Spawn w/out hope for a pardon!
McConnell just blocked a Senate resolution to release the full report. I knew that would happen.
I’m so frustrated. I just want the report out now; stop all this he said, she said crap. Just put the report out and let us read exactly what was found.
Listening to the Trumpsters celebrate is already like listening to nails on a dartboard.
Sigh. And Iove how people on both the left and right were saying before the report was release that we “must accept the results.” How can we accept something we haven’t seen? And WHY should we accept what a Trump-appointed AG is telling us? No. I’m not accepting shit till I see the full report and even then, absence of proof is not proof of absence. Collusion is notoriously difficult to prove, anyway.
Replace Trump with Obama and Barr with Eric Holder. The GOP would have had a complete meltdown over the AG summary. Holder would have been at Capital Hill the next day testifying.
I don’t trust Barr either and I hope Pelosi pushes hard for this report to be released.
A friend who used to be at DOJ told me she is not surprised. Mueller was never going to ignite a constitutional crisis. Viewed through that lens, his conclusions make more sense. Basically, he is giving Congress the evidence and letting them decide Trump’s fate.
Megan makes a good point – Mueller was given a specific, narrow investigation gig, and he fulfilled it. When he found evidence of other crimes, he farmed them out to other groups (SDNY, etc). That’s not to say collusion didn’t happen, it’s to say that in Mueller’s opinion, he couldn’t get his hands on enough evidence to get to a conviction.
That shouldn’t surprise us, the GOP and the Russians have been trying to cover their tracks and obstruct justice on this issue since early 2016.
Capone didn’t go to prison because of his RICO crimes, he went to prison because of his tax avoidance. I predict Trump will resign in lieu of prosecution on tax avoidance. But I still think he’s facing years upon years of legal wrangling over his many crimes that can be proven in a court of law.
Even Barr said he wasn’t exonerated. The letter is basically Barr’s personal opinion on whether there is enough evidence for conviction, not even on whether there was enough evidence for probable cause.
Call every congressional office, especially Republican Senators, and demand the release of the full report. Point out that Barr specifically says Trump was not exonerated and Trump immediately lied and ordered Sarah Huckabee Sanders to lie.
Also, Nagini stupidly weighed in with an Abraham Lincoln quote. Twitter was not kind.
I really don’t care if they release the report, it won’t change a single voter’s mind and it will only further demoralize Democrats because it will underscore how guilty they are and how they got away with it.
@Megan — You said it perfectly. I agree. It won’t matter.
Yeah, so many questions, one of which is after trashing Mueller and the DOJ and the FBI for years is Trump now on their side since they “exonerated” him? As everyone has said, if it’s all good news for Trump then he should have no problem releasing the full report.
Equally troublesome is people saying that any and all investigations of Trump should be dropped and the claims that Democrats are now “panicking” about the primaries.
Why do the right’s sh%^^y narratives always drown out the truth?
Gaslighting was in full force this weekend. Bigly gaslighting.
Keep following the money. I still think financial will be the bucket that ultimately overflows with charges.
We all have to accept the fact that only the judicial branch of our Democracy is working during the corrupt Trump administration. The founders never anticipated a time when the presidency, congress and the press would all be either bought or cowed.
Unfortunately the judicial branch is also on it’s way to falling as Trump has gone about appointing shills for the last 2 years as the press focuses on his latest tweet.
Yes because we managed to pull off one of the most historic midterm election gains by running on Russian Collusion. *eyeroll*
And to your other point, that’s a big problem for Trump in that he spent years saying this was a witch hunt and attempting to destroy the integrity and credibility of our intelligence agencies. If he had even a modicum of intelligence and self-control he would have said nothing and could now claim that Mueller’s investigation is the “gold standard” and if the results prove that he’s innocent, everyone must trust that because Mueller is the best at what he does. But of course, he blew that all up in his typical tempestuous, reactive, tantrum-y way.
I know, right? Not that anything will matter to the deplorables because cognitive dissonance seems to be their special talent. The other infuriating line of thinking is that Hillary/the Democrats somehow colluded with the Russians. To lose the election? In what universe does that possibly make sense?
As Christin says, I think financial crimes will be what takes him down. Hopefully sooner rather than later. I cannot deal with all the smug “victory” dances from the right.
What about the super secret state-owned company Mueller subpoena? Does that just end?
I think financial crimes will be the clincher too, Esmom.
@Megan- Are you referring to this? https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1110175177650900992
They already have documented evidence that he lied on financials to banks trying to get loans, inflating and deflating his worth. Deutsche Bank even said they looked at his claim that he said his worth was $4B and it was only @$770M. This alone is bank fraud and VERY serious. YOU trying lying to a bank and you’ll get in HUGE trouble.
We all know the sleazy ties btwn SCJ Kennedy, his son, and Dump…. so WTF, Barr??? All the Deutsche Bank records were seized. HOW can you NOT have the evidence??!
This stinks worse than a plate of Limburger cheese
@Kitten – yes, that is what I was referring to.
@Jan – you are correct, if I lied to a bank, I would be in big trouble because I am not rich.
Because the media amplifies the GOP. Always.
The worst is the media falling lock step with the GOP. Full and complete vindication. Dems must respect the rule of law, blahblahblah. We don’t know jack. If the report showed no criminality like Barr claims, just release the report.
Personally, I don’t know what people are hoping for in the full report. If there were no indictments recommended for members of the Trump family on charges of collusion or obstruction, what do we really expect the report to say that helps our cause? “I, Robert Mueller, have this mountain of evidence that they’re guilty but I’m gonna pass on bringing them to justice just because”? We have to stop giving Trump and his family the opportunity to shout “fake news” and “hoax”, and unfortunately, that’s all that’s going to come from going down this path. Rachel Maddow crying on national television because her President was NOT indicted doesn’t help us. Trump and his ilk will point to these cases as media bias, and they’ll have a hard time proving him wrong. I think our focus should be on promoting 2020 candidates and speaking to issues that most Americans care about, and this investigation isn’t at the top of their list.
We don’t know what the report says. A line of the report says “does not exonerate” Trump. Barr got his job because he said that a sitting president cannot be indicted, enough said. Now he’s in charge of the report.
Okay, play the short game then. I think we will see the full report (minus anything that might compromise national security), but tripling down on this report as the end-all, be-all is IMO very shortsighted. We are so focused on proving ourselves right and doing as many investigations as possible to finally catch him at *something* that it is going to start looking like a fishing expedition and I think it will backfire spectacularly in the long term. We all know he’s not a good man, but if a two year investigation headed by Mueller, who is above reproach, couldn’t find anything indictable, then we need to acknowledge that, let the other investigations play out organically, and put our focus on getting reasonable people elected in 2020.
Mueller specifically did not draw a conclusion about whether his findings amounted to indictable crimes by the president. That conclusion was drawn by Barr, an appointee who basically auditioned for the job by sending the WH a memo stating his opinion that no exercise of Article II powers by the president could ever amount to obstruction of justice, and Rosenstein, who was directly involved in the Comey firing (the most clear and public step taken by the president to obstruct justice, which was performed through the use of his Article II powers). As for whether indictable criminal activity has been uncovered regarding Don Jr. and Kushner, we won’t know for some time the outcome of the investigations spun off to other divisions in DoJ outside the SCO (which, if Barr’s memo is to be believed, hewed to a narrowly defined scope for investigative matters that it retained rather than referring to other U.S. attorneys’ offices). It is possible that those other investigations will also turn up sufficient evidence of criminal activity by the current WH occupant to unquestionably suffice for indictment if and when he is not in office, assuming clock has not run out on statute of limitations.
Further, if even the Mueller report genuinely does not contain sufficient evidence for a federal prosecutor to be confident in a high likelihood of conviction (i.e., beyond reasonable doubt) for crimes specifically defined in law if the president were simply an ordinary citizen, there may well be a *preponderance* of evidence still indicating that such crimes were in fact committed, and/or irrefutable evidence of unethical behavior that shocks the conscience but cannot be charged as a crime under existing law. The public deserves to know if such is the case. We deserve the ability to hold the president to a higher standard than “we’re not confident we could convict him of a federal crime, based in part on our views concerning unsettled areas of constitutional law.”
FWIW, I expect the Mueller report makes the president look very bad indeed, impeachably bad. If it were genuinely exonerative, (a) Mueller, a lifelong Republican, would have said so; and (b) Trump would have triumphantly ordered its release. Instead we get Giuliani saying that the Barr memo is better than what they expected, Devin Nunes saying the report should be destroyed, and Trump bloviating about total exoneration. Let’s watch how many roadblocks the admin throws up in trying to keep the substantive evidence in the report concealed from Congress. These are not people who believe in their own innocence.
I watched the whole thing and she was never even teary eyed. Like she had on less under eye concealer than usual but that was it. She was not crying in any way.
No matter what is in the report we, as tax payers that paid for this investigation, should be able to see the entire report and make conclusions for ourselves. What Barr, or anyone else writes, will have that person’s personal spin on it. We also need to concentrate on the elections, that should be a given.
Exactly. I don’t think most people are counting on the report showing some smoking gun or whatever. Doesn’t matter. Full transparency was promised and a statement about the report filtered through Barr is not that.
Can I see a reputable source, in fact, let me see a video of Maddow crying about this? Because all I see when I google it is daily caller slop.
I watched the show live Friday night and yes, she was tearful throughout. I’m sure you can find the whole episode on YouTube or on demand.
Shrute’s – were we watching the same show? She was in a studio in TN and obviously had a different (terrible) make up artist but considering had been fishing just a couple of hours before going on air, I thought it was an unremarkable and regular show. I certainly didn’t see crying. And on Friday night, what was there to cry about? No one had any idea what was in the report at that time.
Rachel left a trout fishing excursion to get to a studio in Knoxville (UT campus) within two hours Friday evening.
She has an emotive face, so I can envision a screen capture that looks emotional being thrown into some meme joke. I watched more than half the show, and did not see her crying.
Rachel tweeted laughing over the Russian Today and Daily Caller reports that she was crying. It is not true and the fact that you keep insisting is makes me sniff something.
Darla.
What do I keep insisting? I saw the damned show, so I mentioned it. If you can’t handle someone with a different perspective, that says a lot about you, and none of it good.
I watched it, she wasn’t hysterical, but she was crying.
I watched it live in HD. Like Louisa, I saw bad lighting and no makeup, not crying. If someone can find me a clip of some moment of breaking voice and dabbed eyes that I missed while refilling a water glass or something, great, but otherwise I think that “tearful throughout” is at best a misinterpretation.
You just happen to be repeating something that no one but Russia Today and the Daily Caller claim to have seen. What I cannot handle is disinformation. Actually, strike that, I can handle it just fine, wouldn’t you agree? I certainly exposed you.
There were NEVER going to be charges of collusion because collision is not a crime. We need to stop using Trump words.
Agreed.
We need to see the whole report. Full stop.
Muller report, the little that Barr puts out states: “ Does not exonerate” Trump. We know Don the Con put Barr in as AG to exonerate him. Muller states 45 was not exonerate. We need to stay focus and demand to see the full report. We need to stay focus and elect a democrat next year November. Don the Con and Sarah are saying this proves 45 was exonerate, he was not.
This is really depressing.
It really is, isn’t it. Almost as despressing as watching the presidential election results. No, that was horrendous. I feel like we are all in a long episode of The Twilight Zone and it wont stop playing.
Don’t despair. Several commentators have said throughout the investigation that SDNY will do the take down. Also, don’t forget that Mueller stuck pretty closely to his brief – investigate cooperation with Russia and obstruction of justice – anything else he found has been sent to other offices, such as SDNY for investigation and if appropriate prosecution. (This was even referenced in Barr’s letter)
I’m exhausted. I’m tired of hope.
Trump obstructed justice in plain sight. He literally said on TV he fired Comey to relieve the pressure of the Russia investigation. Does that not prove intent?
They were discussing that on NPR last night and Alberto Gonzales, I believe, said it wouldn’t make sense to pursue obstruction charges if there was no underlying crime of collusion. Apparently others in the legal field disagree.
In any case, Trump was always clearly hell bent on preventing any investigations into his dealings. He’s pretty much always behaved the opposite of how an innocent man would behave. Sigh.
Collusion isn’t a crime. Gonzales is an idiot.
Yes, Gonzales definitely had an agenda. I was distracted by his voice, too, which had such a GW Bush inflection to it that I got the creeps.
The argument that Giuliani has been making is that obstruction happens in a dark alley with someone threatening to break someone’s arm if they snitch. What Trump was doing was out in the open and he was just blowing off steam about a frustrating investigation.
The Comey firing is interesting though in that he wasn’t just tweeting, he actually took action in an attempt to stop/slow the investigation.
Trump did that after the election, though, so probably not within the timeline of reference, make of that what you will.
Robert Mueller is a straight shooter. He’s very thorough & if he couldn’t find evidence of collusion, either it didn’t exist or Trump is the smartest criminal ever. Russia had their own purposes for interfering with our election, mainly Trump was going to be easy to manipulate. Now, obstruction of justice? Mueller punted to the DOJ on that. But he most definitely wasn’t exonerated. However, I think we need to be careful because Trump is going to attack the ongoing investigations brutally. Nancy Pelosi does need to caution the House on the investigations & prioritize. We do need to focus & govern, too. The Mueller Report was never going to remove Trump from office. We have to, as a voting block. 2020.
Hijacking your comment for visibility. LOTS of misinformation rolling around out here.
Mueller’s investigation was surprisingly and exceptionally narrow. He was determining specifically whether Trump’s campaign (1) was in cahoots with the IRA/russian troll farm, and (2) whether Trump’s campaign was involved in the Russian hacking of the DNC. His report states that his investigation could not establish that. Not guilty is not the same as innocent.
For a witch hunt, this turned up an awful lot of witches. 40+ indictments. Jail time for Trump Campaign staffers. It’s been proven collusion was there, just not on these two very specific criteria Mueller was investigating.
Empty Wheel has a really good article about the narrowness of the investigation and how Barr came to his BS conclusions about not indicting for obstruction:
https://www.emptywheel.net/2019/03/24/how-william-barr-did-old-man-back-flips-to-avoid-arresting-donald-trump/
It’s not surprising that Barr is covering for the Dotard. What I don’t understand is why Mueller didn’t indict Don Jr. He lied to Congress (one of the crimes that Cohen was charged with, yes?) and gleefully took part in that infamous Trump Tower meeting. Is it because those crimes did not directly relate to either of two main Russian election interference attacks?
I did find myself laughing yesterday. As the Orange Voldemort and Nagini were trying their fake victory dance yesterday afternoon, here in parts of New England, they were completely shoved to the back of the news and out of the minds of many New Englanders, (and probably many NFL fans) by Rob Gronkowski.
Yesterday was an exceptionally depressing Sunday. I mean, don’t get me wrong, f*ck the NFL–Gronk should take care of his health first–but the Mueller report drop and the news that Gronk is retiring was a pretty sad double-whammy.
I knew the Gronk news was coming. He didn’t play at full capacity at all this season and he’s had so many injuries and surgeries. His family has pretty much made it clear they wanted him out two years ago. It actually was hilarious how he blew the Trump news right off of every news story locally. I went onto Facebook about 5 PM yesterday and everyone was posting about Gronk. Even my niece who hates football was asking why she was upset about Gronk retiring. He’s not even 30 yet, is definitely going into the NFL Hall of Fame, and should be set financially for life if he handles his money right.
Barr did what Trump paid him to do. And even he couldn’t go all the way with it. He admitted the report doesn’t exonerate Trump. His congressional testimony should be worth taking the day off to watch. And he will be hauled in to explain why he said that and what his reasoning was behind his conclusion that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to convict.
Exactly, LP, the news wasn’t surprising at all because even as recently as this past season there were concerns. Good for Gronk but we will miss him tremendously.
*************************
So do you have any theories about why Trump never had to testify? I mean, I know that he has the right to decline but why didn’t Mueller subpoena him? Do you think that Mueller simply didn’t have enough evidence to warrant a subpoena or was this a real failure on his part?
It just seems crazy to be left with a report that essentially says that Trump and his campaign might have acted badly, but not with intent to collude. I mean, how can we know his intention when he’s never testified?
I think they knew questioning Trump would involve a long, drawn out, legal battle and that Trump either wouldn’t answer questions or would lie.
@LP and Kitten – Boston sports radio is already stating that Gronk’s agent is leaving the door open for him to possibly “return” later this season. This so-called retirement may not be permanent.
Barr and Rosenstein proved themselves nice little foot soldiers for the Repub party yesterday. I hope they sleep well at night, given all the confusion they’ve engendered. There is so much more to come out from this report, namely the contents of the report itself – which we as taxpayers paid for. We have a right to view it in full. It will take time but we will get there; plus you know large parts of it will leak out now that its out of the OSC’s hands.
Barr telegraphed what he was going to do before, and made himself judge, jury and interpreter. WH talkers are saying they’re surprised, was better than they expected because..why? They know the truth? Lied to cover up..nothing? The best we can hope for is a modern day Daniel Ellsberg. And puleeze dem candidates, stop saying ‘the next election will be impeachment’..just no..the Congress’s job is oversight, and they always do more than one thing at a time..it’s not an either/or.
He’s really going to be president until 2024 isn’t he?
I knew this was gonna happen.
It probably depends on whether or not the impending recession hits before the next election.
Still, Mueller’s investigation made a profit of millions of dollars, put some terrible people in jail, proved the “Deep State” conspiracy theorists wrong and finished with plenty of time for voters to be distracted by the next scandal.
I now expect Trump to issue a grovelling apology to the consummate professional he slandered for two years with accusations of partisan hackery and corruption.
LOL.
Yeah, that supposedly highly conflicted partisan professional seems like he’s A-OK now.
Yup – recession is looming. Yield curves inverted on Friday which is usually a predictor of a recession in the next year or so (interest rates on long-term government debt is lower than the rate on short-term bills).
Never thought I would hope for a recession before…
The writing on the wall for recession has been there for awhile. Real estate values are driving up again, out of touch with the wage realities, and economists have been warning everyone for about two years now that businesses were borrowing too much without the ability to pay it back and were only surviving because of how low the federal interest rate was. We learned nothing from the 2000s recession, and with taxes cute, the national debt will only skyrocket.
Nah, he’ll drop dead before that(🙏🏻🤞🏻A girl can hope). But, seriously, a recent poll found 57% do not want him again, while the braindead, rotten souled 38% dig in their heels. Dems have to commit to putting aside their purity tests for once and Independents need to do what’s best for the country rather than “voting their conscience.” I vote my conscience during primaries and then in the general vote Democratic. During my 50 years of voting the Dem candidate has always been better than the Repub. And the current Repub party is the worst it has ever been.
Jerusha agree on all counts (especially your first sentence, here’s to hope)
This is where I’m at too – he needs to be voted out in numbers “too big to manipulate,” as I’ve heard on several podcasts.
Not if people get over themselves and do what they should have in 2016. Trump lost the popular vote by over three million, and that’s with very low turnout numbers. If even half of this country’s voting populace bothers to show up in 2020, the Republican party is out of the executive branch.
Not necessarily. We did not lose by that much in 2016, when you look at the raw numbers in swing states, and we could get them back in 2020. Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin are very reachable for a Democrat if they bother to campaign here at all. There continue to be demographic shifts in sunbelt states that will help the Democrats (whether it’s in 2020 or 2024).
The bottom line is that Democrats need to actually try this time, and not just the DNC. We need to get out and knock on doors. We need to promote voter registration. We need to donate. We have a wide range of candidates in the primary, and a lot of them are charismatic (although not perfect). They are electable.
Maybe we’ll lose in 2020. Maybe we’ll all live in Gilead by 2022. However, I’m not going to live my life by the worst case scenario and not even try to change the outcome. At least if we lose in 2020, I’ll know that I went down swinging.
I’ll be very surprised if Pennsylvania goes red again in 2020, to be honest. Trump was the first time it went red in years, and he did so by less than 1% of the total vote (I mean, literally, it was a matter of 50,000 or so votes, and we have the sixth most populous city in the US here). I can tell you as somebody who lives there that most people aren’t happy about it. Most of what led to his win here was voter apathy, and, well, people learned their lesson the hard way.
Veronica S., I’m in Michigan, and I think we’re in a similar position. I’d be shocked if it goes red again.
I think it was a combination of voter apathy and the fact that a lot of people (in particular white, blue collar, baby boomers) in Michigan really dislike Secretary Clinton. My father died in 2015, but he loathed both of the Clintons, and I don’t know that he could have brought himself to vote for her. He wouldn’t have voted Trump, but I’m guessing he would have written in or voted third party as a protest.
Fair or not, a lot of older UAW members blame Secretary Clinton for NAFTA, and it cost her Michigan. There are conservative parts of Michigan, but we’re reliably blue for presidential elections in large part because of the unions. If you can’t get the union vote, you can’t win Michigan, and she was unable to get the union vote. I don’t know that she could have gotten that voting block no matter what she did in 2015/2016, but the fact that she didn’t come to Michigan did not help. I’m hoping the 2020 candidate learns from that.
It also cannot be forgotten that both Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are under court order to redistrict before 2020. Both state were found to have districts gerrymandered for voter suppression
I’m in Wisconsin and would be surprised if it went red again in 2020. We have a new Democratic governor who has been very proactive in pushing back on the GOP lame duck power grab and getting what he can of his agenda through. He’s announced that Wisconsin will be removing itself from the lawsuit challenging the ACA.
I hope that the redistricting is done in time for the 2020 election, because that would affect the US House seats and state legislature seats. If it’s done fairly, then maybe the Democrats could regain control of at least one branch of the state legislature in time for redrawing maps after the 2020 census.
Except it doesn’t really matter, does it? He put one if his stooges in place and he did exactly was he was put there to do. The entirety of this report will never see the light of day, at least not while he is in office and probably not for a long time after.
Barr looks like a Steve Bannon who recently bathed. Has anyone ever seen the two of them together?
Haha. I was thinking that he looked sorta like John Goodman.
SAME.
Barr was put in place to bury the report and that is what he is doing – regardless that he and the report don’t actually exonerate Trump he is being a good little toady and doing what his orange master is telling him.
Conspiracy and collusion are two very different things and only one is a crime (conspiracy). They are deliberately creating confusion around these 2 words and making out they are the same thing – they are not.
Given what Barr has said it makes you wonder what is actually IN the report that has Trump and the GOP scared. The Dems need to fight tooth and nail to release it in full.
I didn’t have any hopes about this report coming up with anything significant, so I’m not necessarily upset about it, but I do find Barr completely untrustworthy and find the unwillingness to release the report suspicious. If there’s nothing there, what’s the issue?
If the report was that good it wouldn’t have taken two days to draft that 4 page letter. There is a lot being hidden there and sadly democracy in the US took another blow yesterday. There is zero reason not to show it all. Mueller would not have revealed state secrets in this report knowing it could be published.
Are we sure that’s really William Barr and not Steve Bannon pretending to be William Barr?
I want to see the full report and hope the House or Senate subpoena Mueller so he can explain his process and show the evidence used to draw his conclusions. But I will say that it’s funny how the same people who were vilifying the FBI and Mueller during this investigation and during the litany of HRC investigations, saying “they’re corrupt and biased!” now seem to believe wholeheartedly that Mueller’s investigation is above reproach.
I’m very disappointed in yesterday’s events (and I loathe the dunking the MAGAts are doing on Twitter, even though Trump was not fully exonerated), but to expect Mueller’s report to be the magic bullet from which everyone will finally acknowledge that Trump is a cancer on our democracy is not correct. Refuting Trump and his deplorables needs to be done at the ballot box. Trump is the symptom, not the disease.
I believe here are sealed indictments still, so the “Mueller didn’t recommend any further indictments” doesn’t apply….I don’t think? I am surprised that Jr. didn’t get indicted yet but I’m hopeful that SDNY is on that. At this point, all we can do is 1. pressure our representatives to release the full report 2. Pressure our representatives to continue or start any relevant investigations 3. Support the best candidate in the primaries, depending on the debates and whatnot 4. Pick a senate campaign and adopt it- small donations, postcards to voters, canvassing, phone banking, etc. that’s gonna be just as important as the presidency in 2020! The census that year could f*ck America I’ve rlong after trump is dead, after all.
The DoJ has stated that there are no outstanding sealed indictments filed by the special counsel’s office.
Trump would have been immediately crowing if this really exonerated him. The fact he was silent for 2 days shows they were determining spin.
And there’s no way braggart-in-chief Trump would keep this report unpublished/unreleased if it really earned him. If it was that thorough an exoneration, it would already be Amazon available to purchase, and he would be tweeting the link. The report may no reccomend charges, but it shows evidence of shenanigans. That’s the only explanation for why Trump hasn’t already sent Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Shumet, and Adam Schiff autographed copies of it.
I’ve heard Chris Christie say several times that it wasn’t Mueller he should be worried about but New York. They aren’t limited in their scope.
Exactly Kaiser. Barr was chosen for a reason and I think even those on who don’t like predator/liar, at all, are so scared of equality and young people coming onto the scene they’ll protect #presidentmiller. They so want to keep the status quo and regardless of whether we don’t learn the truth for years, this is another incident to remind us to keep fighting for change and socialism, if that’s the preferred term to be used. I haven’t really been too upset and, after wondering why to myself, it’s because I didn’t expect the complete truth from a crony. It feels so hollow from those crowing about it too, they know it’s a lie and the clock is still ticking on their time in office and out of jail.
Hopefully the DNC democrats now realize that Clinton lost because she is a war-mongering, neoliberal, shill and enough people were aware of that to stay home or foolishly vote for Trump. So let’s remember the lesson and nominate a progressive Democratic candidate for the 2020 election.
i’m sick and tired of this constantly perpetuated lie that Clinton lost. she did not.
Hillary Clinton received 3 million more votes than dotard; and it’s only due to Russian interference that exploited an unsecure and rigged voting system that dotard was installed by his boss, vladmir putin.
And I have very little faith than any of the efforts currently underway by the democrats will resolve anything. listen/read what dotard’s supporters have to say — they actually prefer Russian interference in elections that assist republicons than have democrats in office.
It’s sickening, Putin is now the President of the United States.
Clinton is war-mongering? Oh haha.
@mycomment and @Harryg in truthfulness when I saw this it made me laugh. The ridiculousness and transparent attempts at trolling are less effective and more ham-fisted than ever. What I hope it that as more attempts are made to sway our election, opinions, etc. they’re met with more discernment now, because Putin and co aren’t going to stop.
I need some brave patriot from the DOJ to leak it. Just like Watergate papers.
I hope we still grow ’em like that.