Mueller time for Trump and his friends - will they all meet in a courtyard surrounded by a big beautiful wall? - Trump thread 92

[Lweji]

Someone had to and soon.

Old thread

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3510947-It-s-a-National-Non-Emergency-Trump-thread-91

Hope you and mini-Natsku are keeping well, too!

Donald J. Trump
‏
Verified account

@realDonaldTrump

'No Collusion, No Obstruction, Complete and Total EXONERATION. KEEP AMERICA GREAT!'

Yeah, nah.

From Barr's letter:

The Special Counsel states that: "while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him."

OK, I've now typed out the bit around that. (Or you could easily read the whole thing at: judiciary.house.gov/sites/democrats.judiciary.house.gov/files/documents/AG%20March%2024%202019%20Letter%20to%20House%20and%20Senate%20Judiciary%20Committees.pdf)

. Obstruction of Justice. The report’s second part addresses a number of actions by the President – most of which have been the subject of public reporting – that the Special Counsel investigated as potentially raising obstruction-of-justice concerns. After making a “thorough factual investigation” into these matters, the Special Counsel considered whether to evaluate the conduct under Department standards governing prosecution and declination decisions but ultimately determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment. The Special Counsel therefore did not draw a conclusion – one way or the other – as to whether the examined conduct constituted obstruction. Instead, for each of the relevant actions investigated, the report set out the evidence on both sides of the question and leaves unresolved what the Special Counsel views as “difficult issues” of law and fact concerning whether the President’s actions and intent could be viewed as obstruction. The Special Counsel states that “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

The Special Counsel’s decision to describe the facts of his obstruction investigation without reaching any legal conclusions leaves it to the Attorney General to determine whether the conduct described in the report constitutes a crime.

So, let's see what happens next...

Look who's got his phone back:

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 28m28 minutes ago

No Collusion, No Obstruction, Complete and Total EXONERATION. KEEP AMERICA GREAT!

Roger Stone, of course, has been charged with obstruction of justice (7 counts) for obstructing the various Russia-related investigations, and is awaiting trial.

www.justice.gov/file/1124706/download

thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/434028-judge-sets-roger-stone-trial-for-early-november

Ups, sorry. Missed the earlier post.

This is.....weird.
Campaign people charged but trump knew nothing? I don't buy it.

Until Mueller report issued and he's called to testify, I'm not buying it. Barr is Trump's boy....

Maybe they're going for a Brazilian. Arrest the President after he leaves office.

Yeah, but Barr's bar isn't that Trump knows nothing.

It's that Trump's actions meet all the requirements for this specific crime, and that this is beyond all reasonable doubt.

Barr has decided that the evidence Mueller presented doesn't show that they do.

I don't think we'll know the whole story until the entire report is published. Or at least, until members of the House Judiciary and Oversight Ctees are allowed to read it and agree with AG Barr's findings.

I'm afraid this is a real blow to our hopes for 2020. Many of those on the fence will jump back over onto the Trump side now that he's been 'vindicated'.

I'm very disheartened right now.

Wonder what is going through Mueller's head right now.

As others have also pointed out--we don't know the length of that report.

Kyle Griffin
‏
Verified account

@kylegriffin1

'Interesting point from Ari Melber on @MSNBC: "This is 4 pages. There's not a single full sentence in here that's quoted the Mueller report. Every quote from the Mueller report itself is a partial sentence."'

Reminder.

slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/12/matt-whitaker-bill-barr-donald-trump-doj-attorney-general-congress.html

Katyal.

www.rawstory.com/2019/03/heck-determine-wasnt-obstruction-ex-solicitor-general-slams-barrs-letter-mueller-probe/

Also from the letter:

The report does not recommend any further indictments, nor did the Special Counsel obtain any sealed indictments that have yet to be made public.

So what's in the pipeline is only the stuff we already know about.

Campaign people charged but trump knew nothing?

Scope of the investigation meant they were generally charged for crimes committed before the Trump campaign. Especially the case with Manafort and his cronies

Pelosi and Schumer.

Seth Abramson.

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1109913558333210629.html

www.lawfareblog.com/yes-bill-barrs-memo-really-wrong-about-obstruction-justice

Also

The first of the tweets in the Seth Abramsom thread is, IIUC, factually wrong.

He states that 1/ Mueller was supposed to decide if Donald Trump could be charged with Obstruction of Justice—or, if not chargeable, whether he should be referred to Congress for impeachment for Obstruction of Justice. But AG Barr usurped Mueller's job and decided to make that decision himself.

But Barr didn't usurp Mueller's job: Mueller dumped his job in Barr's lap.

Can't comment on the rest of the thread.

twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1109922846728429570

Kyle Griffin
@kylegriffin1
Joe Scarborough on @MSNBC: "If there was no collusion ... Why did Donald Trump, why did Mike Pence, why did Jeff Sessions, why did the president's first national security adviser, why did the president's campaign chairman ... Why did they all lie about contacts with Russians?"

Arkenor
@Arkenor
1h1 hour ago
Replying to @kylegriffin1 @MSNBC
All his non-election-colluding crimes. Such as the money laundering. It's all on the Southern District of New York now.

Diana Cammack
@baryonic
1h1 hour ago
Replying to @kylegriffin1 @MSNBC
Because Mueller was looking at hacking (collusion), and these guys were talking about business deals, hotels, finance, condos and their link to politics... Two different things, and Trump is up to his neck the second.

But Barr didn't usurp Mueller's job: Mueller dumped his job in Barr's lap.

Or Barr demanded that Mueller let him make that determination.

Well there's that.

Your best boy says it best.

twitter.com/Comey/status/1109930531389472768/photo/1