Now that Mueller has submitted his report but before it’s made public, let’s take a moment to express gratitude for his public service. He and his team have worked tirelessly for nearly two years to find answers and bring to justice those who threaten American liberty. Kudos.
— Mindy Finn (@mindyfinn) March 22, 2019
I’ll put a no-politics Early Morning Open Thread up right after this — let’s see which one gets more comments!
My take on the Mueller report is that I’d like to read the Mueller report before having a take on it.
— Ben Rhodes (@brhodes) March 22, 2019
As many people are saying: Trump has already seen the Mueller report. If it completely exonerated Trump, he would have already had a press conference, three dozen tweets, and made the report public. #ReleaseTheReport
— Marcus H. Johnson (@marcushjohnson) March 23, 2019
You may see quotes allegedly from the report posted with no attribution, either in meme form or maybe even linking to a site, but one you've never heard of. If major media aren't publishing those quotes, it means they haven't been able to verify them. Don't fall for it. #Mueller
— Cindy Otis (@CindyOtis_) March 22, 2019
How to Survive the Next Few Days Until We Know What's in the Mueller Report https://t.co/dfFcCFjD7m
— The Rude Pundit (@rudepundit) March 23, 2019
A reminder that one week ago, the House voted 420-0 to have Mueller’s report made public. Bipartisan, overwhelming agreement that Barr should #ReleaseTheReport. https://t.co/Ma3mZAZZii
— Tokyo #ReleaseTheReport ???? (@DHStokyo) March 23, 2019
And now Mueller has finished, that doesn't mean that you can expect to see it right away, or maybe ever.
This is how the process goes now:https://t.co/8P6eowdQsD— Chiqui Esteban (pronounced 'Cheeky') (@chiquiesteban) March 22, 2019
The legal team managed to get him into the shock collar. https://t.co/46FD6pLzd4
— Schooley (@Rschooley) March 23, 2019
That really does not sound like an investigation that’s wrapping up. https://t.co/wg5GN7NTj5
— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) March 22, 2019
Beyond Mueller, here are the 10 most pressing investigations into the president, his campaign staffers, and his inner circle. https://t.co/selkuIe2sD
— Foreign Policy (@ForeignPolicy) March 12, 2019
OzarkHillbilly
Blech.
JPL
It’s doubtful that we discover more information about trump. I do hope that the report highlights the Russian interference in our elections and the dangers to our democracy. If there were more damaging information about trump, I feel there would be more indictments.
Kathleen
Good Morning, All. A couple of music links to get your day going:
Fred Astaire & Rita Hayworth dance to Jackie Wilson:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AXkfhqvO44&start_radio=1&list=RD8AXkfhqvO44
Brothers Johnson, Stomp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPBDMihPRJA&index=10&list=RD8AXkfhqvO44
I’m fighting to maintain positive focus (challenging for Irish person). But I see so many successes and “helpers” in my community. I have to stay focused on that. Link to MyCincinnati, a youth orchestra in my neighborhood that all the naysayers said would fail:
https://www.mycincinnatiorchestra.org/
Have whatever kind of day you feel like having.
ola azul
This.
Exactly. Fucking. This.
There’re a lotta ways this could go, and, at this point, like Bob Evans (no, not the resteraunteur) once sez: “Nobody knows nothing.”
Mebbe Twitler is exonerated? (Highly fucking doubtful.)
Mebbe Twitler couldn’t be slam-dunked legally but still has Grand-Canyon-like exposure? (More likely.)
Mebbe Mueller punted b/c his brief is limited, and he’s a by-the-book hand?
Mebbe Mueller salted his report with lotsa clues (Easter egg hunt!) to where the bodies is buried and passed off the damning info to other investigative bodies cuz they can get righteous as fuck w/o imperiling the republic as might happen if the Mueller report is deemed political?
Refuse to get worked up about alla this, myself, partly on account of don’t nobody know nothing as yet, and even the tea-leaves is got subtleties that none can discern, and partly cuz I never hung my hat onnit anyways. (‘Member, all too clearly, the bitter lesson of Fitzmas.)
Zinsky
If the Democrats were smart, they would form a Donald J. Trump Sex Crimes Commission and hold very public, televised hearings every day with Trump’s 18+ sexual assault victims until Election Day 2020. You don’t think the Republicans would hesitate to do this, if they faced an incumbent Democratic president with such a sordid history of misogyny and perversion, do you? Trump is a sexual deviant and serial predator and the American public needs to be reminded of it every single day this reptile is in office!
Major Major Major Major
So I didn’t know Barr looked like that until a few hours ago.
Major Major Major Major
Mary G
I think the John McCain bashing and all the other insanity this week means that Barr gave him a heads up that wasn’t too good.
ola azul
@Major Major Major Major:
Not to be confused with the *other* bagman apparatchik Barr, Bob, veteran of the great Clenis Penis hunt of the late 90s!
chris
Well thank the gods, that’s over and we can move on to the important stuff.
Fucking mole people.
Buckeye
I am already tired of seeing ‘it’s Fitzmas all over again.’ And links to Seth Abramson’s Twitter feed.
PaulWartenberg
this IS the weird thing: after nearly every other step of Mueller’s investigation trump would be on Twitter shouting NO COLLUSION and LOCK HER UP and FAKE NEWS and stuff… and right now, his Twitter feed is… quiet. Like if he says anything NOW it could get used against him in a court of law.
I’m still bothered by the lack of indictments for the trump insiders – namely donnie junior and Kushner – who attended that June 2016 meeting with Russians. Everything I’ve read about that meetup suggested they were discussing quid pro quos involving Obama’s sanctions on Putin and Co. The only thing I can think of is that Mueller’s indictment powers only reached as far as charging them if they lied to investigators. Considering how everyone else – Manafort, Flynn, Stone – tied between trump and Russia HAVE been charged… :/
West of the Rockies
@PaulWartenberg:
A solid take, PW. I do hope The Kushners and Jr. (all young enough to cause decades of trouble) get taken down.
West of the Rockies
@chris:
Trump people are Morlocks incarnate.
West of the Rockies
@Kathleen:
Thanks for the happy off-ramps! The youth orchestra looks so promising…
Ken
@chris: It’s like some band that made the charts for three weeks in the 1960s and is still touring, playing their one-hit-wonder to dwindling crowds. That is, if the band’s bassist and lead singer were in federal prison.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ? ??
Bobby Thomson
Language matters. People are waiting for the BARR REPORT. Barr is refusing to give the Mueller Report to Congress or the public.
The constitutional crisis is already here and the media are failing badly. To say nothing of Congress.
RandomMonster
So far, puppies are winning.
Chris Johnson
@JPL: Well, this is the whole problem. The report must highlight the interference in our elections and craploads of damaging stuff about Trump that is VERY OBVIOUS, reported by an old Republican Marine ex-FBI dude who knows, absolutely knows he is not a comic book superhero.
I think he’s a tough guy and fell back on doing his job, and his job was making this report.
He can’t fix American Democracy because it is irretrievably broken. The attacks worked. They got a paranoid and frightened Republican Party to outright collude with the Russians to hang on to power, the desperate hail-mary thing (that was itself distorted and perverted by the attacks into President Fucking Trump, not even a proper Republican) unexpectedly ‘succeeded’, and that was the final nail in the coffin.
It’s going to be a big problem to reveal any of it because what it reveals is that we in fact lost. Our ‘democracy’ was already real questionable and became a puppet state for the Russians, in the form of a pathetic and useless faux head of state and his criminal cohorts, and everyone else fought mainly for political advantage out of it. Especially the Republicans: never once thought of blowing the whistle on the charade, because it would spell their ruin.
I don’t know what the hell they’re gonna do, but the whole problem is, Mueller succeeded. And he’s not a superhero. He is only there to relay the truth to the political system, as if that was still functional. It’s not. Everything’s badly compromised and fucked.
Ocotillo
@chris: This (mole people continuing to chant “lock her up”) is why Trump needs to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. They really want to put HRC in jail. Trump is an actual criminal and leads a crime family. As president, he somewhat shielded from a lot of things but once a new President is sworn in, he needs to be pursued and locked up for the rest of his miserable life.
Rethugs have gotten away with crimes for too long and it has only increased the criminality of the GOP.
Nixon worked to damage the peace talks to help his election: No consequence
Nixon Watergate/Obstruction of justice: Pardoned
Reagan worked with the Iranians to delay the release of hostages: No consequence
Iran/Contra: No consequence and pardons
W purposely misled the public about WMD: No consequence
Wall Street goes to the race track and crashes the economy: No consequence
Trump, a life of fraud, money laundering, cheating, stealing, and countless other crimes: ?
It has to stop now or it will get worse with the next thug that steals the presidency
trnc
@Chris Johnson:
Not gonna argue the general point, but remember – however much Mueller is personally involved from this point on, SDNY, the state of NY and congress all still have ongoing investigations, many of which were spawned from Mueller’s investigations. The system was not designed for one person (Mueller) to make all the difference, so take all of the focus on Mueller personally with a grain of salt. That’s just one more example of media laziness.
Here’s a good explainer:
https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/1109203639581712386
A Ghost To Most
I see the “lionhearts” have already formed their fetal balls. Sad.
Anonymous At Work
Re: Andrew Miller’s comment: Could Mueller wrap up everything except the Counter-Intelligence stuff still in progress? Would it work like that?
tobie
Like @Mary G:, I think Trump’s twitter meltdown last weekend means that he got wind that the report is not good for him, even if he and his immediate family will not be prosecuted by the Special Counsel. Like @Bobby Thomson:, I think Barr will bury the bodies with the justification that the privacy of un-indicted individuals must be maintained at all costs and since sitting Presidents cannot be indicted, … You all know this particular logical circle. Political theorist Carl Schmitt is proud: it turns out the US President is a sovereign and his/her power is absolute.
Steeplejack
@trnc:
I was going to post that tweet thread. Money tweet:
chopper
@chris:
oh ffs. we know the origins of the damn thing. it was republicans.
hilz just needs to change her name to emmanuel goldstein and get it over with.
danielx
That photo of William Barr is like a caricature of a constipated lawyer prick, right down to the eyeglasses – horn rimmed, of course.
BeucwFromOhio
Utter lunacy.
Kathleen
@West of the Rockies: You’re welcome! They have added an adult orchestra (called the “Hillharmonic” in honor of our neighborhood, Price Hill, and a My Cincinnati art project. The “Ambassadors” from My Cincinnati (a small group of members who have been with the project a long time and are seasoned musicians now) have appeared with Cincinnati Symphony, plays and other projects.
MomSense
How the fuck did Flynn get off without jail time for cooperation that didn’t lead to an indictment????? And why the hell did they just ask for a 60 day extension for the Gates sentencing because he was assisting with ongoing investigations only to have them finish the same week?
I don’t care if people think I’m a downer, this doesn’t make sense to me and I don’t trust Barr. Unless I hear some compelling counter arguments, my personal opinion is that Barr shut this investigation down.
Steeplejack
Read the Seth Abramson Twitter thread that trnc linked to.
The investigation is not over. Key tweet.
MomSense
I have loathed Barr for decades. Without getting too deep in the details, my dad was one of the people who had a lot to do with getting the Congress to investigate Iran Contra. The organizing was taking place in my house – we couldn’t sit at our dining room table (our only table for eating) for months. We hand photos PHOTOS OF HORRIBLE CARNAGE on our table. The phone was in constant use. As you all can imagine the pardons Barr shepherded were a major blow, a personal blow.
tobie
I haven’t seen much commentary on this but yesterday began with the news that the AG for the Southern District of New York, Robert Khuzami, was leaving his post for personal reasons. It’s the second big change in the line-up in SDNY and strikes me as suspicious:
trnc
@MomSense:
Few of us do, but the question is, how much can he block without completely soiling his reputation (which he may or may not care about)? Maybe he blocked the SC, but Mueller has apparently already handed over a lot to all of the orgs outside of Barr’s reach. Mueller couldn’t prosecute everything, but Barr also can’t block everything.
I’m not so much trying to talk you off the ledge yet, but just saying don’t jump yet and keep a firm grip on the rail for the next few months.
CatFacts
I’m going to stay hopeful.
If the report is bad, Trump will go ballistic and threaten to fire lots of people. But what if it turns out, as many lawyers on Twitter are speculating, that Mueller has farmed out all the stuff relating to him and his family to a whole lot of other courts, many of them state-level? In that case, Trump can’t fire or pardon them all, and no one compromised person at DOJ could stop the whole thing. Trump and co. wouldn’t have just one Mueller probe to deal with. They’d have a dozen or so mini-Muellers.
feebog
I’m puzzled by the lack of any further indictments. We already know from the Stone indictment he was working with and at the direction of someone in the Trump organization. My speculation was that it was Manafort. Why wasn’t he indicted? Yes, I know he has already been indicted, found guilty, pled guilty and been sentenced. But that was not on charges related to the campaign/Russia. I’m hopeful all will be revealed eventually, but it is very frustrating at this point. The silver lining is that this shit is going to continue to drip, drip, drip on Trumpov’s head. beginning with Barr’s abbreviated report this weekend. I expect it will take several weeks for a more comprehensive summary to be put together, or better yet for Mueller’s report to be sanitized and given to congress.
Just Chuck
I can’t imagine the full report being released without being heavily redacted. Given the nature of the investigation, wouldn’t it be chock full of classified information? The redaction alone is going to take a good amount of time, methinks.
Matt McIrvin
@feebog: I think it’s because Mueller saw his job as to investigate. The indictments he’s recommended are all about people specifically lying to obstruct his investigation. He was never going to prosecute all the wrongdoing in the administration himself.
(I guess there were the Russians too–who likely will never see trial.)
laura
@MomSense: That’s a WOW! the sting of injustice – I’m guessing it must seem as fresh as yesterday. Yet another in the long list of consequence free conduct and IOKIYAR.
Also, I had to apologize to you in the downstairs thread.
MomSense
@laura:
No need to apologize! We are allowed to be sad and miss online friends. We all cry for people and pets we’ve never met.