Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

The willow is too close to the house.

Why did Dr. Oz lose? well, according to the exit polls, it’s because Fetterman won.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

This really is a full service blog.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Consistently wrong since 2002

I was promised a recession.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

This fight is for everything.

Republicans in disarray!

You cannot shame the shameless.

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / Open Thread: Buckling Down to Dissect the Barr Report

Open Thread: Buckling Down to Dissect the Barr Report

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… In other words, the carefully-edited version of the Mueller Report that Trump’s hand-picked Acting AG has chosen to share, for now…

Reminder, Rep. Nadler is Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, and clearly he is *not* prepared to give AG Barr — or the man who appointed Barr his consigliere — a free pass. Good for him!

Also, Rep. Adam Schiff:

Reader Interactions

83Comments

  3. 3.

    Lapassionara

    My theory is that this is the Trump administration’s way of doing a Saturday Night Massacre. Barr is confirmed; he tells Mueller to wrap up; and Mueller does what he is told.

    All the loose ends may never be tied up.

  4. 4.

    FelonyGovt

    I love our House Dems. I’m beginning to think this won’t get swept under the rug so quickly.

  5. 5.

    Mike in NC

    Looks like somebody somewhere is going to leak Mueller’s full unredacted report. There are absolutely no secrets in Washington DC. Give it 24-48 hours, tops.

  7. 7.

    James E Powell

    I love our House Dems. I’m beginning to think this won’t get swept under the rug so quickly.

    I’m feeling the opposite. It’s already the end of March and they haven’t done dick. Imagine what the Rs would be doing if the situations were reversed.

  8. 8.

    Ben Cisco

    Our only remedy is the same one we had after election night 2016 – run him and his crew in 2020. Nothing else matters at this point.

  11. 11.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Lapassionara: There are ongoing Federal criminal investigations into the President, his administration, his campaign, his business, his family, and/or his surrogates at: Southern District of NY, Eastern District of NY, Central District of CA (Los Angeles US Attorney’s Office), US District for DC, Main Justice in the National Security Division and in the Public Corruption Division. There are also ongoing criminal and/or civil investigations into the President, his administration, his campaign, his business, his family, and/or his surrogates at: the Attorney General for NY, the Attorney General for Maryland, the Attorney General for New Jersey, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, and the Attorney General for the District of Columbia (equivalent to a DA).

  12. 12.

    tobie

    OT–before the Mueller report was released on Friday, it was announced that the Deputy AG for the SDNY Robert Khuzami was stepping down and an attorney named Audrey Strauss would be taking his place. The only thing I could find out about Strauss was that she was an Iran-Contra investigator. Has anyone looked into this. Our only hope is that the SDNY will continue investigations, and it’s looking more and more like Barr is hollowing the place out and installing partisans.

  13. 13.

    Suzanne

    @Mike in NC: Do you have a reason to think this other than really wanting it to happen?

    Is anyone truly surprised by this report: Trump and his goons possibly, even likely, committed obstruction of justice, but there isn’t enough evidence for a conviction due to the government’s high burden of proof? Shit, that always seemed like the most likely outcome to me.

    The only way forward has always, ALWAYS been at the ballot box.

  14. 14.

    wonkie

    I don’t know how this will shake out in the long run but in the short run it is a disaster. What the public is seeing is “exonerated”. That will discredit all of the other investigations,

    Ironically it will have no effect on the credibility of those hwo smeared Mueller and cried out about Deep State. That will all go down the memory hole.

    And in the coming weeks as the actual report dribbles out my guess is that there will be details that indicate that Trump tried to collude but no smoking gun that he succeeded. But the fact that he tried will be obscured by the “exoneration”.

    And this wil not help the Dems in 2020

  15. 15.

    Emerald

    @Mike in NC:

    Looks like somebody somewhere is going to leak Mueller’s full unredacted report.

    As Malcom Nance (hope he’s on his meds today) and our own Adam have said: it will accidentally fall off a truck right on the doorstep of the Washington Post.

  17. 17.

    Emerald

    @tobie:

    it’s looking more and more like Barr is hollowing the place out and installing partisans.

    Barr is one of the few actually competent officials Twitler has installed. I expect he is doing exactly what he was hired to do, just as he did with the Iran-Contra criminals.

  19. 19.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    C’mon good friends what AG would recommend charges against a sitting president, forgive me for the bothsiderism, but a Democratic AG would do the same damn thing, impeachment is not happening, and would never happen. Just like “Fitzmas”, “Mueller Time” a fool’s errand, the House will investigate, but until then how about concentrating on the elections and get rid of the Dotard.

  21. 21.

    tobie

    @wonkie: I feel this way, too, but I’m trying to keep my fraught nerves together right now and one thing I do find comforting is that 2020 is still some time away and so much other garbage is going to happen between now and then that there will be tons of outrage at the mendacity of Republicans going into the general election. Also: Barr’s unilateral exoneration of Trump on obstruction is not playing quite as well as you think.

  22. 22.

    Jay

    @wonkie:

    The Public is seeing that Barr didn’t exonerate the Needy Amin.

    RWNJ’s are still chanting “No Collusion” and “Lock Her Up”,

    And months and months more of hearings to come.

    The Fat Lady isn’t even at the Theatre yet, let alone warming up backstage.

  23. 23.

    tobie

    @Emerald: That’s why I’m trying to get a read on who Audrey Strauss is and there’s not a lot out there:

    Strauss, 71, worked her way up in the Manhattan office starting in 1976, and served as the chief of an appeals unit and the head of the securities and commodities fraud unit. She left in 1983, working on the Independent Counsel’s staff probing the Iran Contra scandal in the later years of the Reagan administration, and as chief legal officer for Alcoa. She rejoined the Southern District in February 2018 as senior counsel to Berman.

  25. 25.

    guachi

    @Immanentize: AFAIK, there are no sealed indictments.

    People who thought Mueller would save them were not being realistic. And it’s clear large segments of America, including most of the media, are easily played by Trump.

    The only upside is that most of the people opposed to Trump were opposed before any though of collusion with Trump came up. The massive marches the Saturday after the inauguration show that.

  26. 26.

    eemom

    I can’t believe y’all chicken littles. I honestly fucking can’t.

    Maybe this will help. After 30+ years in my justly reviled profession, I assure you that nothing comes more easily and naturally to the Barrs of this world than twisting written words to make them sound like the opposite of what they mean. Especially when there is 0 price to be paid for doing so.

    So calm the fuck down.

  27. 27.

    Peale

    Like that Ari Fleischer has jumped on board the “prosecute Obama” bandwagon over the report. If they would limit themselves to making 2020 about locking Hillary Up over this report they might go unnoticed. Make it about Locking Obama Up and I think they lose in places they haven’t thought about losing since 1980.

  28. 28.

    MJS

    @Immanentize: That’s the problem – it will be leaked. Not one fucking person with the integrity to stand up and say, right fucking now, “Barr is lying. That’s not what the report says at all.” Not one. Cowards all.

  31. 31.

    MJS

    @eemom: Then we should be seeing a statement from Mueller contradicting Barr any minute now, right? Or does decorum dictate he let Barr lie about his (Mueller’s) work?

  32. 32.

    Immanentize

    @guachi: I’m not talking about sealed Indictments, although there could be — I’m talking about twelve Indictments filed the days before Stone was indicted with no reports of others being served. That kind of thing

    Also, agree generally with eemom but I don’t believe Bar is lying, just very carefully spinning.

    ETA. Barr’s letter is obviously a political document, not a legal one. His top line exhoneration will endure politically for some time

  35. 35.

    Yutsano

    @Immanentize: I’m coming to the conclusion this letter had an audience of one. It was solely meant to appease Dolt45 and no one else. The already in motion investigations prove this. This is fortunately nowhere near the end.

  36. 36.

    Jay

    @MJS:

    Meuller’s life depends on process being followed.

    Reality Winner???????????????

    And the process is testimony, both public and private to the House Commitees.

    The engraved invitations are being pressed as we speak.

  37. 37.

    geg6

    I give up on this country. We are living in a dictatorship ruled by the mad puppet of Vladimir Putin. Get used to it or get out. I’m going to try to figure out what to do now. Hopefully, I have a couple of years to get plans into place before they come for us all.

    I know this sounds desperate and crazy, but I don’t know what else to feel. I have no faith left in any of our “leaders” or institutions.

  39. 39.

    Immanentize

    @Yutsano: That is mostly my conclusion too. The facts will come out, but probably in the summer. Trump is stabilized for a few days. But I see his son is already blabbing — “Collusion Truthers.”

  40. 40.

    J R in WV

    I just want tell ya’ll this:

    Even an acquital by a jury is not “Found Innocent” — it is found not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt!

    I served on two capital murder trials in October and December many years ago. My wife covered probably a hundred serious trials as a reporter for 30+ years, so I heard a whole lot about the goings on in courts.

    So when I say no trial ever found a defendant “innocent” ever never — I know what I’m talking about. Also, it is impossible according to the laws of logic to prove a negative case. To say at Bill Clinton’s rally in town (way back in the day) that “No Republicans attended” is ipso facto impossible and wrong. Especially when a big donor to the Rs is on TV on the stage…!

    So all anyone can say about those not yet indicted is:

    They have not yet been indicted!

    Which is a long way from exonerated. Also too, just because some things are (barely) legal doesn’t make them legitimate and moral.

    All that said, I’m disappointed so far. No surprise, there, I guess, ever since fall of 2016.

    Also, all those oldsters who died without seeing the “Mueller Report” — that’s a good thing, kinda.

  41. 41.

    MJS

    @Jay: A statement of, “AG Barr’s statements with regard to the report are misleading” would represent no violation of the law.

  42. 42.

    Belafon

    @James E Powell:

    I’m feeling the opposite. It’s already the end of March and they haven’t done dick. Imagine what the Rs would be doing if the situations were reversed.

    And what would they be doing if Democrats were in control of the Senate and supported a president who ignored anything coming out of the House?

    We don’t have a reverse, because Democrats still care about following rules and the Constitution

  43. 43.

    James E Powell

    @Yutsano:

    The audiences were the press/media, then the great mass of American people who don’t really follow this stuff closely and who will assume that whatever CNN tells them is true.

    Although some people like to deprecate Sarah Kendzior, she poses questions that Democrats should be asking out loud. For one, if this is all Mueller got, why was he offering sweet plea deals. What did he get that was worth letting people off?

  44. 44.

    sharl

    @tobie:
    That’s why I’m trying to get a read on who Audrey Strauss is and there’s not a lot out there

    As is kinda obvious from the article title, here’s an almost gushing* piece from a courthouse reporter who works the SDNY beat: Lawyer Who Bested Roy Cohn Tapped for Big Gig in SDNY

    *The reporter (Adam Klasfeld) normally has a more staid approach to his writing, based on my limited reading of his work. I don’t know if he’s beat-sweetening here, or is just genuinely very positive on her. Anyhoo, his piece is pretty good about offering the basics of her background.

  45. 45.

    Jay

    @MJS:

    Nope, but while it would slightly calm all the Eeores contemplating suicide or survivalism, it would have the reverse impact of Comey’s Emailz Risotto investigation.

    The move would be completely and overtly political.

    It would further politicise the Investigation and it’s results amongst the RWNJ’s and the Screaming Pundit Class.

    It’s not Meullers job to pat your hand and say “there, there, suck it up, Buttercup”.

  46. 46.

    John Revolta

    Everybody takes some deep breaths. All we got is a Trump employee telling us what he wants us to hear. Even if y’all don’t remember how all unfolded in 1973-74, rest assured there’s plenty in DC who do. It ain’t a sprint.

  48. 48.

    Yutsano

    @James E Powell: Joe Scarborough (I know) of all people was wondering if there really was no collusion then why did so many people around him lie? Why did the President himself lie about his Russian contacts? What happened in that meeting where he shared top secret intelligence with Russians where no American reporters were allowed? Why are there still many stones still left unturned? Something is still quite rotten and the Barr letter definitely isn’t helping.

  49. 49.

    James E Powell

    @Belafon:

    They’d be on cable and radio every day calling the president a traitor, a crook, and a demon. Their house committees would be conducting non-stop investigations. They would definitely have Hillary Clinton’s tax returns and they’d be public. They’d be leaking rumors, innuendo, and outright lies to the NYT. The NYT would report each one breathlessly and the cable shows would take up the chant so that every one of their accusations would be fixed as fact in the voters’ minds by the election which they would win.

    What they wouldn’t be doing is nothing.

  51. 51.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Immanentize: If the report really exonerated the president and his family and business and campaign and surrogates than Barr would have released the whole thing by now.

  52. 52.

    chopper

    given the long term DOJ policy that a sitting president can’t be prosecuted, barr’s statement that the evidence of obstruction doesn’t rise to the level of prosecuting is completely meaningless. there is literally no evidence no matter how bad that would compel barr to prosecute. especially given the fact that barr was specifically put into this position to hamstring this specific process.

    we need to see the actual evidence here.

  53. 53.

    MJS

    @Jay: Fuck off, smart ass. It also wasn’t Mueller’s job to submit a report without interviewing the subject of the investigation in person. And it is his job to ensure his efforts are accurately represented, regardless of what the press and RWNJs have to say about it.

  54. 54.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    @Immanentize: If it used to strip the Dotard of the benefits as President, I’m game. especially if the Trumpanzees want to plant Dotard at Arlington Next to JFK’s resting spot.

  55. 55.

    B.B.A.

    Just remember, if Russia hadn’t interfered in the election, President Kaine would have an empty Cabinet and would be desperately trying to pass a budget through the Republican Congress that just impeached and removed his predecessor for “doing Benghazi on her emails,” to quote the third article of impeachment.

  56. 56.

    Another Scott

    PopeHat at TheAtlantic:

    […]

    Why would Mueller spend so much time investigating obstruction of justice but not reach a conclusion? We won’t know until we read his report. But Mueller, a career G-man, is fundamentally legally conservative. That means he has a narrow view of his own role and a healthy respect for the authority of the other branches of government. He might believe that the evaluation is so inherently political that no conclusion he could offer would ever be seen as legitimate, and that the matter is better resolved through Congress’s constitutional authority to impeach (or not) the president. Even if Mueller didn’t make an explicit recommendation, we’ll probably be able to infer his conclusions by reviewing how he marshaled the evidence for and against guilt. Prosecutors, as a rule, are not good at neutral renditions of facts.

    The attorney general showed no such circumspection. In less than 48 hours, he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein—who supervised Mueller for most of his investigation—“concluded that the evidence developed during the Special Counsel’s investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offence.” Though Barr emphasized that he and Rosenstein had been involved in evaluating the status of the investigation for months, and that they consulted the Office of Legal Counsel and other Department of Justice experts, this conclusion reflects startling and unseemly haste for such a historic matter.

    Crucially, we don’t know whether Barr concluded that the president didn’t obstruct justice or whether he couldn’t obstruct justice. Well before his appointment, Barr wrote an unsolicited memo to Rosenstein arguing that Mueller’s investigation was “fatally misconceived,” to the extent it was premised on Trump firing former FBI Director James Comey or trying to persuade Comey to drop the investigation of Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national-security adviser. Barr’s memo was a forceful exposition of the legal argument that the president cannot obstruct justice by exercising certain core powers such as hiring or firing staff or directing the course of executive-branch investigations. So although Barr’s letter to Congress says that he and Rosenstein found no actions that constituted “obstructive conduct” undertaken with the requisite corrupt intent, we don’t know whether he means that Trump didn’t try to interfere with an investigation, or that even if he did, it wasn’t obstruction for a president to do so. Democrats in Congress will want to probe that distinction—as they should.

    Mueller’s report was initially confidential under Department of Justice regulations governing the special counsel. In Sunday’s letter, Barr said his goal was to release as much of it as possible consistent with the law. In particular, he noted that the report includes information about matters occurring before the grand jury that are secret as a matter of federal law, and that some other references in the report might reveal the status of ongoing investigations. Barr must abide by his promise to resolve those questions promptly and in favor of as much disclosure as the law permits. It’s impossible to evaluate the results of Mueller’s investigation—and their legal, political, and historical significance—without the details.

    The Mueller process isn’t over.

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  57. 57.

    debbie

    I feel like it’s deja vu all over again. I feel this is more and more like Iran-Contra.

  58. 58.

    Ohio Mom

    @tobie: Yes, for a long time (even before Trump), I have thought that banana republic is where we were heading. And why not? We invented the concept.

  59. 59.

    Jay

    @James E Powell:

    The House Commitees arn’t “doing nothing”.

    And a huge part of the reason the ReThugs are the party of treason, is because of the “win” at all costs tactics they embrace.

    It’s not a road any Democrats should ever walk down.

    It leads to a complete moral abyss.

  60. 60.

    tobie

    @sharl: Thanks for the link. I found it reassuring that someone like Mimi Rocah, who used to work at the SDNY doesn’t find the staff change that unusual.

  61. 61.

    Tim C.

    @geg6: Take a walk. I mean that literally, get out an walk. We aren’t in as bad a shape as we were two years ago. This is a marathon, not a sprint. We all wanted a smoking gun and absolute proof to collapse the Republican party. That ain’t happening and was never in the cards. Yeah, it might go badly and the stress of being in the position of things not being settled is hard. It’s super hard. I’ve already vomited twice about it today and probably will again. But this isn’t over and there are sub-investigations to be worked out. But here’s what, I think, we need to give up on.

    1) The pee-tape or whatever doesn’t exist. Likewise any major magic-bullet instant resignation fantasy needs to be put to bed now. I’d like that just as much as anyone, but it’s not happening.

    2) There isn’t going to be anything left in those sub-investigations that probably will produce anything like in point 1

    3) The rank-and-file GOP will never be swayed by this. Maybe if Trump invaded a South American country, maybe if the economy tanks, but not this stuff. It’s going to be a long slog, so fight.

    Other people with better insights than me have covered the rest and I always thought direct collusion was unlikely and the major players in it stayed shut up. There are dozens of other crimes out there, Our “party line” now needs to be “We got 880k Pages on Clinton’s Emails, why can’t we read the report?” and “Why won’t you release what’s in the report?”

    My fingers are shaking as I type this, but to quote Herbet, “Fear is the mind-killer”

  62. 62.

    plato

    @James E Powell:

    Yup, bbc’s 24 point headline now – Trump ‘did not conspire with Russia’. The best day of trump’s presidency.

    The drumbeat has begun.

  64. 64.

    The Dangerman

    UCF giving Duke all they want; under 12 timeout now.

    They’re mixing up their D nicely; sometimes straight zone, I think I saw a Box and 1, and the color guy called out a triangle and 2 a couple minutes ago. Zoning Duke is the only way to beat them.

    Zion is a stud (duh) and this Fall character can play in the league, too (if Manute Bol can play for a decade, this guy can, too).

  65. 65.

    Jay

    @MJS:

    Back atcha with a rusty rebar,

    Meuller has perfectly good reasons to not interview the Insane Clown POSus,

    #1, the White House would fight it through the Courts to the ReThug dominated Supremes. Guess which way they would vote and set precedent?

    #2, it’s the Insane Clown POSus, so all you are going to get is shitstirring and a tornado vomit of free association. All you are going to get is “Caravans, Electoral College, Who elected Meuller?” ad naseaum and the only “evidence” it will provide is for a deminished mental capacity defence.

  66. 66.

    Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho

    @eemom: Indeed; thanks for saying this. Calm the fuck down. Early days – my expectation is that OSC referred a ship ton of these out, and there are sealed indictments in several jurisdictions. This isn’t Mueller’s first rodeo.

    @Immanentize: ETA: I agree with your ETA. Very carefully parsed words by Barr. Parsed in incomplete sentences, no less.

    Also, too, sent you an email.

  67. 67.

    plato

    Apparently, barr’s justification for no obstruction of justice conclusion was that the totus thug has been angrily tweeting about it publicly. Unbelievable.

  69. 69.

    prostratedragon

    @The Dangerman: Never heard of Tacko Fall until this week, and have trouble figuring out why the standard commentary is to question whether such a tall player can be NBA-viable when there have already been a couple of others, and Fall seems to be a better athlete than they were. Are the writers all 18?

  71. 71.

    SFAW

    Info for all you Pats haters out there: Gronk has apparently announced his retirement

    Apologies if this info has already appeared elsewhere in this joint.

  72. 72.

    MJS

    @Jay: Buttercup, you shouldn’t worry so much about Trump’s reaction to things. That’s how abusers control things.

  73. 73.

    Jay

    @MJS:

    And you should just kill yourself and get it all over with Eeore.

    Unsurprising that a new nym is busy trolling and never read any of the multiple FP’s, comments and expert links on how to deal with a malignant narcissist.

  77. 77.

    SFAW

    @Immanentize:

    I’ve been a Jets fan for 55-plus years, and don’t have a lot of love for the Pats. That said, Gronk was an outstanding player, and I’m sorry he kept getting hurt. As with you, I expect that’s a big driver for his decision.

  78. 78.

    geg6

    @Tim C.:

    I’m not afraid. I’ve been furious. But now I’m just done. I don’t believe that it’s ever going to be all right. I don’t believe our institutions can handle this. I don’t believe the 2020 election will have any result other than Trump’s re-election. I think all the happy talk here in these last few threads is whistling into the wind. 60 Minutes just said the president was completely exonerated. It’s over. Get used to it.

  80. 80.

    Chris Johnson

    @Tim C.:

    We all wanted a smoking gun and absolute proof to collapse the Republican party. That ain’t happening

    How do you know? We are not seeing a single complete sentence out of Mueller’s report.

  81. 81.

    Tim C.

    @Chris Johnson: I don’t with absolute certainty. So that’s a fair question. All I can say is my working model of Barr is that he’s a corrupt loyalist to the GOP who wouldn’t bet his future on burying something of that magnitude that might get out. That model maybe flawed as well. I’m just giving up on magic bullets at this point.

  82. 82.

    oldgold

    Given that I have spent months pissing and moaning about the pace of the Mueller probe, it is strange that I am critical of Barr moving so quickly.

    Has anyone ever seen such speed? The report is filed on Friday afternoon and before the sun sets on Sunday he has resolved the open obstruction matter. Ridiculous!

    Why? To set the damn political narrative.
    Trump and his cronies, including Barr, have always seen and played this game as a political matter, as opposed to a legal one. And, it appears they have won.

    In some respects, it is very close to what happened in terms of the contested 2000 Presidential election.

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