Attorney General Bill Barr will hold a news conference Thursday morning at the Justice Department, at 9:30 a.m. He's expected to take questions about the release of the redacted Mueller report. Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein will be there as well.
— Carrie Johnson (@johnson_carrie) April 17, 2019
Yeah this is pretty transparently a spin job, since they'll be filling a huge knowledge vacuum. https://t.co/0FbmQAsoQc
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) April 17, 2019
Trump has also said he may do a press conference after. Obviously, if the report is released in the press conference, nobody will have had time to read it.
New: Once the redacted version of the Mueller report has been released to the public, the Justice Department plans to make available for review by a limited number of Members of Congress and their staff a copy of the report without certain redactions. per new court record.
— Ken Dilanian (@KenDilanianNBC) April 17, 2019
Minutes after the Justice Department announced that Attorney General Barr will be holding a press conference tomorrow about the release of Mueller’s final report, just saw Secretary of State Mike Pompeo walk out of the Justice Department building. Never seen him here before.
— Mike Levine (@MLevineReports) April 17, 2019
US Justice Dept. says "a limited number of Members of Congress and their staff" will have access to "a copy of the Special Counsel’s report without certain redactions" https://t.co/lg7RLQHyTr#MuellerReport pic.twitter.com/tP4AcZfwQl
— Mike Scarcella (@MikeScarcella) April 17, 2019
Justice officials have had numerous talks with White House lawyers about Mueller's conclusions in recent days, talks that have aided Trump's legal team as it prepares rebuttal @MarkMazzettiNYT @maggieNYT @npfandos @ktbenner https://t.co/NM1BLfpDhM
— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) April 17, 2019
I am wondering if what is released will be the marked-up redacted 400 pages or a rewrite by Barr. Also if the text will be searchable or if it will be one of those inert pdfs.
NotMax
To be followed in several years with the director’s cut, thereafter the remastered deluxe edition, etc.
;)
JustRuss
I predict the presser will go something like this:
Media: Is there anything in the Mueller report damaging to Pres. Trump?
Barr: No.
Media: Well OK then, glad that’s finally settled.
Baud
The metadata will probably say Hillary was the author for extra conspiracy mongering.
jl
As I noted in previous thread, looks like Barr will extensively redact the report in order to make sure he avoids Comey’s mistakes with the HRC BS email non-issue. And just to make sure he does it right, he’ll hold a presser to not quite randomly BS about the report, just like Comey did (and was one of main pretexts for firing Comey).
Nice! Can eat your cake, have it, and dump it all over your lap at the same time. Who says Trumpsters are not innovative and creatively effective executives?
misterpuff
Another stall tactic……
jl
@Baud: This is the kind of shit show Baud 2020! should get in on. Trumpster upping the nonsense, but no response from the candidate who has main claim to that skill set.
jl
And now I see that if Trump doesn’t think Barr’s performance is corrupt enough, he’ll hold a persser afterward on it too! Or maybe if Barr under exceeds low expectations for integrity, Trump wants another victory dance. Whatever…
NotMax
3:30 in the a.m. here when it is 9:30 Eastern time. Won’t be watching yet another tinpot episode of “What’s My Lie?” at that hour.
Major Major Major Major
I imagine somebody will have typed up a searchable version by the end of Friday even if it is just a series of images.
mvr
It shouldn’t be too hard to convert it to searchable even if it is inert.
Baud
@jl:
The reports of my corruption will be translated into Klingon before being redacted.
sukabi
Rewrite by Barr. Why be partially corrupt when you can go whole hog?
misterpuff
Non-Trumpsters: Anti-Fitzmas
Press: V-W Day! Victory in Washington. POTUS Exonerated Squared!
Trumpsters: Happy Days are Here Again!
VeniceRiley
Yeah the criminals should definitely be updated before the congress. *sigh* We’re soaking in on of those huge pits of hog waste.
germy
Yutsano
I would laugh if the whole released report is just a bunch of black bars for 400 pages. Except Barr is just enough of an asshole to do just that.
patrick II
@Major Major Major Major:
I believe you can just scan in a printed out version and set your scanner’s parameters to save it into a searchable file.
J R in WV
.
.
.
So how is it legal for DoJ officials to “have… numerous talks with White House lawyers” while DoJ refuses to allow Congressional security leadership access to that very information? Yet another illegal scam by Burr to aid his Dear Leader overcome the forces of law and order. Yet another show of support for the Putin Puppets of our nation. Money walks, Democracy, well doesn’t do anything… Can’t even talk…
jl
@misterpuff: Wonder how much redacted material Barr will refer to in a vague way to justify his probably very non-random public and offcial (?) musings on the report? Or will he muse as a just a corrupt old flunky covering for Trumpsters, not as US AG?
misterpuff
@jl: All of Them, Katie.
NotMax
But- but – the redactions will be color coded! Just like Trix and Lucky Charms! And everybody loves those, right? //
debbie
“Inert” pdf? I only have Acrobat Reader, but I can do word searches.
trnc
@debbie: https://idrh.ku.edu/sites/idrh.ku.edu/files/files/tutorials/pdf/Non-text-searchable.pdf
Repatriated
@debbie: PDF made up of scanned jpgs (or the like) of printed pages rather than having the text integrated as text and thus searchable.
debbie
@trnc:
So much work to scan 400 pages as images! Plus, isn’t there a program to convert images to text?
Mike G
Time for another snow job. And of course the gullible corporate media will trumpet everything he says as being the complete and exact truth of what’s in the report.
After removing all mention of Trump’s crimes the whole report will probably be a paragraph or two.
Oh, and he forgot to mention it will be in all-caps Comic Sans and translated into Amharic.
Repatriated
@debbie: Yes it is, and yes there are. It’s a stalling tactic.
debbie
@Baud:
Do you have experience in graphic design? The layout program I used to use (Quark) used to have an option to greek in text on layouts, and one of the text choices was Klingon. Clients loved it!
debbie
@Repatriated:
Stalling tactic, or … obstruction? ;)
Doug R
@trnc:
FREE ONLINE OCR SERVICE
RandomMonster
@debbie: OCR’s are available all over the place.
Cheryl Rofer
kindness
Really every fight is going to come down to a Supreme Court decision. Trump’s minions will fight release of anything, they’ll get sued and then judges will start judging. But every single issue won’t end till the SCOTUS says it’ll take the case or it won’t.
I hope there are 5 souls on the bench who value America more than the Republican griftmill.
misterpuff
Does having Mueller help in the redaction process in any way negate his “outsider” status as Special Counsel and put him back under the DOJ protocols against testifying to Congress?
Just wondering.
The Dangerman
Barr, Rosenstein, and company will be all sitting in a circle, right? I’d hate to have to be the cleanup crew from that pressing of the meat.
Barbara
The problem with this approach is that the more they evidently hide what’s there the more people assume that they are covering up wrongdoing. There is nothing they can do about that impression without releasing as much as they can as broadly as possible. I am not going to stress about this. Also, you don’t need to rebut exculpatory findings.
debbie
@Cheryl Rofer:
I hope the first question at the press conference will be to ask Barr if he intends to schedule another press conference after reporters have had a chance to actually read the report.
debbie
@RandomMonster:
I figured. I’m also assuming they’ve been much more accurate than they have been in the past. I’ve never needed one, but I remember reading about issues.
Cheryl Rofer
Apparently some of the redactions have to do with Roger Stone’s trial.
piratedan
I’ve always been a believer in Due Process, not sure I approve of this GOP version of No Process….
trnc
@debbie: The non-searchable pdf idea seems to have taken on a life of its own. I wouldn’t put it past Barr to do it, but I think we’re only talking about it because Cheryl mentioned it at the end of her post. I thought it was a joke, but maybe not.
In any case, I was just pointing out an example of a non-searchable pdf file. Yes, it looks like the OCR services can convert.
RandomMonster
@debbie:
Awesome idea!
Cheryl Rofer
BuzzFeed has Freedom of Information Act requests in on practically everything.
trnc
@debbie: That would be awesome. Even more so if they just left after they got that answer.
Cheryl Rofer
@trnc: Not to make a big deal of it, but I’ve run into an awful lot of non-searchable pdf files. I agree that if that’s what Barr does, someone will run it through OCR and make that available. It won’t be me, though.
piratedan
@Cheryl Rofer: well… if what Barr is doing is illegal, send the Capitol Police over there and arrest his ass.
Sure Lurkalot
@debbie:
If the media had any integrity, they wouldn’t show up at all.
Mike in NC
Tomorrow at 9:30 we fly to Tampa again. Been there many times, but it could be worse, like being stuck at Mar-A-Lago and forced to eat burnt steak smothered in ketchup.
oldgold
For months I have belly-ached ad nauseam on this blog about Mueller failing to understand or simply not caring about timing and time.
Well, Bill Barr is without question a sorry-assed excuse for Attorney General of the United States, but he has shown over the past month that he understands the importance and power of timing and time
.
[Timing] Barr raced to set the initial narrative.
[Time] Barr held the Report allowing his narrative to permeate the political culture while allowing Trump and his media enablers to spew the “complete exoneration” BS and prepare a rebuttal.
[Timing] Tomorrow Barr will reinforce his initial narrative as he releases the selectively redacted “Mueller” Report just as Congress is spring out of DC for an extended Easter break.
Mnemosyne
Before I saw this post, I got an email from Barnes and Noble offering a pre-order of the electronic version of the report. Huh.
Did Congress get the Starr report before or after it was published and released to the public?
Kraux Pas
@Sure Lurkalot:
And so they’ll be there with bells on, carrying their finest stenographer pads.
@trnc:
Emphatically This.
banditqueen
So Barr got to summarize the Mueller report, then redact it as he wished/needed to, yet he and the DoJ have briefed the *resident’s defense attorneys on it, and still will not have “let” congress see the report until well after the presser tomorrow. At this point it’s the Barr redacted Mueller report and most of us outside of the greater WH defense team don’t know what it really reveals.
debbie
@banditqueen:
Someone needs to be reminded that he is the Attorney for the American people and not the attorney for the president.
FlyingToaster
@Sure Lurkalot: Actually, this is *precisely* the job that you send the interns to. No actual news, just self-serving bloviating. Perfect for a journalism student.
But our MSM can’t tear itself away from stenography…
trollhattan
@Cheryl Rofer:
PDF files can be protected against running ORC but scanning a printout gets around that. 400 pages of page images sucks!
Amir Khalid
@debbie:
Someone is aware that his job is officially the American people’s attorney, but his assignment is to be attorney for the president.
trnc
@Cheryl Rofer: Most of the ones I see are from old manuals or papers that were scanned in back in the 90s with primitive non-OCR scanners. And considering the report was probably not written on a typewriter, it was probably created in a text-searchable format. If Barr were to release it in a non-searchable format, I’d say that would be an even bigger act of junior high antics than his executive summary.
banditqueen
@debbie: Well, Barr can say truthfully, “I was just following orders”.
Kraux Pas
@trollhattan:
It can always be recreated in a searchable format by typing it.
Patricia Kayden
There is at least one other way House Democrats can get a copy of the unredacted Mueller report without initiating impeachment proceedings.
Hopefully, they’ll use it.
https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2019/04/17/commentary-if-congress/
Democrats need to take whatever steps they can to get their hands on that full report and then start using it to put Trump on the defense for his outrageous conduct.
Cheryl Rofer
VeniceRiley
This is not unexpected, but is making my eye twitch. And I get plenty of potassium in my diet.
And is it true North Korea test launched another missile today? Gods!
MJS
At some point, some honest person is just going to have to leak the whole damn thing, or watch the end of this country and think, “Not my job.”
FelonyGovt
What a shitshow. I have no interest in hearing from Barr again, especially before the full report is made available.
mapaghimagsik
@trollhattan: Yes, but 10 people can get through 40 pages right quick. Or, 20 people 20 pages, etc…
trollhattan
@Kraux Pas:
Not volunteering!
Having published tens of thousands of PDF pages of scanned old documents that I first ran through OCR then cleaned up, bookmarked, cross-linked, etc. before putting on line, I’d still go that route. It’s a PITA but still faster than transcribing. Plus tables, annotated figures, etc. don’t lend themselves.
Cheryl Rofer
Okay, I didn’t get the form precisely right. They probably couldn’t figure out how to make a nonsearchable pdf.
hells littlest angel
I’m expecting something along these lines:
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||the President||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||is||||||||||||||||||||||||
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||not||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||guilty|||||||
and||||||||||||||||||||he||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||is|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||so|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||great||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||the|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||best|||||||||||||||||||||||||
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||frankly|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Cheryl Rofer
NotMax
First thing I’d be looking at is information about or supplied by Allen Weisselberg (“Executive 1” in previous documents). Begin with someone known to know where the bodies are buried.
Cheryl Rofer
But then there’s this. As always, early reports are confusing, and I’m sure that Barr is doing everything he can to make them more confusing.
banditqueen
@Cheryl Rofer: A blatant DIAF to congress on the part of Barr and the rest of the WH defense team. A redacted report to congress… so grossly appalling.
Cheryl Rofer
@VeniceRiley: North Korea launched a smallish missile some time. They hardly ever say exactly when. It’s probably not nuclear, and probably launched within the last month or so. Kim is reminding Trump that he’s waiting for a response beyond “give us all your nukes.”
Mnemosyne
@trollhattan:
Now pity the person or people who are going to have to take multiple versions of the report and compare them to figure out what was left out once the full version is leaked.
piratedan
anyone laying odds when someone from the Mueller investigation team just drops an unredacted copy of the report on Congressman’s Nadler’s desk?
I’m guessing watching this travesty of American “unjustice” unfold is NOT what they signed up for.
Jay
@VeniceRiley:
Short range, “tactical?”, maneuverable missile of some kind.
Starfish
I think I saw people on Twitter saying that they were releasing a hard copy and not a PDF. Did anyone else see that?
guachi
@piratedan: I think it’s exactly what they signed up for.
Punting on making a determination of obstruction basically says the Mueller investigatory team didn’t really feel like doing their job.
They knew what would happen.
Chief Oshkosh
@Cheryl Rofer: Again, no sense of timing or time.
Maybe the Democrats will surprise me and hold an additional press conference right before Billy Barr’s lying session. Now that would be good timing, and for once, useful.
trollhattan
@Cheryl Rofer:
Thumb drives or go home!
Wonder if they first considered Zip drives?
trollhattan
@hells littlest angel:
Nicely played.
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
Yeesh.
“Yes, I’d like to order a hundred interns please.”
Gravenstone
@Mnemosyne: I’d look for one or more of Mueller’s team to do just that. Software comparison of the redacted version against what they delivered to DoJ. Immediately calling out any obviously rewritten passages.
rikyrah
@Cheryl Rofer:
Uh huh
Uh huh ??
chopper
cause it’s not like OCR software exists. these fuckers would do that just out of spite.
TS (the original)
@Cheryl Rofer: The rules are ALWAYS different for Republicans. They cheat, they lie and sadly too many believe them.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@trollhattan:
Yes, but they decided to use Bernoulli drives instead.
Cheryl Rofer
JaySinWA
@chopper: That’s more of their delaying tactics if they do it. First the Barr summary to try and frame the message, then the Barr press conference without the Barr public redactions, then the Barr public redactions possibly sabotaging the searchability (and limiting the possibility of an error in the PDF redactions allowing them to be unmasked), then the Barr congress redactions, and then sometime in the indefinite future the Mueller Report (Barr annotated edition?).
JaySinWA
@JaySinWA: Of course I forgot the post Stone Trial partially unredacted version and other iterations as court challenges progress for those non legally supported redactions.
sukabi
@?BillinGlendaleCA: floppy disks or go home.
GxB
@Cheryl Rofer: And I again sigh to the fact that a clickbait hellhole has to go through the motions for the “investigative journalists”.
Great job Merica, bravo.
Jay
@Cheryl Rofer:
Guided artillary shells would be a big priority given their entrenched artillary.
Hungry Joe
From “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” (updated to 2019): “The entire document, unredacted, will be filed in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying “Beware of the Leopard.”
Jerzy Russian
@sukabi: Does anyone here remember “jaz drives”? One or two should be enough for scans of 400 pages.
MisterForkbeard
@Chief Oshkosh: I don’t think doing this right before the Barr report would be especially helpful. The media would just ignore it. Doing it tonight at least gets it on evening TV and lets journalists write articles for tomorrow.
It ALSO gives Barr a chance to change his behavior at the last minute, which is doubtful but potentially helpful.
lamh36
@piratedan: IKR… Mueller should be pissed and willing to let Barr know it.
ETA: If not..then he’s just another Republican never Trumper…all talk…
lamh36
sgrAstar
@Barbara:
Bingo, Counselor.
sukabi
@Jerzy Russian: yes, but I’m thinking Barr’s enough of an asshole he’d go with the 5.25″ floppies unnumbered in boxes that are “accidently” spilled all over the floor.
Another Scott
Barr certainly likes doing things to infuriate the Democratic House, doesn’t he?
In other news, Speaker Pelosi:
Good. Maybe that will help push the UK Parliament to finally trash the whole Brexit thing.
Cheers,
Scott.
lamh36
Martin
I never noticed the free jazz nature of Jerry Nadlers eyebrows before. I’m a big jealous.
lamh36
Cheryl Rofer
Another Scott
@sukabi: 5.25″ floppies? That’s new-fangled technology.
Why in my day, we had to use a Teletype Model 33 with the paper tape reader.
And I programmed a Calcomp plotter using an ancient IBM computer that used Hollerith cards.
If Barr were really evil, he’d put the redacted report on cards, punched on a terminal with a missing ribbon, and then shuffle the cards a few times before loading them in their boxes.
;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
(“Who also used 8″ floppies in grad school.”)
brantl
@debbie: A pdf file made from an image scan isn’t searchable
Gravenstone
@Martin: I caught the end of the presser and my first thought was ‘where the hell is his right eyebrow?’
Steve in the ATL
@Another Scott: “your floppy is only 5.25”? Mine is 8”!”
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Another Scott:
Wait, there are ribbons on punch card machines?
Skepticat
@JustRuss:
Sadly, I do think that’s really about all anyone ever will get from this. I seriously doubt we’ll see more than a few thousand words, most of them “the,” “a,” “and,” “for,” and possibly “therefore.” In all candor, I don’t care whether the public at large gets to read the whole thing; I want it in the hands, eyes, and brains of the people in Congress who have the full authority to read and DO SOMETHING about it. Don’t expect that to happen, however.
Where is Daniel Ellsberg now that we really, really need him?
JaySinWA
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Yes there are, so humans can read what was punched, and id cards if they are shuffled.
germy
According to the Washington Post, the Mueller report will be lightly redacted, revealing detailed look at obstruction of justice investigation?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/attorney-general-plans-news-conference-to-discuss-mueller-report/2019/04/17/f5ca1cc6-6138-11e9-9ff2-abc984dc9eec_story.html?utm_term=.aef6a867e4db
I thought I read yesterday that it would be 50% – 70% redacted.
Mike in Pasadena
@Barbara:
“. . . you don’t need to rebut exculpatory findings.”
You are so right! When I read that Trump’s lawyers were preparing a rebuttal to a report that Trump characterized as completely exonerating him, I asked, “So, are Trump’s lawyers preparing a document that will prove that Trump and the Russians conspired?”
Bill Arnold
@germy:
Given the BS so far, I’m thinking that they may release something that is reformatted and hard to compare easily/visually with the original(s). There might be people from the Mueller investigation (who might have access only to sections), who will find themselves doing it manually unless they can get help. This sort of BS is annoying, and any motivated techie would normalize to simplify comparisons, writing custom software as needed, within a few hours. It would be a bad move on their part, as would any attempts to make it hard to quickly analyze.
The Barr news conference before the document release is appalling. I hope people in the media are annoyed enough to motivate some serious reporting/analysis. Lots of people are already screaming already about a blatant attempt at narrative setting.
Anyone else remember downloading the Starr report? (wikipedia clip):
Mostly just to search for “cigar”, which was important and totally non-embarrassing to President Clinton.
jc
In what form will the report be released? No doubt in the format that is most inconvenient to those horrible Democrats, who *dare* to examine whether poor beleaguered President Trump was somehow involved in some sort of malfeasance.
Expect more BS (Barr Summaries) tomorrow.
jonas
@NotMax: I believe that stuff is still in the hands of a grand jury/SDNY investigating Cohen, so if anything on the Trump Org proper is in there not related directly to the Russia investigation (such as the Trump Tower meeting) it’s going to be pretty fully redacted.
jonas
My bet: the report will basically lay out the case that Trump’s campaign was effectively hijacked (if unwittingly) by Russian influencers and that he obstructed justice a million times. Then the WH will go “Nuh uh! Mueller sux!” and the press will go “Well, maybe both sides have a point!” and that will pretty much be that. Trump’s base will but utterly unfazed; McConnell will shrug and say the matter is now behind us. Then it will be up to Pelosi whether to move forward with impeachment even though there’s less than a snowball’s chance in hell a single Republican in the Senate would vote to convict.
Nothing matters anymore. Nothing.