The only thing that would make that implausible is the fact that he would need help carrying it out. We’ve learned from the Mueller report that people tend to ignore or refuse to do a lot of the crazy things he wants them to.
That does seem to be the repeated mistake people are making. Manners and process aren’t going to solve this problem.
On the plus side if you want to alienate a guy like Mueller to the point where he starts making public pronouncements and personal judgements. Then Barr’s gestures at throwing him under the bus are a great way to do it.
Oh, don’t worry, the fact that he “would need help” and that it therefore must have been murder would be what 25-30% of the country would be saying (while simultaneously insisting he was a genius).
I’m not saying this is plausible, but I do think this dumbest of all timelines we find ourselves in may yet find a way.
Good question. And one I have no answer to other than to guess “politics and/or future job opportunities”.
His boats are burned as far as any Republican/Trump supporting employers/roles are concerned so he has to keep an in with Trump opponents. Stating that he’s not happy with how his report was summarised costs him nothing and possibly protects his standing with Trump opponents.
Mueller’s role was to investigate, to make prosecution or declination decisions and, once concluded, report to the AG explaining the decisions he made.
i.e. yes, what others do with his report is up to them.
Anything he wanted to do, he was supposed to do before ending his investigation and submitting his report.
Even on a brief read through of the expurgated version released on the DoJ website…
https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf
… I can see why he might feel miffed at the way the report was ‘summarised’.
There are very clear caveats expressed as to the limits of the information they were able to obtain and a lot of the conclusions are of the “No documentary evidence, and nothing in the email accounts or other communications facilities reviewed by the Office, shows that $UNTOWARD_EVENT took place” type.
Which is of course not quite the same as “it didn’t happen”, particularly when it’s preceded by “A foreign government informed the FBI that PERSON_A told them that the Campaign had been in talks with the Russians about $UNTOWARD_THING” but PERSON_A and the Campaign said they “could not recall” whether PERSON_A told them about $UNTOWARD_THING".
and followed by “Further information might change our decisions.”
It’s an interesting report if only as a further insight into the sort of grifters and chancers that surrounded (and made up) the Trump Campaign.
An awful lot of it seems to be PERSON_A telling PERSON_B that they have great contacts in Moscow and could get all kinds of things done, then going off and getting nowhere fast because their “contacts” amounted to “I once did a deal with a guy who said he knew a guy who knew a guy who might know a guy who might be able to get in touch with someone who might know how to get in touch with Putin’s haridresser’s nephew”.
There’s also an element of it seems to me very carefully cautious prosecutorial decisonmaking.
For example, the June 9th meeting following emails stating essentially, “Hey, the Russian government wants to help your father-in-law win the election. They’ve got some hot stuff on the Clinton campaign - you want it?”
The evidence is pretty clear that such an email was sent and was enthusiastically responded to and a meeting set up. The meeting turns out to have been essentially a scam intended to allow an opportunity to lobby the prospective President’s people about stuff the Russians were pissed about and no actual Clinton dirt was passed (and may well not have existed at all).
But clearly, the intent to obtain such materials from foreigners was there and the attempt to do so was made.
So why no decision to prosecute Kushner, etc.?
Essentially:
a) Mueller and his team concluded that Kushner, et al. were dumb/smart enough to be able to plausibly claim they had no idea that getting campaign-affecting information from foreign governments would be a crime so weren’t acting ‘wilfully’ which is a requirement of the offence, and
b) doubts over whether the value of the information could be established to be over the prosecution threshold - since no one had any idea what the alleged information was supposed to be, what impact it might have had on the campaign, etc.
Now, while one can quibble about whether decisions like that were made correctly, it’s pretty clear that it doesn’t amount to clearing the people concerned.
Is it weird to say I want Lieu to be the 2020 Veep candidate? Wherein he could be Vice President of Sick Burns.
I think Comey might be right about some of the people around Trump, but not Barr. Barr was corrupted, Barr auditioned for the job. Barr is 100% on board.
Comey probably thought Barr was perfectly respectable when Barr helped pardon those involved in Iran Contra and when Barr supported the lies of the Bush Jr. white house. Comey is just incapable of admitting mistakes (**cough** Letter to congress a week before the election **cough**).
Whoaaaah . . .
And don’t forget that by all appearances it looks like Comey torpedoed Hillary at the end of the race based on congress members requesting him to do so, making the gaslighting of his own political involvement questionable.
There is no Wizard behind the screen. Democracy is being strangled right before our very eyes and Congress is quite happy and content to let Nero continue to fiddle!
Mueller should be wary of Russians carrying umbrellas.
And avoid tea in restaurants.
And going to get a marriage license at an embassy.
I saw that, too, and it really puts to lie the assertion from Barr that there was no underlying crime for Trump to obstruct justice on. Well, that and the crap-ton of convictions Mueller et al produced on Trumps cronies. Obstruction can be on someone else’s behalf. It isn’t limited to covering up your own crimes.
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