A month after reports first surfaced that Robert Mueller was close to submitting his final report to Attorney General William Barr, the day finally arrived.
The special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election “and related matters” is complete. And “Bobby Three Sticks” has in fact delivered his confidential report to the Department of Justice.
“The investigation is complete. It’s concluded”, a DoJ spokeswoman said Friday.
“Special Counsel Mueller will be concluding his service in the coming days,†his spokesman Peter Carr said in an email to reporters, adding that “a small number of staff will remain to assist in closing the operations of the office for a period of time.”
In a letter to Lindsey Graham, Dianne Feinstein, Jerry Nadler and Doug Collins, Barr contended that he “may be in a position to advise” Congress of Mueller’s “principal conclusions as soon as this weekend.”
Here is that letter:
As you can see, Barr intends to do some “consulting” with both Rod Rosenstein and Mueller himself in order to figure out what information beyond the principal conclusions can be shared with Congress and the public “consistent with the law”.
That is generally “consistent” with Barr’s answers when pressed by Congress during his confirmation hearing about whether he would commit to total transparency with regard to the report.
As ever, it really doesn’t matter what Barr decides. There is no chance that this doesn’t ultimately leak and even if, by some miracle, Barr’s DoJ manages to suppress it, Democrats on the Hill have made it clear they’ll move heaven and earth to ensure a coverup isn’t possible (that all-hands-on-deck effort would include subpoenas and, if necessary, lawsuits).
Critically, no additional indictments from Mueller are forthcoming which means that, at least as far as the special counsel probe itself is concerned, Don Jr. and Jared Kushner escaped without being criminally charged. Obviously, the same cannot be said for many of the other unfortunate souls close to the president and his campaign.
Jerry Nadler – who issued sweeping document requests earlier this month as part of what looks to be a long-shot impeachment bid – said this on Twitter:
We look forward to getting the full Mueller report and related materials. Transparency and the public interest demand nothing less. The need for public faith in the rule of law must be the priority.
“I fully expect the Justice Department to release the special counsel’s report to this committee and to the public without delay and to the maximum extent permitted by law”, Doug Collins said.
Here is the full joint statement from Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi:
Speaking to reporters on Friday evening, Schumer made it clear he won’t “draw any conclusions” yet.
Mitch McConnell echoed calls for transparency and openness, although you can take that with a grain of salt.
Predictably, Mark Meadows is already saying there’s “no collusion” despite having no clue what the report actually says. Here’s his “official” statement via Twitter:
The Mueller report delivery suggests no more indictments are coming from the Special Counsel. If that’s true, it would mean we just completed 2 years of investigating ‘Russian collusion’ without ONE collusion related indictment. Not even one.
Why? Because there was no collusion
Friday marks the beginning of a fight that could end up in the high court and could, ultimately, lead to Trump’s removal from office, although it is impossible to predict how this will play out.
Irrespective of what the report shows (or doesn’t show), Trump’s legal hell will drag on for the foreseeable future and will likely haunt his children’s children’s children. Trump’s “brand”, to the extent it had any shred of legitimacy prior to his presidency, is tarnished forever.
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One thing we know for sure is that Trump will find some way to spin the conclusions as favorable to him. You can expect to hear “totally vindicated” or some derivation thereof from his Twitter account at some point.
As you go about your weekend routine, remember that the standard greeting whenever you approach a friend, a family member or a total stranger is now “no collusion, no collusion”.
Amusingly, Trump – who is in Mar-a-Lago – was on the phone with Angela Merkel when the news broke.
After initially insisting the president’s legal team welcomed the report and will allow Barr to make a determination about where things go, Rudy Giuliani would later say Trump’s lawyers will request an early look at the findings before anything is made available to the public.
The president never sat for a formal interview with Mueller.
And Mueller never said a word publicly.
Thou doth protest too much, methinks”.
I wondered what was coming out tonight that drove trump to use the N Korea sanction reversal as an attempt to distract
N Korea may relate to the trade negotiations. Forrest Trump is desperate for a deal, so he may be kissing up to Xi.
Trump said recently that some tariffs would probably stay in place for an extended period. Trying to do something to level the playing field a little, to make us more competitive. Remains to be seen if China will do anything substantially more than buy our soybeans. They will always hack and “obtain” our military and industrial proprietary information, what’s to stop them? They and many other countries will continue tariffs, so we might just as well match them, tit for tat.
The North Korea thing, the Golan Heights thing…. perhaps Trump is setting up refuge locations as a backup plan.
I’ve always said he’ll escape to some cottage in Russia
Today’s events told us nothing, zero and less than that, about whether Mueller found that Trump’s conduct exposes him to indictment as it relates to the Russian interference in the election or the post election Putin love fest.
The absence of any indictment of Trump prior to Mueller closing shop also tells us nothing about that given the DOJ’s policy to immunize the a sitting President from criminal prosecution while in office even if he committed treason or is actively committing treason. This result is outrageous given a fifth grader can readily understand that the framers of the constitution never had in mind that by simply keeping silent they would allow A KING to be ABOVE THE LAW.
Be that as it may be, we’ll find out soon enough if Mueller found evidence of so-called collusion, obstruction and much more related to Trump.
Moreover, it’s helpful to go back to the start: Mueller’s portfolio was limited to “conducting a full and thorough investigation of the Russian Government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 Presidential election.” The limited scope of the investigation can be seen in the order appointing him.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Appointment_of_Special_Counsel_to_Investigate_Russian_Interference_with_the_2016_Presidential_Election_and_Related_Matters.pdf
The order authorized Mueller to prosecute crimes arising from his investigation if he found it necessary and appropriate but did mandate that his office shall do the prosecution of it, and instead hand such cases over to various US Attorney’s offices which he did in fact do. E.g., Cohen, Stone in the DC office. I have no doubt other US Attorneys’ offices have investigations under way that were ceded to them by Mueller.
So, for 28 seconds, let’s assume Barr truly INTENDS to do the job of the AG and carry out his responsibilities by having his respective US Attorneys carry on any criminal investigation that touches upon any Trump or related matter, e.g., SDNY, DC, VA, etc. This allows the AG’s office to avoid the kind of attacks such as those inflicted upon Mueller by Judge Ellis (given there are federal judges who do not cotton to “special counsel investigations,”) and so Mueller wrapping up may only mean that his duty as described in paragraph (b) and subsections, have been completed by his nuclear office. Now it’s Barr’s turn.
If this view of Barr is wrong, then he will spend the next 20 months covering up for Trump and his minions’ related criminal activities all around the country. If that’s the case, he better hope Trump is reelected.
To me the key words are
Well of course not. His job was to do the investigation and report and indict as seen fit along the way. He is closing up his shop so he won’t do any more indictments, but the ongoing investigations will be picked up by the career guys at Justice. It is pretty obvious given ongoing secret bank subpoena that is sitting in front of the Supreme Court.
This line in my fifth paragraph above needs a one word correction which I make in all caps below:
“The order authorized Mueller to prosecute crimes arising from his investigation if he found it necessary and appropriate but did [NOT] mandate that his office shall do the prosecution of it”
The point being that Mueller was given the power, authority and discretion to prosecute “federal crimes arising from the investigation of these matters” set forth in the appointment order. However, the appointment order did not mandate or direct Mueller to prosecute any federal crimes arising from the investigation. Instead, we witnessed what Mueller did with such cases as the Cohen case where the case was forwarded to the SDNY. Whether the Cohen case was forwarded to NY directly or whether it was brought to Rosenstein’s attention and then he assigned to the SDNY, is a matter of process which we will come to know one day.
The Justice Department making a statement saying that there are no new indictments does mean that MAGAS can create the initial narrative. If there are recommendations for impeachment, for example, because it is technically beyond the purview of a Special Prosecutor to indict a sitting President, the right-wing noise machine will howl in protest and make Republicans think there is some kind of Deep State Coup going on because nobody reads beyond the headline of “no new indictments.”
Yes. this is something I was going to tweet this morning, but decided not to open twitter because, you know, it’s a train wreck.
but i agree. problem is that the MAGA crowd doesn’t understand the following:
1) Trump team over the past two years (they’ve either said these things explicitly or said something akin to these things): “A sitting president can’t be indicted. Trump is immune to prosecution. And indicting Don Jr. or Jared Kushner would cause Trump to shut down the Mueller probe”.
2) Trump team this weekend (and probably next week too): “The fact that there are no new indictments means we are cleared.”
While all the points made in 1) and 2) may indeed be 100% true, 2) is meaningless if 1) is all true.
I have spent a couple of sick days in bed with tv and praying to live long enough to see trump out of the WH. Thank God for good drugs and I am now upright!
I have not missed any of the never-ending-repetitive-speculative-news folks. geesh. My highest hope was somehow they would find he committed treason. I was also wishing for a brand new Lotus – so I recognize how far fetched both were! The Mueller investigation has accomplished their mission and in addition has uncovered a multitude of potential crimes that will be investigated under State laws. Never fear, I am convinced he will be charged and indicted along with at least Jr. and perhaps even Princess Fairy herself. He has already lost in the case of his Foundation and no way he can escape fraud with Duetsche Bank. Jumping ahead I bet he loses properties (most of his towers already changing their names) (most he does not even own, only manages) and money – he has many loans coming due and will not have funds to pay. Not even mentioning his probable Federal Tax fraud… and so on and so forth …
His life holdings will disappear and Putin will broadcast that pee tape! hahaha!