Mega-Thread: Mueller investigation

[BrerBear]

I am not seeing the yikes. Like, for real. I am on nobody's side in this, but you seem like splitting hair over exactly nothing - "did not establish that ... conspired or coordinated" is a correct summary of the image. If I had to use a single sentence, I'd go for the exact same passage.

But they didn't use a single sentence. Barr used a fragment of a sentence:

"Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."

He conveniently left the bold part out.

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Another thing I fully expected in this report and is now coming out in multiple parts: Trump campaign members hid or deleted much of the evidence on their phones which could have been used to add to conspiracy charges.

That's why obstruction is so important; it's the only option when the target destroys the evidence of the actual crime.

[Shalcker]

Yeah, where's Dacien and Sulla. I would have thought this nothingburger with obstruction sauce would have been to their liking.

Probably reading, it's pretty big report even with redactions.

[cubby]

did anyone just notice that 99% of his actual supporters (trolls not included) of his supporters miraculously vanished from the thread?

It definitely didn't go unnoticed. I believe they are circling the wagons and waiting for their talking points.

[Shalcker]

But they didn't use a single sentence. Barr used a fragment of a sentence:

"Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."

He conveniently left the bold part out.

Everyone is already aware of Russian actions - indictments about them went long ago.

It isn't relevant to Campaign coordination/conspiracy (collusion) suspicion.

[Breccia]

Another thing I fully expected in this report and is now coming out in multiple parts: Trump campaign members hid or deleted much of the evidence on their phones which could have been used to add to conspiracy charges.

Like, with a cloth? Or did they pour bleach on them?

[Grapemask]

But they didn't use a single sentence. Barr used a fragment of a sentence:

"Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."

He conveniently left the bold part out.

What we really should back up to is that rda claims to not be on a side in this. Why do posters here keep thinking their post history can't be seen by the rest of us, or you know, that we don't remember their posts? Trump and his supporters have such a distinct lack of object permanence that I'm starting to wonder if there's something in the water affecting these people.

[cubby]

But they didn't use a single sentence. Barr used a fragment of a sentence:

"Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."

He conveniently left the bold part out.

Many journalists that have been on top of this entire thing pointed out that the quote started with "[T]", meaning there was something in front of it, and several speculated that "Although" was at the start of whatever before it. They nailed it.

[Edge-]

Like, with a cloth? Or did they pour bleach on them?

What, did they smash it with a hammer?

[Elegiac]

It definitely didn't go unnoticed. I believe they are circling the wagons and waiting for their talking points.

Ah yeah, I forgot we had to wait for McCarthy to concoct something that could be regurgitated.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Yeah, where's Dacien and Sulla. I would have thought this nothingburger with obstruction sauce would have been to their liking.

Even though it's painfully obvious that many crimes occurred, they're just going to post the normal bullshit unless there's an actual trial where Trump is indicted and convicted. It's just so blatantly obvious how much this administration is jam packed with criminals and criminal behavior and yet I imagine all of it will go unpunished. And of course, if it is punished, Dacien, Sulla, et. al will just fall back on "Oh I never supported Trump in the first place, I was just on the side of truth." By constantly parroting lies of course.

[roboscorcher]

did anyone just notice that 99% of his actual supporters (trolls not included) of his supporters miraculously vanished from the thread?

Once the spin cycle has run for a few hours, they'll be back with some obscure anecdote to discredit one thing an unrelated dem said, and then claim victory.

[cubby]

Sadly I don't think impeachment will happen because of the Senate Republicans.

People are going to be renewing their pushes for Impeachment after this release, and I believe it would be a disastrous course of action. The irony is that without Clinton's ridiculous Impeachment (keeping in mind Newt, who headed that up, was cheating on his wife at the time), the Democrat leadership might be far more likely to lean towards invoking Articles. But the history of Clinton's impeachment showed that it actually hurt the GOP, costing them votes in the 1998 elections. And attempting to Impeach Trump would only galvanize his rabid fan base, which could actually bolster his position in the 2020 election.

Plus, Impeachment will never remove him from office, because the GOP Senators will never vote guilty and remove.

IMO, the best course of action is to let the investigations run their course, get the raw report out, get the Grand Jury testimony, get Trump's tax records, and then use all of it during the primary and general elections, as @Breccia suggested earlier. Go the "law and order" route, point out time and again who the real Trump is, and keep pushing the Blue/Pink wave for 2020. Get the White House and the Senate.

Then go nuclear. Pass everything. Increase SCOTUS seats (11-13). Universal healthcare. Background checks. Bring in D.C. and Puerto Rico as official states. Redo how Congress is seated, i.e. the Wyoming solution. Fund infrastructure. Cascade the GOP with so much good stuff they are falling back on their heels.

Meanwhile, quietly indict, convict, and imprison Donald Trump for his crimes. Which are legion.

[Ripster42]

Hmm,

The Trump Campaign showed interest in the WikiLeaks releases and, in the summer and fall of 2016, HARM TO ONGOING MATTER. After, HOM, WikiLeak's first Clinton-related release HOM, the Trump campaign stayed in contact HOM about WikiLeak's activities. The investigation was unable to resolve HOM.

Sure seems like the campaign was notified where the information the russians hacked was going to be released from, as, per the report, they knew from papadoc the russians did, indeed, have that information.

Also, we can put to rest wikileaks position of "pro-transparency" (page 44 vol1). As well as the seth rich conspiracy theory (page 48). I am curious who the US congressman was that was in contact with assange though.

And from pages 51-59 vol1 we gather that trump had advance knowledge of wikileaks releases, and was using them to help coordinate his campaign strategy. Hard to tell specifics because of the huge redactions.

Page 140 vol1. Manafort, as campaign manager, was coordinating campaign strategy with russian intelligence, while discussing a plan for russian control of eastern ukraine using trump's influence. Really not surprised that trump was telling people he thinks manafort can sink him. Have people just not read this far? Is that why there is no one mentioning this?

So TL;DR from the Redacted report: Trump repeatedly attempted to break the law and callude with Russia, but was stopped by his own shortsighted incompetence?

Uh, it doesn't look like he was stopped, no.

On page 141-142, Cohen talks about how they wanted to setup a meeting with Putin in 2015 during the Trump campaign, and Trump and his counsel told him not to mention it when he testified to Congress.

I'm guessing that's page 141-142 of volume 2. Because those pages in volume 1 are about manafort organizing russian control of eastern ukraine.

[Shadowferal]

Plus, Impeachment will never remove him from office, because the GOP Senators will never vote guilty and remove.

It depends on how the publicity is handled.

[Breccia]

HARM TO ONGOING MATTER

At the minimum, the Stone trial.

[cubby]

It depends on how the publicity is handled.

But it wouldn't be worth the risk. We don't need any more "[i]t depends" coming into the 2020 election. Trump has a yuge war chest. The DNC is still adding official candidates. We need as little uncertainty as possible, given the circumstances. And the history of the last impeachment tells us that even if successful, it would actually hurt the election results (unless he was actually removed from office).

Hmmmmm, interesting question. If he was Impeached and removed, could he run again in 2020?

[Frusciante]

But they didn't use a single sentence. Barr used a fragment of a sentence:

"Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."

He conveniently left the bold part out.

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Because they weren't coordinating with each other for those outcomes...that's how they were able to come to the conclusion. Therefore...no collusion. How is that so hard to understand?

[Shalcker]

Hmm,

Sure seems like the campaign was notified where the information the russians hacked was going to be released from, as, per the report, they knew from papadoc the russians did, indeed, have that information.

"HARM TO ONGOING MATTER" is pretty obviously Assange thing and/or possibly Stone (since he claimed himself to be campaign link to Wikileaks despite only getting second-hand information).

Might even be linked to current Assange thing.

I am curious who the US congressman was that was in contact with assange though.

Rohrabacher, obviously?

[Brubear]

I'm not an expert on this stuff, but this seems like an interesting part on page 18 of the PDF that I haven't seen other people point out, where Mueller says his conclusions could conceivably be different if not for witnesses lying, invoking privilege, etc.

Caveat here: Above is Nate Silver's words not the word's of Mueller. His point he is trying to make is that Mueller couldn't take the next step, from all the roadblocks and hurdles he had ahead of him. Admittedly this may be a weak statement or reason on Mueller's part, but its' interesting.

At best, this right here shows that they took active steps to cover their tracks and made the investigation more difficult. Seriously, if your best-case scenario is "well we only LOOKED like we were covering for a crime, but we definitely weren't doing a crime! Honest! No you can't see the proof because we used communication methods that specifically make it so you can't!" then you really need to rework how you communicate because, holy shit guys.

[Shadowferal]

But it wouldn't be worth the risk.

I disagree. Everyone running would run away from Trump. And that's what we should aim for; the other side running the other way.

Hmmmmm, interesting question. If he was Impeached and removed, could he run again in 2020?

Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.