Mega-Thread: Mueller investigation

[rda]

There is plenty of evidence pointing in that direction, as Mueller noted. There were, however, several missing elements that he was lacking in order to bring it to a level of beyond a reasonable doubt as criminal.

1) No member of the campaign team was a direct Russian asset. They were two separate entities helping each other.
2) He found no indication that the campaign team coordinated the illegal acts performed to gain the information. Ie he did not find proof of an instance where Trump or anyone on his staff knew that the DNC/Clinton were vulnerable and enlisted the aid of Russians.
3) He found no indication of quid pro quo. He did not find direct proof that Trump offered the Russians any sort of direct benefit for helping him in the election. Being friendly to Russia and lifting sanctions without direct ties to this specific act does not meet that bar.

What he did find is that the Russians illegally interfered in the 2016 election, and knowing full well what they were receiving the Trump team accepted the aid and then actively attempted to bury this afterwards. Which does not pass the high bar of being a criminal act, which was within Mueller's scope as a special prosecutor, but like Nixon rose to the point of being addressable by Congress.

"Found plenty of evidence, but there were several missing elements" creates an impression that most of the found things are super-duper-damning, but alas, there are just a few technicalities that managed to stop it. I don't think this is the case. It would be fairer to describe the situation as "found plenty of evidence, but also didn't find plenty of what was needed to indict / actually compose a punishable crime, and not for the lack of trying to find".

Here is a simple thought. Let's take a look at your 1-2-3 above. Do you think Mueller thinks that 1 was just not enough digging or too successful hiding of tracks? Do you think he assumes that some members on the campaign team were actually direct Russian assets? I don't think so. 2 and 3 are more complex, but I don't think he assumes much regarding them either. He just says that yeah, it looks pretty dirty and there are a lot of holes, so if you want, guys, or if anyone has some new leads or whatever, maybe it makes sense to dig further, because it's dirty. But I don't get an impression that even with all his unproven thoughts Mueller actually thinks any of 1-2-3 above will actually revert.

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Anyway, I think by now things are mostly clear.

* Russia was interfering (we knew this before).
* The extents of the interference are not big, but future elections need to take precautions because this can grow a lot, it is dangerous.
* Trump's campaign was seemingly not cooperating with Russia.
* Trump was jumping up and down being angry with investigations, trying to make them stop or go away. He didn't go full on (could have done a lot more than he did), but he did jump a lot.

The ball is now in whether Trump's jumping up and down constitutes an obstruction of justice = whether he crossed enough lines to create a crime. And if he wasn't, whether someone is going to try and impeach him.

Unless you expect some actual action in terms of obstruction of justice / impeachment, this whole story seems to have ended.

[Kasierith]

"Found plenty of evidence, but there were several missing elements" creates an impression that most of the found things are super-duper-damning, but alas, there are just a few technicalities that managed to stop it. I don't think this is the case. It would be fairer to describe the situation as "found plenty of evidence, but also didn't find plenty of what was needed to indict / actually compose a punishable crime, and not for the lack of trying to find".

Here is a simple thought. Let's take a look at your 1-2-3 above. Do you think Mueller thinks that 1 was just not enough digging or too successful hiding of tracks? Do you think he assumes that some members on the campaign team were actually direct Russian assets? I don't think so. 2 and 3 are more complex, but I don't think he assumes much regarding them either. He just says that yeah, it looks pretty dirty and there are a lot of holes, so if you want, guys, or if anyone has some new leads or whatever, maybe it makes sense to dig further, because it's dirty. But I don't get an impression that even with all his unproven thoughts Mueller actually thinks any of 1-2-3 above will actually revert.

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Anyway, I think by now things are mostly clear.

* Russia was interfering (we knew this before).
* The extents of the interference are not big, but future elections need to take precautions because this can grow a lot, it is dangerous.
* Trump's campaign was seemingly not cooperating with Russia.
* Trump was jumping up and down being angry with investigations, trying to make them stop or go away. He didn't go full on (could have done a lot more than he did), but he did jump a lot.

The ball is now in whether Trump's jumping up and down constitutes an obstruction of justice = whether he crossed enough lines to create a crime. And if he wasn't, whether someone is going to try and impeach him.

Unless you expect some actual action in terms of obstruction of justice / impeachment, this whole story seems to have ended.

Evidence is pieces of information used to support the argument. There can be good evidence in place, but that does not mean that a specific argument bears fruit. For example, you can provide exemplary evidence that someone purposefully killed someone, but fail to establish first degree murder beyond a reasonable doubt. It's why if you look at complicated legal cases people are charged with multiple escalating offenses, so that if the most severe charge fails they can still be charged with others (most common use in actual practice being charging someone with, say, first and second degree and dropping charges for first if they plead guilty to second).

Where this comes into play with Mueller is that he was established as special prosecutor with specific limits. They found that if he happened to come across any other crimes such as, say, lying under oath they could press charges, but you'll notice that many of those charges were procedural. His objective was to identify if the president engaged in criminal conduct conspiring against the United States in 2016 and what not, and in doing so he set several lines. The lines listed above. That the president did not cross those lines does not invalidate the entire investigation, and does not mean that there was no wrongdoing.

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this puppet stuff has run its course now. This is a purely American sin, not a Russian import.

it actually looks like the Kremlin did not want or expect Trump to become president, the Russians were convinced Clinton would win and were simply trying to disrupt her assumed presidency. Go read the part in the report about Aven on page 154. The Russians tried and didn't get a line into the campaign. (infact made multiple attemps and failed)

U.S. policy towards Russia is tougher than at any point since 1991. You can nail Trump for anything from obstruction of justice to incompetence. But puppet? behave maddow.

Yes, US policy is tougher. Because of Congress, though, and specifically against the wishes of the president.

[Mormolyce]

this puppet stuff has run its course now. This is a purely American sin, not a Russian import.

Well there's certainly plenty to nauseate the senses on the US side, but Putin absolutely wanted Hillary out and a friendly rube in. Notably, Trump has refused to criticise Putin to this day. That asshole has a lame nickname for everyone. More substantively, he's worked tirelessly against Congress's bipartisan sanctions.

Obstruction of justice is a lower legal threshold than conspiracy. But let's not be absurd - innocent men do not obstruct justice.

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* Russia was interfering (we knew this before).
* The extents of the interference are not big, but future elections need to take precautions because this can grow a lot, it is dangerous.
* Trump's campaign was seemingly not cooperating with Russia.
* Trump was jumping up and down being angry with investigations, trying to make them stop or go away. He didn't go full on (could have done a lot more than he did), but he did jump a lot.

The ball is now in whether Trump's jumping up and down constitutes an obstruction of justice = whether he crossed enough lines to create a crime. And if he wasn't, whether someone is going to try and impeach him.

More than simply jumping up and down, he expressly ordered people under him to obstruct justice. They refused or deliberately failed to carry out those orders. Make no mistake, if they had and Mueller's investigation kept going, they would all be facing court right now, and he'd squeeze them to squeal on Trump.

I think it's pretty fucking ridiculous to suggest that there's even a question that someone failing to carry out an order to obstruct justice you gave them could absolve you of obstruction, but that's apparently how pissweak America's anti-corruption laws are.

Basically, that would imply that it's not obstruction of justice unless it succeeds in obstructing the investigation, in which case it'd never come to court anyway because you know, you obstructed it.

[rda]

I think this is going to be the last thing I will say about the story of Trump-Russia, and I offer that one of the biggest take-aways from the story is the reprehensible behavior of the media.

I guess many here (and elsewhere) became accustomed to this constant vitriolic atmosphere where the media continuously exaggerates and overreaches. Where it follows every small tweet of Trump and tries to convert it into outrage somehow. Most importantly, where it persists at making big promising eyes and telling stories of how Trump is a criminal with hundreds of crimes, and how now (there's a new 'now' every now and then) he made a mistake because he's too stupid or whatever, and got himself into this new bind, and how such and such investigation into the matters will finally put him into place, and how he fears it and will now make even more mistakes and bla bla bla bla bla bla bla. I guess many became accustomed to all that, but it's not normal. It's unhealthy. And now, with the biggest and damnedest investigation over and with the Mueller's report finding nothing in the focus area of that investigation, BUT with the media so far largely not acknowledging any of that and just moving on without wasting a breath to pumping "obstruction of justice", well, guess what. The media that kept making those big eyes and telling promising stories of how Trump probably / quite likely / absolutely certainly colluded and conspired and whatever - they look dishonest and partisan. They look predatory.

The take-away from this investigation is that yeah, Trump is a moron, he probably shouldn't be president, he just doesn't know what's right and what's wrong and plays with dangerous things. But the bigger thing is that the media that kept attacking him for years, putting out a lot of BS in process - and even when this was shown to be BS, not backing up and just regrouping to continue attacking from new angles - the biased, partisan, antagonizing media really are a way bigger danger to the democracy than one moron.

Ask yourself this: do you want the president of your choice to have the media constantly vilifying him like they did Trump, because the media thinks he's not a good fit? What, you say that the president of your choice won't do things that alienate the media? Are you saying maybe that you are going to vote for the president that the media likes? Then gz, you are just voting based on the opinion of others, not yours. And if you are saying that you are going to vote independently based on merits, then how the hell can you be sure that the media opinion on merits will align with yours? It won't. There will come a moment where it won't. And the moment it won't, your choice that was based on merits is going to be vilified. The media just demonstrated in the last years that they can vilify viciously and basically forever with NO crimes committed in the original vilifying area. They can make supposed crimes out of thin air (based on their biased interpretations and a strong desire to pin the guy using whatever means) and make huge noises about these supposed crimes like they are real. They don't like someone and that's it, they are going to vilify and cry and moan and flood public discourse and exaggerate and overreach and never take any of their BS back, etc, simply because of that. I'd think about it. This really is much more dangerous than electing a moron.

[Huehuecoyotl]

I think this is going to be the last thing I will say about the story of Trump-Russia, and I offer that one of the biggest take-aways from the story is the reprehensible behavior of the media.

I guess many here (and elsewhere) became accustomed to this constant vitriolic atmosphere where the media continuously exaggerates and overreaches. Where it follows every small tweet of Trump and tries to convert it into outrage somehow. Most importantly, where it persists at making big promising eyes and telling stories of how Trump is a criminal with hundreds of crimes, and how now (there's a new 'now' every now and then) he made a mistake because he's too stupid or whatever, and got himself into this new bind, and how such and such investigation into the matters will finally put him into place, and how he fears it and will now make even more mistakes and bla bla bla bla bla bla bla. I guess many became accustomed to all that, but it's not normal. It's unhealthy. And now, with the biggest and damnedest investigation over and with the Mueller's report finding nothing in the focus area of that investigation, BUT with the media so far largely not acknowledging any of that and just moving on without wasting a breath to pumping "obstruction of justice", well, guess what. The media that kept making those big eyes and telling promising stories of how Trump probably / quite likely / absolutely certainly colluded and conspired and whatever - they look dishonest and partisan. They look predatory.

The take-away from this investigation is that yeah, Trump is a moron, he probably shouldn't be president, he just doesn't know what's right and what's wrong and plays with dangerous things. But the bigger thing is that the media that kept attacking him for years, putting out a lot of BS in process - and even when this was shown to be BS, not backing up and just regrouping to continue attacking from new angles - the biased, partisan, antagonizing media really are a way bigger danger to the democracy than one moron.

Ask yourself this: do you want the president of your choice to have the media constantly vilifying him like they did Trump, because the media thinks he's not a good fit? What, you say that the president of your choice won't do things that alienate the media? Are you saying maybe that you are going to vote for the president that the media likes? Then gz, you are just voting based on the opinion of others, not yours. And if you are saying that you are going to vote independently based on merits, then how the hell can you be sure that the media opinion on merits will align with yours? It won't. There will come a moment where it won't. And the moment it won't, your choice that was based on merits is going to be vilified. The media just demonstrated in the last years that they can vilify viciously and basically forever with NO crimes committed in the original vilifying area. They can make supposed crimes out of thin air (based on their biased interpretations and a strong desire to pin the guy using whatever means) and make huge noises about these supposed crimes like they are real. They don't like someone and that's it, they are going to vilify and cry and moan and flood public discourse and exaggerate and overreach and never take any of their BS back, etc, simply because of that. I'd think about it. This really is much more dangerous than electing a moron.

TLDR: "I'm a woke independent, and so much better than all of you. You should listen to me when I tell you that the problem isn't a lying, cheating, criminal in the White House. It's all the nasty press that say mean things about him when he does the stupid, illegal, terrible things he does. If the press left him alone, everything would be fine."

The press should be there to speak truth to power. To hold those in power accountable. What they've been doing the last two years is precisely their job. The fact you don't like it, for some reason (not because you support Trump, of course) says more about you than it does about the press.

[rda]

The press should be there to speak truth to power. To hold those in power accountable. What they've been doing the last two years is precisely their job.

It's exactly the point that the press didn't speak truth, they continued to overexaggerate everything and talk about Trump probably / quite likely / absolutely certainly colluding and conspiring, and that when this turned out not to be the case, they seem to pay this no mind and just move on to the next attack angle. It's like you didn't read what I wrote. Your TLDR is laughable.

[beanman12345]

I think this is going to be the last thing I will say about the story of Trump-Russia, and I offer that one of the biggest take-aways from the story is the reprehensible behavior of the media.

I guess many here (and elsewhere) became accustomed to this constant vitriolic atmosphere where the media continuously exaggerates and overreaches. Where it follows every small tweet of Trump and tries to convert it into outrage somehow. Most importantly, where it persists at making big promising eyes and telling stories of how Trump is a criminal with hundreds of crimes, and how now (there's a new 'now' every now and then) he made a mistake because he's too stupid or whatever, and got himself into this new bind, and how such and such investigation into the matters will finally put him into place, and how he fears it and will now make even more mistakes and bla bla bla bla bla bla bla. I guess many became accustomed to all that, but it's not normal. It's unhealthy. And now, with the biggest and damnedest investigation over and with the Mueller's report finding nothing in the focus area of that investigation, BUT with the media so far largely not acknowledging any of that and just moving on without wasting a breath to pumping "obstruction of justice", well, guess what. The media that kept making those big eyes and telling promising stories of how Trump probably / quite likely / absolutely certainly colluded and conspired and whatever - they look dishonest and partisan. They look predatory.

The take-away from this investigation is that yeah, Trump is a moron, he probably shouldn't be president, he just doesn't know what's right and what's wrong and plays with dangerous things. But the bigger thing is that the media that kept attacking him for years, putting out a lot of BS in process - and even when this was shown to be BS, not backing up and just regrouping to continue attacking from new angles - the biased, partisan, antagonizing media really are a way bigger danger to the democracy than one moron.

Ask yourself this: do you want the president of your choice to have the media constantly vilifying him like they did Trump, because the media thinks he's not a good fit? What, you say that the president of your choice won't do things that alienate the media? Are you saying maybe that you are going to vote for the president that the media likes? Then gz, you are just voting based on the opinion of others, not yours. And if you are saying that you are going to vote independently based on merits, then how the hell can you be sure that the media opinion on merits will align with yours? It won't. There will come a moment where it won't. And the moment it won't, your choice that was based on merits is going to be vilified. The media just demonstrated in the last years that they can vilify viciously and basically forever with NO crimes committed in the original vilifying area. They can make supposed crimes out of thin air (based on their biased interpretations and a strong desire to pin the guy using whatever means) and make huge noises about these supposed crimes like they are real. They don't like someone and that's it, they are going to vilify and cry and moan and flood public discourse and exaggerate and overreach and never take any of their BS back, etc, simply because of that. I'd think about it. This really is much more dangerous than electing a moron.

'the most powerful person in the world is a complete pos and an unindicted criminal, but damn the media for talking bad about him!!!'

[Orbitus]

It's exactly the point that the press didn't speak truth, they continued to overexaggerate everything and talk about Trump probably / quite likely / absolutely certainly colluding and conspiring, and that when this turned out not to be the case, they seem to pay this no mind and just move on to the next attack angle. It's like you didn't read what I wrote. Your TLDR is laughable.

But they did, though. Literally everything they said has become true thanks to the Mueller report.

[rda]

'the most powerful person in the world is a complete pos and an unindicted criminal, but damn the media for talking bad about him!!!'

Yes, exactly, the media did (and continue to do) a much worse thing than Trump did, and what they did (and continue doing) will likely have a much bigger negative effect on your democracy than what Trump did. Trump is a moron, impeach him, I don't care. That you are stuck with the media who happens to have its own partisan mind and is willing to usurp all communication to further their own bizarre goals is a far bigger problem, unfortunately. Maybe you aren't seeing this clearly now because Trump is such a moron, but just wait and you'll see that what the media did was really far worse.

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But they did, though. Literally everything they said has become true thanks to the Mueller report.

Of course, not, and you know it. Almost nothing the media was saying or implying came out true.

[beanman12345]

Yes, exactly, the media did (and continue to do) a much worse thing than Trump did, and what they did (and continue doing) will likely have a much bigger negative effect on your democracy than what Trump did. Trump is a moron, impeach him, I don't care. That you are stuck with the media who happens to have its own partisan mind and is willing to usurp all communication to further their own bizarre goals is a far bigger problem, unfortunately. Maybe you aren't seeing this clearly now because Trump is such a moron, but just wait and you'll see that what the media did was really far worse.

You'll excuse me for not indulging in your conspiracy theories.

[Orbitus]

Yes, exactly, the media did (and continue to do) a much worse thing than Trump did, and what they did (and continue doing) will likely have a much bigger negative effect on your democracy than what Trump did. Trump is a moron, impeach him, I don't care. That you are stuck with the media who happens to have its own partisan mind and is willing to usurp all communication to further their own bizarre goals is a far bigger problem, unfortunately. Maybe you aren't seeing this clearly now because Trump is such a moron, but just wait and you'll see that what the media did was really far worse.

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Of course, not, and you know it. Almost nothing the media was saying or implying came out true.

I don't know where you have been but seriously? You saying that NOTHING came out to be true? You have to be on crack to say that they didn't report that the Trump Tower meeting happened, and it did, and that Trump tried to collude, and he did. And that is just 1 example.

But tell me 1 thing they reported, that turned out to be not true, that we know that it wasn't true.

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You'll excuse me for not indulging in your conspiracy theories.

I mean, he actually thinks that nothing the media reported turned out to be true.

[rda]

But tell me 1 thing they reported, that turned out to be not true, that we know that it wasn't true.

90% of the Steele dossier. Lots of claims, nearly none confirmed by the report, just hot air.

And I said "almost nothing", not "nothing", don't do cheap tricks like that, you did it twice already, once in caps. That's kind of similar to what the media is doing - distorting and exaggerating to manufacture outrage.

[Dontrike]

Of course, had he actually fired Mueller he would have saved everyone time and money since the central question came up zilch.

First, it made money, and everyone knows that. You cannot dispute a claim as easy as math. Second, we have learned Trump was in fact accepting help from foreign sources, didn't call the FBI about it at all, used that help, Congress should act on Trump for obstruction, and that he was asking everyone around him to break the law for him.

Just because "he's too stupid to have realized what he was doing is wrong" isn't a defense when you break the law. The president needs to stand for a far higher morals than just "eh, he he's too stupid" and "yeah he didn't technically break some laws, so that makes it okay for all the others". If you think that this is okay then my only question to you is how much corruption are you okay with?

[rda]

First, it made money, and everyone knows that.

This is a stupid meme that needs to die. Investigations don't make money, they lose them. They are not carried over in order to make money, and there are good reasons why they are not. If an investigation results in an indictment that brings money, that's separate from the investigation. The money goes into a different pile, too. Counting it like this is moronic. This is just a soundbite propagated because it happened to align with the image of the investigation that the media wanted to build. Nobody sane counts that way.

The question of whether a particular investigation was worth it is always about whether the time / effort = money spent on investigation was spent sensibly compared to the results - did the investigation found anything important (both ways: crime or absence of crime), etc, in general it is useful to look at how much clearer the situation became and how serious was what was found (both ways again).

[Gorsameth]

This is a stupid meme that needs to die. Investigations don't make money, they lose them. They are not carried over in order to make money, and there are good reasons why they are not. If an investigation results in an indictment that brings money, that's separate from the investigation. The money goes into a different pile, too. Counting it like this is moronic. This is just a soundbite propagated because it happened to align with the image of the investigation that the media wanted to build. Nobody sane counts that way.

The question of whether a particular investigation was worth it is always about whether the time / effort = money spent on investigation was spent sensibly compared to the results - did the investigation found anything important (both ways: crime or absence of crime), etc, in general it is useful to look at how much clearer the situation became and how serious was what was found (both ways again).

And to think you accused me of circular logic...

"An investigation is only worth it if it finds important things, which you won't know until you investigate."
There was plenty of reason to investigate the Trump campaign for working with Russia based on not only US intelligence, independent contracts but also the intelligence agencies of foreign nations.
And the report found a lot of evidence of Russia aiding the Trump campaign and said campaign happily accepting that help, even if it can't prove there was a formal deal between them. They 'just happened' to work towards the same goal.

[rda]

And to think you accused me of circular logic...

"An investigation is only worth it if it finds important things, which you won't know until you investigate."
There was plenty of reason to investigate the Trump campaign for working with Russia based on not only US intelligence, independent contracts but also the intelligence agencies of foreign nations.
And the report found a lot of evidence of Russia aiding the Trump campaign and said campaign happily accepting that help, even if it can't prove there was a formal deal between them. They 'just happened' to work towards the same goal.

You are either not reading attentively or distorting.

What I said: "The question of whether a particular investigation was worth it is always about whether the time / effort = money spent on investigation was spent sensibly compared to the results - did the investigation found anything important (both ways: crime or absence of crime), ..."

Note the words "crime or absence of crime". If the investigation manages to prove that there was no crime, that's useful. If the suspected crime was big, the impact of saying that it did not happen is also big.

Please note also that I am not saying that Mueller's investigation was a waste of time and money. This depends on a lot of things that I don't know and have no real interest of knowing. The time is already spent anyway. I'd argue that further investigations into the same issue would perhaps be wasteful, but not much more than that.

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Anyway, I think I am out of this thread because the issue seems to have ended, as I say above. Unless there's further action on the obstruction of justice front or on the impeachment front, I expect the thread to die before it gets to 1100 (at most 1200) pages -- or at least I hope it won't morph into endless oohs and aahs over whatever Breccia copy/pastes from the media, some of the talks have been reasonable after all, if a little too aggressive.

[Orbitus]

90% of the Steele dossier. Lots of claims, nearly none confirmed by the report, just hot air.

And I said "almost nothing", not "nothing", don't do cheap tricks like that, you did it twice already, once in caps. That's kind of similar to what the media is doing - distorting and exaggerating to manufacture outrage.

Yeah, you are on fucking crack.

[Dontrike]

Without actual collusion charges, the obstruction charges contextualize into the President saying "this is bullshit" in varying forms on social media, which isn't illegal or even really immoral in this context. I know you won't fathom this until you get the whole unredacted report - which is almost certainly an atom bomb of bad for the people who tried to conduct this coup - but I suspect this is where it's headed.

The fact you called this a coup shows a level of insanity that cannot be argued with. No one will be able to convince you of anything and something tells me you find Trump's twitter to be a home away from home.

[Levelfive]

Well there's certainly plenty to nauseate the senses on the US side, but Putin absolutely wanted Hillary out and a friendly rube in. Notably, Trump has refused to criticise Putin to this day. That asshole has a lame nickname for everyone. More substantively, he's worked tirelessly against Congress's bipartisan sanctions.

Obstruction of justice is a lower legal threshold than conspiracy. But let's not be absurd - innocent men do not obstruct justice.

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More than simply jumping up and down, he expressly ordered people under him to obstruct justice. They refused or deliberately failed to carry out those orders. Make no mistake, if they had and Mueller's investigation kept going, they would all be facing court right now, and he'd squeeze them to squeal on Trump.

I think it's pretty fucking ridiculous to suggest that there's even a question that someone failing to carry out an order to obstruct justice you gave them could absolve you of obstruction, but that's apparently how pissweak America's anti-corruption laws are.

Basically, that would imply that it's not obstruction of justice unless it succeeds in obstructing the investigation, in which case it'd never come to court anyway because you know, you obstructed it.

Mueller actually cites the code governing attempts and endeavors, which "covers both substantive obstruction offenses and attempts to obstruct justice," at the bottom of page of 223, so anyone trying to find contemptibly gutless and amoral cover in, "they were just attempts!" can fuck right off.

[Dontrike]

Can we close this now that the mueller investigation is officially a conspiracy theory?

An investigation isn't a conspiracy theory. The investigation exists. Conspiracy theory with something that actually exists are fucking antonyms.

Flat earth is a conspiracy theory. QAnon is a conspiracy theory. Vaccines causing autism is a conspiracy theory. An actual investigation isn't a conspiracy theory. That would mean every single investigation ever would be a conspiracy theory, and that. Is. Fucking. Asinine.