Today is the release of the Mueller report

shootersa · May 2, 2019

Huh. Last time Shooter checked, Mueller worked for Barr.
So, Barr decides what gets released and when.
If Mueller (or despicables) don't like it, get your own man (woman) in the oval office and put your own AG in there.

stumbler · May 2, 2019

Amy Klobuchar prosecutes Bill Barr with dozens of pieces of evidence from the Mueller report

Minnesota Democratic senator and presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar essentially prosecuted Attorney General Bill Barr at Thursday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, using evidence from the Mueller report to score point after point at Barr’s expense.

“I asked you if a president or any person convincing a witness to change testimony would be obstruction of justice, and you said yes,” Klobuchar began. “The report found that Michael Cohen’s testimony to the House, before it, that the president repeatedly implied that Cohen’s family members had committed crimes. Do you consider that evidence to be an attempt to have a witness change its testimony?”

“No. I don’t think that that could pass muster. Those public statements he was making, could pass muster as subornation of perjury,” Barr began, but Klobuchar cut him off

“This is a man in the highest office, in the most powerful job in our country,” Klobuchar said. “I’m trying to think of how someone would react if the president of the United States is implying, getting out there that your family members have committed a crime. So you don’t consider that any attempt to change testimony?”

“Well, you have two different things,” Barr stammered. “You have the question of whether it’s an obstructive act and also whether or not it is a corrupt intent. I don’t think general public statements like that have — we could show that they would have sufficiently probable fact — ”

“Let’s go to some private statements,” Klobuchar said, interrupting Barr’s drone. “The report found that the president’s personal counsel told Paul Manafort that he would be, quote, taken care of. This is in volume two, page 123-124. That, you don’t consider obstruction of justice?”

“Not standing alone. On both the same reasons — ” the attorney general tried, and instead got treated to some remedial law school.

“I think that is my point here,” Klobuchar said, openly laughing at him. “You look at the totality of the evidence, that’s what I learned when I was in law school. You look at the totality of the evidence and the pattern here. Look at this, the report found that the president’s personal counsel told Michael Cohen that if he stayed on message about the Trump Tower Moscow project, the president had his back. That’s volume two, page 140.”

“Right, but I think the counsel acknowledged that it’s unclear whether he was reflecting the president’s statements on that,” Barr replied

“The report found that after Manafort was convicted, the president himself called him a brave man for refusing to break,” Klobuchar threw at him.

“That is not obstruction, because the — the evidence — ” Barr said testily. “I think what the president’s lawyers would say if this were ever actually joined is that the president’s statements about flipping are quite clear and express and uniformly the same. Which is by ‘flipping,’ he meant succumbing to pressure on unrelated cases to lie and compose in order to get lenient treatment on the cases. That is not — it’s a discouraging flipping, in that sense is not obstruction.”

“We’ll look at the pattern here,” Klobuchar went on, burying the hapless attorney general in evidence. “The report found that after Cohen’s residence and office were searched by the FBI, the president told Cohen to ‘hang in there and stay strong.'”

“The court found that after national security advisor Michael Flynn resigned, the president made public positive comments about him, and then when he cooperated he changed his tune,” she went on. “During your confirmation hearing, I asked you whether a president deliberately impairing the integrity or availability of evidence would be obstruction. And you responded yes.” She then turned to the question of former White House counsel Don McGahn.

Trump “told them to deny reports, right?” Klobuchar said. “He tells McGahn deny reports that the president ordered him to have the counsel fired. If you don’t see that as obstruction and directing him to change testimony, do you think that would create a false record to impair the integrity of evidence?”

Barr, by this time looking angry and set upon, began sputtering.

“The evidence would not be sufficient to establish any of the three elements there. First, it’s not sufficient to show an obstructive act because it is unclear whether the president knew that to be false,” he said, his voice rising in anger. “In fact, the president’s focus on the fact that ‘I never told you to fire McGahn, did I ever say fire? I never told you to fire Mcgahn.'”

“I’m getting at something, it’s about impairing the integrity of the evidence,” Klobuchar shot back. I just see it as different.

“The report itself says, there is evidence that the president actually thought and believed that the Times article was wrong,” Barr said, seething. “That’s evidence on the president’s side of the ledger, that he actually thought it was wrong and was asking for its correction.”

“The government has to prove things beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said, falsely equating criminal prosecution with impeachment. “As the report shows, there’s ample evidence on the other side of the ledger that would prevent the government from establishing that.”

“Again, I look at the totality of the evidence,” Klobuchar said, getting in the final word. “And when you look at it, it is a pattern. And that is different than having one incident.”
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https://www.rawstory.com/2019/05/am...f-pieces-of-evidence-from-the-mueller-report/

stumbler · May 2, 2019

Hey guys whatever happened to "no collusion, no obstruction, total exoneration"?

White House rages at Mueller in leaked letter to Bill Barr

White House attorney Emmett Flood sent a letter to Attorney General Bill Barr that rages at special counsel Robert Mueller for writing in his report that his investigation did not exonerate President Donald Trump.

The April 19, 2019 letter was sent to the Justice Department and was first obtained by Fox News and outlined concerns they had with the Mueller report. It also noted that Trump waving executive privilege for the report doesn’t mean he’s giving a “blanket waiver.”

Flood attacked Mueller’s team for the way they’ve handled the investigation into whether Trump obstructed justice, specifically that he didn’t make a determination on the question.

“The Special Counsel and his staff failed in their duty to act as prosecutors and only as prosecutors,” Flood wrote, complaining that the report “suffers from an extraordinary legal defect” by failing to comply with the “requirements of governing law.”

Muller cited the 1973 Office of Legal Counsel Memo saying that special counsels couldn’t make the determination there. Mueller handed the decision to the attorney general, who had already decided the president was above the law. Thus, Mueller’s report on obstruction outlined ten major points that a prosecutor could use to impeach the president in Congress.

“The evidence we obtained about the President’s actions and intent presents difficult issues that prevent us from conclusively determining that no criminal conduct occurred. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,” the Mueller report said.

Flood also lamented that Mueller’s report “is laden with factual information that has never been subjected to adversarial testing or independent analysis.”

“By way of justifying this departure, it has been suggested that the report was written with the intent of providing Congress some kind of ‘road map’ for congressional action,” Flood wrote. He said that if that’s the case, “it too serves as additional evidence of the [Special Counsel Office’s] refusal to follow applicable law.”

Trump has told all staff to fight subpoenas from Congress.
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https://www.rawstory.com/2019/05/white-house-rages-at-mueller-in-leaked-letter-to-bill-barr/

CS natureboy · May 3, 2019

stumbler · May 3, 2019

David Cay Johnston denounces Barr as Trump’s sycophant and predicts ‘the flow of damning documents will soon turn into a torrent’

Attorney General William Barr has been widely criticized by Democrats, liberals and progressives—as well as by MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, journalist Max Boot and other right-wing NeverTrump conservatives—for his May 1 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. During the Committee’s open hearing, Barr gave evasive responses to questions from U.S. senators on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s final report for the Russia investigation. And in a May 2 article for the Daily Beast, investigative journalist David Cay Johnston offers a scathing analysis of Barr’s testimony and the implications for President Donald Trump.

Barr’s testimony, Johnston writes, “confirmed once and for all that rather than conducting himself as the attorney general of the United States, Barr’s title should be attorney specific since he serves a single client: Donald J. Trump.”

Noting how evasive Barr was during his testimony, Johnston asserts that he “sounded something like a defendant himself, talking in circles in a display one Democrat grudgingly praised as ‘masterful hairsplitting’ to explain how he managed to publicly exonerate his client before releasing a report that painstakingly detailed his potential crimes.”

Johnston goes on to say that Barr’s testimony came “the day after a really bad day for Donald Trump, and a great day for accountability, democracy and our constitution.” Earlier this week, Johnston explains, Trump was so unnerved by Democratic House subpoenas of his financial records that he sued Deutsche Bank and Capitol One. And it was also this week, Johnston adds, that U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan “gave the green light to” a lawsuit in which Democrats in Congress “assert that Trump is violating” the U.S. Constitution’s emoluments clause (which says that presidents cannot receive payments or gifts from foreign powers without Congress’ approval).

Johnston notes that although New York State Attorney General Letitia James has been turning up the heat on Trump as well, members of the Trump family “are not suing to stop the banks from giving” his financial records to her office—the reason being that James “likely” has them already.

Johnston ends his Daily Beast piece on an optimistic note, writing, “Even as Barr races to build it up, Trump’s wall of secrecy is melting as sunlight, the best disinfectant for political corruption, exposes his lies, denials and deceptions. It will take time, but the flow of damning documents will soon turn into a torrent.”
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https://www.rawstory.com/2019/05/da...ning-documents-will-soon-turn-into-a-torrent/

stumbler · May 3, 2019

We cannot have a presidency that is run as if it were a king or dictator’: Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings

On Thursday, House Oversight Committee chair Elijah Cummings (D-MD) slammed President Donald Trump over his reactions to special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.

Trump’s team is challenging constitutional norms in an unprecedented way. Attorney General Bill Barr refused to testify before Congress, and Trump has repeatedly said that he would ignore subpoenas.

“We cannot, we simply cannot, have a presidency that is run as if it were a king or dictator,” Cummings said according to The Huffington Post. “This is a time wherein 200 years or beyond people are going to look back at this moment and ask, ’What did you do?”

Cummings was not the only one who compared Trump to a king.

“If one branch of government no longer believes that another branch of government is coequal, and has the authority and the jurisdiction to oversee and investigate than you are essentially moving toward a dictatorship,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) said.

However, Democrats are at a standstill when it comes to pursuing their next steps and enforcing Congressional oversight.

“The competing interests generally favor Congress,” Ron Weich, a former Justice Department congressional liaison said. “The executive branch’s interest in protecting particular investigative documents works most of the time, but if Congress insists and there’s a subpoena, the constitutional responsibility that Congress has to conduct oversight will ultimately trump those specific objections from the department.”

Read the full report here.
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https://www.rawstory.com/2019/05/we...-dictator-oversight-chairman-elijah-cummings/

stumbler · May 3, 2019

And once again we see Trump undoubtedly tried to obstruct justice and would have if the people around him had not refused.

REVEALED: Trump loyalist’s notes show White House lawyers feared president obstructed justice

Notes taken by a Trump loyalist in the White House gave special counsel Robert Mueller important insights into how the White House’s own lawyers worried that he was obstructing justice.

The Washington Post reports that Annie Donaldson, who served as former White House counsel Don McGahn’s chief of staff, took copious notes of her boss’s interactions with the president and they showed how McGahn frequently had to stop the president from taking actions he believed could lead to obstruction of justice charges.

For example, reports the Post, at one point “McGahn warned the president that some of the actions he took — such as asking Comey to let go of his investigation of Flynn — could make him vulnerable to accusations of obstruction of justice.”

The notes also indicate that White House lawyers were very fearful of the fallout that would happen if Trump fired former FBI Director James Comey, especially given the fact that the FBI at the time was investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Bob Bauer, who served as White House counsel to former President Barack Obama, tells the Post that he’s never seen White House attorneys have to take such extraordinary actions to rein in a president.

“It is impossible to imagine that these extensive notes were taken for any reason other than to document questionable presidential conduct and the counsel’s office response,” he said. “It speaks volumes to the extraordinary challenges facing lawyers in this White House, and it raises the question: If this is what is necessary for lawyers to do their job, then how is it a job the lawyers should agree to do?”
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https://www.rawstory.com/2019/05/re...-lawyers-feared-president-obstructed-justice/

stumbler · May 4, 2019

Kamala Harris cornered Bill Barr in his hearing — now she’s exploiting the weakness she uncovered

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), a member of the Judiciary Committee and a 2020 presidential candidate, followed up her noteworthy performance on Wednesday questioning Attorney General Bill Barr with an aggressive move: calling for an investigation of from the Justice Department inspector general.

In an exchange she transcribed for a letter to the department, Harris had asked the attorney general if the White House had ever asked or suggested that Barr or the justice department open any specific investigations. He struggled to answer her clearly:

*Senator Harris: Attorney General Barr. has the President or anyone at the White House ever asked or suggested that you open an investigation of anyone?

Attorney General Barr: Um. I wouldn’t … I wouldn’t. uh—

Senator Harris: Yes or No?

Attorney General Han: Could you … could you repeat that question?

Senator Harris: I will repeat it. Has the President or anyone at the White House ever asked or suggested that you open an investigation of anyone? Yes or no please, sir.

Attorney General Barr: Urn, the President or anybody…

Senator Harris: Seems you would remember something like that and be able to tell us.

Attorney General Barn Yeah, but I’m. I’m trying to grapple with the word ‘suggest.’ I mean, there have been discussions of. of matters out there that. uh- – the> have not asked me to open an investigation. But…

Senator Harris: Perhaps they’ve suggested?

Attorney General Barr: I don’t know. I wouldn’t say suggest…

Senator Harris: Hinted?

.Attorne General Ham I don’t know.

Senator Harris: Inferred? You don’t know?

Attorney General Barr: No.

Watch the clip here:

The letter to Inspector General Michael Horowitz said that she had “grave concern about the independence” of Barr, saying that the White House directing the opening of investigations “strikes at the very heart of the rule of law and threatens to undermine the longstanding independence of the Justice Department.”

She also noted that there’s good reason to think the president might be trying to corruptly influence the department.

“Such inappropriate requests by the President have been well documented,” she wrote. “For instance, in addition to investigating the Russian influence operation, Special Counsel Mueller also examined the President’s conduct with regard to the Russia probe and documented a disturbing pattern of behavior on the part of the President—repeated attempts to target his perceived opponents using the power of federal lass enforcement.”

In particular, Mueller documented Trump asking then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions at least three times to open an investigation into Hillary Clinton. Some, including Lawfare’s Ben Wittes, has argued that this request alone is an impeachable offense.

She noted that Barr was “unable or unwilling [to] answer the question” of whether such requests have been made of him. She therefore asked that the inspector general investigate “whether the Attorney General has received or acted upon requests or suggestions, whether implied or explicit, to investigate the president’s perceived enemies.”
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*And this exchange also proves why the House committee wants lawyers to question Barr under oath. Because all Barr does is stall, dodge, and lie when members of Congress only have 5 minutes to question him.

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/05/ka...w-shes-exploiting-the-weakness-she-uncovered/

stumbler · May 4, 2019

Nothing to see here. Just move along.

Longtime Trump aide alleges White House destroyed 5 boxes of documents — that should have been turned over to Mueller

President Donald Trump’s White House likely destroyed five boxes of emails, a top former advisor explained on MSNBC.

Omarosa Manigault Newman worked for the White House, transition, campaign and was a contestant on “The Apprentice.”

She was interviewed on MSNBC on Saturday by the Rev. Al Sharpton.

“I think it’s important to realize that very early on in the administration, we got letters directing us to preserve all information related to the Mueller investigation, all investigations, any information, any emails, any correspondence,” she explained. “We had a clear directive to preserve those documents, preserve emails, preserve text messages.”

“So I thought it was very interesting that after my discussion with General Kelly in the Situation Room when I went to take my things, I was instructed that I had to leave seven boxes of documents that came from the campaign, the inauguration, the transition, and they would not allow me to get them,” she continued.

“What’s very curious to me is that, as I stated, it was seven boxes of documents, and in my emails, they only referenced two, which leads me to believe that they’ve destroyed the other five,” Manigault Newman said.

“So, you know, it’s par for the course with this administration. I believe I’m not the only one who’s been subjected to this type of treatment, and I believe that there are more documents that have been destroyed by this administration,” she noted. “If it happened to me, it’s happened to others.”

“Let me be clear because I want to make sure I understand you. You say there was seven boxes, but they only referred to two? So are you suggesting that maybe they destroyed five boxes of emails that could have been evidence?” Sharpton asked.

“Oh, there’s no question,” she replied.

“So we’ll have to see what unfolds. But I’m sure that I’m just not a one-off. I believe that this is a pattern with this administration of being disrespectful to congressional requests, of trying to use intimidation and all types of tactics to keep people silent,” she suggested.
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https://www.rawstory.com/2019/05/lo...that-should-have-been-turned-over-to-mueller/

JimmyCrackPorn · May 5, 2019

Jerry Nadless is a cornflake in a truss. (Or something like that.)

EXCLUSIVE: Jerry Nadler’s Son Works For Firm Suing Trump, Which Presents Conflict of Interest

Democrat congressman Jerry Nadler, leading the investigative charge against President Donald Trump, has a son whose firm is trying to get access to Trump documents for their clients in numerous lawsuits against President Trump.

“Congressman Jerry Nadler has a big conflict,” our source tells Big League Politics in Washington, D.C.

“His son (Michael Nadler) got a job with Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP in 2018. That’s convenient* because Jerry Nadler and the Democrats just won control of the House in 2018. Gibson Dunn & Crutcher hire Jerry’s son and Gibson Dunn & Crutcher are the main Nemesis against Trump and the Trump Administration on numerous lawsuits. Now the Nadler family will gain access to thousands of Trump documents via Jerry’s subpoenas!,” our insider stated.

Gibson Dunn represented CNN’s Jim Acosta in his lawsuit against the Trump White House after President Trump revoked Jim Acosta’s press credentials for creating a disturbance in a press briefing and making physical contact with a female White House intern. In December Gibson Dunn announced that it was representing the Center for Reproductive Rights in its lawsuit against the Trump State Department concerning abortion language in Trump administration human rights reports. Gibson Dunn’s global co-chairman Ted Boutros sued President Trumpin a bid to protect the DACA Dreamer program.

Such an arrangement — Jerry Nadler investigating Trump with his son’s firm trying to get access to documents in other cases — violates ethics rules for federal investigators.

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*

ace's n 8's · May 5, 2019

JimmyCrackPorn said: ↑

Jerry Nadless is a cornflake in a truss. (Or something like that.)

EXCLUSIVE: Jerry Nadler’s Son Works For Firm Suing Trump, Which Presents Conflict of Interest

Democrat congressman Jerry Nadler, leading the investigative charge against President Donald Trump, has a son whose firm is trying to get access to Trump documents for their clients in numerous lawsuits against President Trump.

“Congressman Jerry Nadler has a big conflict,” our source tells Big League Politics in Washington, D.C.

“His son (Michael Nadler) got a job with Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP in 2018. That’s convenient* because Jerry Nadler and the Democrats just won control of the House in 2018. Gibson Dunn & Crutcher hire Jerry’s son and Gibson Dunn & Crutcher are the main Nemesis against Trump and the Trump Administration on numerous lawsuits. Now the Nadler family will gain access to thousands of Trump documents via Jerry’s subpoenas!,” our insider stated.

Gibson Dunn represented CNN’s Jim Acosta in his lawsuit against the Trump White House after President Trump revoked Jim Acosta’s press credentials for creating a disturbance in a press briefing and making physical contact with a female White House intern. In December Gibson Dunn announced that it was representing the Center for Reproductive Rights in its lawsuit against the Trump State Department concerning abortion language in Trump administration human rights reports. Gibson Dunn’s global co-chairman Ted Boutros sued President Trumpin a bid to protect the DACA Dreamer program.

Such an arrangement — Jerry Nadler investigating Trump with his son’s firm trying to get access to documents in other cases — violates ethics rules for federal investigators.

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This actually explains alot.

So many emotionally based lawsuits happened during the Trump Administration, now I know why.

Young buckaroo Nadler is making a name for himself.

I predict we will be hearing more about Young Nadler in the future.

JimmyCrackPorn · May 5, 2019

stumbler · May 5, 2019

What a fucking hoot. Want a conflict of interest? How about AG Barr's son in law working for the White House?

Trump is ‘giving Putin the green light’ to interfere in the next election: Former FBI official

President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke for over an hour on Friday, discussing, among other topics, the conclusion of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. According to Trump himself, they discussed the “Russia hoax.”

What they didn’t discuss, Trump made clear, was Russia and Putin’s ongoing effort to interfere in American elections. Former FBI Assistant Director Frank Figlguizzi argued on MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House” on Friday that Trump’s stance toward Putin in the call made it clear that the president doesn’t care if Russia interferes in the election again.

“It’s troubling to think our president is finding comfort and solace in our adversary,” Figluizzi said. “And that our nation’s adversary is actually now his buddy. So he’s finding self-affirmation in someone who gets up every morning trying to hurt our country. And he simply doesn’t get it. Here’s how that exchange should have gone, especially if it was that lengthy a phone call: ‘Vladimir, the report has troubling information about the degree to which you and your government tried to mess with our democracy and our elections. And if it happens again, the wrath of the U.S. government is going to come down on your head in the form of sanctions like you’ve never before seen.”

He added: “The lack of pushing back by this government and the president has got to be giving Putin the green light to do it again. Do it again. Help us out.”

Watch the clip below:
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https://www.rawstory.com/2019/05/tr...ere-in-the-next-election-former-fbi-official/

ace's n 8's · May 5, 2019

What is really troubling, is a former Mueller appointed subordinate flapping his jaws about something that is so irrelevant and has zero influence on much of nothing.

And they say Trump is a dumb fuck wild card.

stumbler · May 5, 2019

Poll: Americans split on impeaching Trump

Americans in a new poll are evenly split on impeaching President Trump in the wake of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.

*Almost half of Americans – 48 percent – questioned in a NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey released early Sunday said they believe Congress should not hold impeachment hearings.

By comparison, a combined 49 percent said Congress should either begin impeachment hearings now or continue investigating to see if there’s enough evidence to hold them in the future.

The poll comes weeks after a redacted version of Mueller's report on his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election was released to the public. The special counsel wrote that he did not find evidence of criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, but declined to reach a conclusion on whether Trump obstructed justice in the investigation.

Pollsters in the NBC/WSJ survey found that 60 percent said Trump has been dishonest in the Russia investigation. Only one-third said Mueller’s report clears the president of wrongdoing.

Eight in 10 Republicans said Trump should be allowed to finish his term, while 30 percent of Democrats said they want impeachment hearings now. Fifty percent of Democratic respondents want to wait for more evidence, pollsters found.

“We see a divided country with Republicans saying move on, Democrats saying dig in and independents in the middle saying hold on,” said Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates.

Trump’s job approval rating rose 3 points since March, with 46 percent of Americans now approving of his performance in office. The change is within the poll's margin of error, NBC noted.

The poll of 900 adults, conducted April 28 to May 1, has a margin of error of 3.3 percentage points.
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https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/442164-poll-americans-split-on-impeaching-trump

ace's n 8's · May 5, 2019

If the entire country only used CNN as a source for their daily news along with the other state-run leftist media sources...100% would want Trump impeached.

stumbler · May 6, 2019

Trump made House Republicans look like complete fools

House and Senate Republicans have maintained that the most crucial thing in the special counsel’s investigation is transparency for them and the public. Now, suddenly, things have changed, leaving them in an awkward predicament.

President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans repeated over and over that the full report from Robert Mueller would be available. They all promised that Mueller should and would testify to the House and Senate. They even promised Attorney General Bill Barr would answer questions before the House and Senate, but he fell short of the commitment.

Sunday, Trump tweeted that he didn’t want Mueller to testify before the House or Senate, a new kink in the president’s lists of promises made and promises kept.

It put the president into a self-imposed exile on an island away from his party. Republicans in the House demanded in April that Mueller testify “immediately.”

Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA) demanded Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) call Mueller to testify immediately.

“If you see both transparency and for the American public to learn the full contours of the Special Counsel’s (sic) investigation, public testimony from Special Counsel Mueller himself is undoubtedly the best way to accomplish this goal,” he said in a statement.

It’s putting Republicans in an awkward position to contrast with the leader of their party.
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https://www.rawstory.com/2019/05/trump-made-house-republicans-look-like-complete-fools/

ace's n 8's · May 6, 2019

As it was once said, the judicial branch is not intended to indulge transparency.

No crimes...Trump won again..

Another notch in the bed post.

stumbler · May 6, 2019

Ex-Democratic aide explains why Lindsey Graham screwed up disinviting Mueller from testifying to the Senate

Even the Republican pundit on MSNBC recognized that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) messed up by disinviting special counsel Robert Mueller speaking to the Judiciary Committee in the U.S. Senate.

During an MSNBC panel discussion Sunday, former Paul Ryan communications advisor Brendan Buck asked “what difference does it make” that Attorney General Bill Barr lied to the American people about what was in the Mueller report.

“We have the facts,” he said, noting that the original report is no longer behind closed doors. He neglected to note that for weeks before the report’s release, the Trump administration knew the truth, lied with the intent to mislead Americans, and promote the fake information for political purposes.

“If you look at Lindsey Graham, you know they have a problem,” said former Clinton spokesperson Philippe Reines. “For Lindsey Graham to say, ‘Director Mueller you want to come? Sure.’ He knows he needs to get Mueller before the House side does.”

Host Kasie Hunt recalled what Graham previously said Wednesday when asked about having Mueller appear.

“I’m not going to do anymore. Enough already. It’s over,” Graham told reporters this week.

If Democrats in the House get to Mueller before Republicans, it means they will control the message, while Republicans are shut out from being able to spin and attack on television.

President Donald Trump was once fine with Mueller speaking out, but suddenly has decided Mueller should not.
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https://www.rawstory.com/2019/05/ex...viting-mueller-from-testifying-to-the-senate/

stumbler · May 6, 2019

Jim Comey has it all wrong: Trump is a monster, all right — but the GOP created him

Former FBI Director James Comey wrote a provocative op-ed for the New York Times last week in which he describes what it’s like to have Donald Trump try to “eat your soul in small bites.” He says that Trump has a way of overwhelming people’s better angels and robbing them of integrity over time, until they either find the energy to get away or become a full-fledged Trump sycophant.

It has the ring of truth. One suspects that there are more than a few people in Trump’s orbit who were originally appalled by his behavior but adapted over time and are now in a sort of cult-like state of obedience, without minds of their own. Once you make enough moral and ethical compromises, it becomes necessary to convince yourself that you are doing the right thing if you want to look yourself in the mirror every morning.

Comey says that Attorney General William Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein are among those people, contrasting them with former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who has the distinction of being the only former senior administration official who resigned as a matter of principle. It is so rare that Trump didn’t even realize what was happening until the news media informed him that Mattis’ resignation letter was a rebuke.

In Comey’s reckoning, this is all about Trump’s preternatural ability to get people to do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do. Like all good con artists, Trump does have a talent for drawing people into his scam. But I’m skeptical that more than a handful of the Republicans in the current administration have been so co-opted. There’s more to it than that.

According to Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo, this is really about the entire party being radicalized by Fox News propaganda over the past 25 years, and that includes members of the elite establishment like Barr. I think that’s right. It’s quite clear that the flamboyant extremism of the modern right-wing media machine invented by the likes of talk radio’s Rush Limbaugh and Fox News’ Roger Ailes has become the mainstream of conservative thought. Barr is steeped in it, as he showed even before he became Trump’s attorney general, when he told the New York Times that the bogus fever-swamp scandal about Hillary Clinton’s supposed involvement with the Uranium One deal was more worthy of investigation than Russian interference in the 2016 election.

But that’s not the whole story either. Republicans aren’t having their souls gobbled up by this devious con man. They have plans of their own.

Back in 2012, Grover Norquist laid it all it plainly:

We don’t need a president to tell us in what direction to go. We know what direction to go. We just need a president to sign this stuff. We don’t need someone to think it up or design it. … Pick a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen to become president of the United States.

Trump is a pain in the neck, to be sure. He causes lots of unnecessary drama and almost certainly embarrasses these Republicans on occasion. And I’m sure there are some who worry that this whole thing could get out of hand. But what they have in Trump is a man with (small) working digits who is handling a pen and accomplishing some of the most important items on their wish list.

Yes, Republicans were unable to repeal Obamacare. But think about it: That only happened because one senator, face to face with his mortality, stopped them. Otherwise, they had it in the bag. They got their tax cuts and their military buildup. They have taken a wrecking ball to the regulatory state. They’ve torn up the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate agreement. They’ve packed the courts with far-right judges, and as former White House counsel Don McGahn proudly told Senate GOP staffers, those judges “will spend 30–40 years unwinding the power of executive agencies.” McGahn may end up being an instrument of Trump’s eventual downfall, but he had a bigger job to do and he took care of that first.

Bill Barr has a job to do as well, and it’s not just following the fever dreams of Sean Hannity and Jeanine Pirro. As Charlie Sykes points out in this piece, Barr is a professional protector of presidential power, going back to his first stint as attorney general in George H.W. Bush’s Department of Justice. He refused to name an independent counsel to investigate “Iraqgate” instead taking it on himself and then stalling until the independent counsel statute ran out. He encouraged Bush to pardon everyone indicted in the Iran-Contra affair.

Barr was obviously chosen for that particular experience and expertise, but also because he is a true believer in the right-wing philosophy of the “unitary executive.” This Politico profile makes clear how the Republican establishment sees Barr:

“Barr is the closest thing we have to [Dick] Cheney,” said Chuck Cooper, a conservative litigator and Barr ally who, like the attorney general, has led the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. “He’s a man. He has a very strong sense of purpose and confidence.”

Barr is part of an influential group of right-wing lawyers and politicians who all came up together in the 1980s and believe in unfettered presidential power. Cheney is another. Just as McGahn saw the opportunity to pack the judiciary with like-minded judges, Barr’s mission is to push the envelope on presidential power and create judicial precedents to cement it in place. If he has to put up with Trump’s antics, so be it. He provides Republican thought-leaders with an opportunity to achieve their long-term goals. In a way, having someone like Trump in power, completely ignorant on how the system is designed to work, serves them better than an ordinary politician. He literally has no idea what they’re up to, and wouldn’t care about it if he did.

You may ask why they would want to allow Democratic presidents to wield the same powers when they’re in office. I think they simply believe that Democrats don’t have the guts to take it to the limit because they’re too caught up in their own self-image as believers in “good government.” And since Republicans no longer respond to charges of hypocrisy, they would unleash hell on any Democrat who attempted to use the powers of the presidency the way Trump is currently doing. Republicans believe they alone will use the power of the presidency to maximum effect. They’re probably right.

So sure, craven politicians like Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who needs to run for re-election in a state filled with Trump worshippers, are just playing old-fashioned politics. Others no doubt actually think that Trump is a great president and just want to be part of making America great again. Fox News brain rot is a real phenomenon. And there are more than a few who are simply in it to feather their own nests. The Trump era is a sewer of corruption.

But it’s pretty clear that many of the people in this administration are anything but co-opted by Trump’s magical soul-eating powers. It’s the other way around. Donald Trump may or may not be Putin’s puppet but he’s definitely the Republican establishment’s useful idiot.
Click to expand...

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/05/ji...-a-monster-all-right-but-the-gop-created-him/

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