Posted on 04/18/2019 10:06:37 AM PDT by yesthatjallen
Thousands of interviews and hundreds of subpoenas later, special counsel Robert Mueller broke his two-year Wizard of Oz-like silence on Thursday in the form of a 448-page report that formally dropped the curtain on the bad political musical we’ve come to know as the Russian collusion scandal.
Let the record reflect that Mueller wasted little time debunking the feigned electoral love affair between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump that so many Democrats and their allies in the news media sang to life.
With little equivocation, the prosecutor declared that Russia did interfere in the 2016 election, including by hacking Hillary Clinton and Democratic National Committee documents, but there was no evidence, none, that the president or his campaign — or any American, for that matter — engaged in the conspiracy.
To the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC and other media outlets that fanned the Russia collusion narrative — and to congressional Democrats such as Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) who insisted there was secret evidence to support it — I refer you to this declaration in Mueller’s report:
“In sum, the investigation established multiple links between Trump Campaign officials and individuals tied to the Russia government. Those links included Russian offers of assistance to the Campaign. In some instances the Campaign was receptive to the offers, while in other instances the Campaign officials shied away. Ultimately, the investigation did not establish that the Campaign coordinated or conspired with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
One inherent message of the first volume of the Mueller report is clear: It is time for the professional media to assume responsibility for its role in inflaming the public with a scandal that wasn’t proven, by endlessly quoting intelligence and partisan political sources whose claims went far beyond the skis that their evidence slithered upon.
SNIP
As commander in chief, his words matter and can be construed as orders, good or bad. Temper tantrums might be fine in the confines of a CEO’s office or a board room. But on the national and global stages, where the U.S. president is the world’s most powerful figure, they are inappropriate coming from the Oval Office.
Mueller’s report won’t resolve the question entirely of obstruction. Democrats will spin the Barr-Rosenstein decision as an effort to protect the president, and Republicans will declare victory. Mueller’s whiff on a final, independent call actually may have been a disservice to us all.
But one lesson from this debacle, which Americans might find applicable to both the courts of law and public opinion, is worth grasping: A guilty man’s conduct to get rid of prosecutors, to impact witnesses or to impugn an investigation looks a lot more like obstruction than an innocent man’s similar actions during an effort to defend himself from bogus allegations.
In the absence of provable charges, the presumption of innocence still reigns supreme.
John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work over the years has exposed U.S. and FBI intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal scientists’ misuse of foster children and veterans in drug experiments, and numerous cases of political corruption. He serves as an investigative columnist and executive vice president for video at The Hill.
The message from LEO is almost always that if you’re not cooperating, then you’re probably guilty, or at least hiding something. Most people are aware of this, and tend to be cooperative at first. But when an ‘investigation’ quickly begins to feel like harassment, and you just want to live your life, it seems like “obstruction” is just human nature, guilty or not.
They are searching for heads to sever and display, but their Stalinist tactics are clear, or more like a German show trial with democrats screaming obscenities at innocent men. Its scary to see soo many people on a panel searching for a crime 2 years and $30 million dollars later, they are disgusting, small minds, chickens pecking at corn.
Correct. Republicans simply don't behave like Trump does.
Defending yourself from a fraudulent attack by people who give themselves power is not “obstruction”. It’s righteous fury.
ESPECIALLY WHEN THE PRESS PROCLAIMS HIM GUILTY FIRST - INSTEAD OF “INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY”
More BS designed to hinder the speech and actions of President Trump. By the author's logic it is "inappropriate" to harshly call out someone, but it is entirely OK to order the death of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people. If it is OK to order the invasion of foreign countries, or dropping an atomic bomb on a city, why isn't it OK for the President to use harsh language?
The left just hates hearing the truth, and is yet again trying to silence their opposition - even when they were guilty of spying on another candidate and then creating a fake investigation to cover it up.
Don McGann said he was asked but refused. If President Trump was serious he would have insisted and McGann would have quit or been fired. That’s pretty much proof that he was blowing off steam. The POTUS is always under stress, they all have different ways of handling it. Trump is like every CEO I know who rage and move on.
When a non-issue, non-crime occurs, how do you protect yourself ?
You'd be frustrated too !
How do you prove your innocence without emotional turmoil ?
You'd be pi$$ed too !
You can't prove innocence in a rumor.
Looks like the trending thought now is that in the future, if the government charges someone and he hires a defense attorney, he will be charged with obstruction of justice.
Obstruction of a non-criminal rumor can’t exist !
Also, I’m sure when you receive a letter from the IRS your first reaction is “gee, it’s going to be a great day”.....
The 10 “cases of possible obstruction” will be viewed as misdemeanors suitable for impeachment grounds by the dems.
Trump was just ravaging to people who KNEW him AND also knew he was just blowing off steam, IF Trump had meant any of his remarks he certainly would have followed through!!! Corey and the other guy know how Trump works they KNEW he was just blowing off steam thus had no intention of following through with his requests!!! They both knew it was just Trump ranting!!!!
The agents of Satan would rather believe a lie than the simple truth.
Right.
He was angry and frustrated and he was lashing out. It's human nature.
If he was guilty of obstruction he would have fired people who 'didn't follow his orders'.
No action. No obstruction.
Defending yourself from a fraudulent attack by people who give themselves power is not “obstruction”. It’s righteous fury.
~~~
Either way, it doesn’t work that way against Law Enforcement and proprietorial authority.
By either way, I mean specific to the Trump collusion farce, where the power may be political, those who whole the investigative and prosecutorial power are inevitably going to see your “righteous fury” as proof of guilt. Obviously you have quite a bit of constitutional protection on your side against them prosecuting you for the actual crime being investigated, but that doesn’t stop the investigative harassment, nor the ability to prosecute your ‘fury’ as obstruction.
Even speaking generally, if a guilty man or an innocent man goes beyond lack of cooperation and begins working actively against investigators, the crime being investigated actually doesn’t matter in the question of obstruction. Now this seems like a travesty to the innocent, but it’s still common sense. For better or for worse, you’re stuck with it. Now I’m not saying Trump actually obstructed. It certainly appears that he didn’t. But you know the temptation was there. As I said, it’s human nature.
So perhaps there need to be more laws protecting the subjects of criminal investigations against such power being used to as tools for personal or political harassment, but the balance to that would obviously be not to make it harder to catch and prosecute real criminals.
The STASI team continues to stay on message and continues it’;s attempt create a crime that doesn’t exist. America is at a crossroads. If the public doesn;t stand up to this leftist Oligarc takeover, the country is just a few short years away from a horrible left turn. The Electoral college will be dumped, any Federal agency can be used run roughshod over individual rights and the left wing media will totally control the thinking of the entire country.
Trump better push back hard because this is not a time to joke around.....
The murder of Seth Rich continues to pay dividends if Mueller can continue to pretend that the Wikileaks emails were the result of Russian hacking.
The correct answer is, “I did nothing wrong, so there is nothing I can contribute to the investigation.”
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