By Jonathan Turley
FTA:
The problem is that Mueller was uttering absolute nonsense about his inability to reach a conclusion. He likewise did not offer a principled basis for refusing to answer any questions. This includes obvious questions such as why he refused to comply with the request from his superiors to identify grand jury material, which delayed the release of his report. The disconnect in the coverage of his remarks was striking. Attorney General William Barr testified for hours on his role and has answered dozens of questions. He was promptly dismissed as evasive and even perjurious. Mueller declared he would tolerate no questions and declined to address any of the criticism of his work with very little objection from the media.
The press conference this week should be an embarrassment for the Justice Department. The agency has long maintained that the special counsel could perform the same function as an independent counsel in determining whether high ranking officials committed criminal acts. For two years, Congress and the Justice Department expressly anticipated findings of any criminal conduct. Mueller employed a massive staff and spent tens of millions of dollars. Yet, it now appears that he never intended to make any findings of possible crimes by President Trump.
Mueller insisted that, because there is a Justice Department policy not to indict a sitting president, he interpreted that to bar him from finding the basis for criminal conduct. According to Mueller, you can investigate but not reach basic conclusions on what the investigation found. One could understand why he would not be eager to answer questions about such an absurd interpretation, when his cited sources directly contradict him.
Same Data for the last two years compared to the Obama years would be interesting.
That graphic isn’t new. I’ve had that for months now, I don’t remember where I saw it, likely Facebook. I remember it because I dug on it to make sure the sources were reputable (they are)...and I just found it again in a Pictures sub-folder.
-SB