Posted on 05/22/2019 3:06:22 AM PDT by Kaslin
From now on, the Trump-Russia affair -- the investigation that dominated the first years of Donald Trump's presidency -- will be divided into two parts: before and after the release of Robert Mueller's report. Before the special counsel's findings were made public last month, the president's adversaries were on the offensive. Now, they are playing defense.
The change is due to one simple fact: Mueller could not establish that there was a conspiracy or coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign to fix the 2016 election. The special counsel's office interviewed 500 witnesses, issued 2,800 subpoenas, executed nearly 500 search-and-seizure warrants and obtained nearly 300 records of electronic communications, and still could not establish the one thing that mattered most in the investigation.
Without a judgment that a conspiracy -- or collusion, in the popular phrasing -- took place, everything else in the Trump-Russia affair began to shrink in significance.
In particular, allegations that the president obstructed justice to cover up a conspiracy were transformed into allegations that he obstructed an investigation into a crime that prosecutors could not say actually occurred. Although it is legally possible to pursue an obstruction case without an underlying crime, a critical element of obstruction -- knowledge of guilt -- disappeared the moment Mueller's report was released.
Of course, TV talking heads are still arguing over obstruction. But with the report's release, the investigation moved from the legal realm to the political realm. And in the political realm, the president has a simple and effective case to make to the 99.6 percent of Americans who are not lawyers: "They say I obstructed an investigation into something that didn't happen? And they want to impeach me for that?"
The ground has shifted in the month since the report became public. Before the release, many Democrats adopted a "wait for Mueller" stance, basing their anti-Trump strategy on the hope that Mueller would find the much-anticipated conspiracy.
Then Mueller did not deliver. And not only that -- Mueller's report stretched to 448 pages, with long stretches of minutiae and arcane legal argument that the public would never read. Democrats searched for a way to convince Americans that the president was still guilty of something serious.
They devised a plan to turn the Mueller report into a TV show, accessible to millions of viewers who have not read even a page of the report itself. They would call key witnesses to give dramatic testimony in televised hearings that would build support for possible impeachment.
At the same time, they would insist that Attorney General William Barr, who has allowed top lawmakers to see the full Mueller report with the exception of a small amount of grand jury material, was hiding something, and that the hidden material might reveal presidential wrongdoing.
So far, the strategy has not worked. The White House, which provided Mueller testimony and documents that might easily have been withheld as privileged, has not been so forthcoming with Congress. We gave the criminal investigator -- Mueller -- what he needed, the White House said, but we are not obligated to do the same for Congress.
The dispute could take a long time to settle.
In the meantime, House Democrats have been reduced to stunts to try to grab the public's attention. At the Capitol recently, they enlisted Hollywood star John Cusack to take part in a public reading of the entire Mueller report -- it took 12 hours -- as C-SPAN cameras rolled. The event did not exactly captivate the nation.
Now, Republicans have turned the tables on Democrats by pumping new energy into their long-held desire to "investigate the investigation." Barr, who set off enormous controversy with his statement that "spying did occur" against the Trump campaign, has taken up the cause, assigning U.S. Attorney John Durham to look into the origins of the probe.
Anticipation is also building for the release of Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz's report on the department's handling of the case. It is probably not a coincidence that some Obama-era intelligence figures are now pointing fingers at each other over their reliance on the so-called Steele dossier, a collection of unsubstantiated allegations against the president compiled by a former British spy on behalf of the Hillary Clinton campaign.
None of this would have happened without the Mueller report's conclusion that the evidence did not establish conspiracy or coordination. If Democrats could still claim that Trump and Russia conspired in 2016, they would still have the upper hand. But after Mueller, that claim is no longer possible, and Democratic hopes are dwindling.
The DEmocrats are VILE, EVIL, VICIOUS, LYING DESTROYERS of Good People.....and they ALL HATE AMERICA!
I listened the newly released part 2 of Steyn’s interview of Papadopoulos. He mentioned he has 6 figure legal bills. If he didn’t take the plea, he was going to have 7 figure legal bills.
The Mark Steyn Show with George Papadopoulos
Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggNWpNZJjNg
Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sl40tJBfZN4
This ‘reading’ of the Mueller Report was mostly all a joke. You can go and download the document and read it yourself over a weekend. We are almost six months in 2019, and what exactly has the Democratic Party accomplished so far? Nothing. If the trend continues to spring of 2020? They are screwed.
The DemocRATs, of course, knew that there was no crime, that there was no valid reason to subject Trump and the nation to this witch hunt. But the ongoing shamvestigation allowed them to posture and pontificate.
Now that the shamvestigation is over, they are becoming more desperate. The investigation into why the Mueller shamvestigation was launched to begin with is likely to bring to light a whole lot of dirty DemocRAT dealing. This is why they keep ramping up their hysterical rhetoric and are making a lot of noise about impeachment. They will do anything to take public scrutiny off their corruption.
THANKS!!
That is why the feds have a 90 percent conviction rate.
The Dems are moving to impeachment to drown out the release of the IG report, unredacted documents from the WH, and the protracted Durham investigation that will be done quietly.
Re the IG report: IMO we are going to be disappointed with the results. It will deal mainly with reforms to the FISA process and mistakes and abuses. There will be few criminal referrals. This in-house investigation will protect the institution in much the same way that the Hillary email IG report did.
I am wondering if Mueller released his report early as part of a deal to avoid charges against himself. It was not to the dems’ advantage to end the inquiry and they could have continued to make hay slinging mud at Trump until the 2020 election.
The deal: Bring the investigation to an end (since there was nothing there), walk away and when the guillotine drops you won’t stretch you neck.
Your points are what I am worried about too. I hope you and I are wrong.
The RATs actually believed people were going to watch that. Ha ha!
People know the House is a clown show and have better things to do than rehash old worn out failed fake news.
I’m just glad we are not getting all the government we are paying gor.
AG Barr can also go after everyone of the democrats, talking heads, etc. The “Bar-r” has been lowered for Obstruction. Anything Schiff or Schumer any even AOC does or says can be used against them when they are hauled into detention and prosecuted for the same type of process crimes. Imagine the horror that Schumer has when flip-flopping on an issue relevant to Spygate, or the fact that he or Nancy were involved in planning meetings or briefed on part of the Russia Investigation... that they talked about something that they were going to do to Trump thus creating a public and sedationist environment. These murky waters will be won by the President who controls the military and is the ready to pounce on them for the exact processes’ they are using against his administration.
A few obvious notes:
1) Mulehead DARES NOT testify in front of Congress, where he would have to cleave to the Report line to the syllable, lest he open himself up to perjury charges;
2) I “think” the DemoKKKrats will vote for impeachment today, or at the very least, Botoxic will tell Trump at dinner that she has the votes and if he doesn’t release all the witnesses & docs they’ll impeach;
3) While I do NOT think that impeachment would result in a landslide reaction to the DemoKKKrats, I think it would be sufficient to hand us back the House.
4) I’ve said this before & gotten flamed, but because we all know that PrisonBarrs’ investigation is GOING TO LEAD TO ZERO and CANKLES, I fully expect Trump will pardon both of them before they are officially indicted. This act alone would be phenomenally “indicting” as they would race out to defend their innocence and the entire narrative would be (correctly) about their criminality.
5) I’ve said for two years, Trump can either have Cankles in jail or his agenda. He chose the latter. He sees a true violent civil war if Zero is indicted. But opening the road to Zero’s indictment is the only way to fully investigate. That’s why I think Trump will cut the Gordian Knot by encouraging the investigation to proceed and then pardoning.
Sounds as if, at the 11th. hour, Herr Mueller got cold feet and decided that he did not wish to go down in history as the instigator of a coup.
Yep, not a lot of room to say "I don't recall".
I think you are on to something there. Art of the Deal.
I won’t destroy your legacies or your party in exchange for going along with my agenda.
That leaves us open to another future coup attempt, but perhaps Trump wants to leave that for another day.
John Cusack’s star power is fading.
That's pretty obvious in light of a great economy and the fact that the Dems have accomplished ZERO since they took the house. They can't point to anything positive, only their ongoing hatred for Trump.
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