295

It’s been a little over 36 hours since news that Mueller had given William Barr his report and we still know very little. The only thing we can say with any authority is that the MSM totally mishandled it-what else is new? Indeed you could say that their framing of what we know so far were to use Comey’s ironic phrase-extremely careless. 

FN: Ironic as what was actually extremely careless was Comey’s handling of Emailgate-as we see in Chapter A-there likely wasn’t probable cause to even beginning the investigation of the damn emails in the first place-as it lacked probable cause.

As we saw in yesterday’s Chapter B the MSM-certainly cable news-has focused on the three little words ‘no further indictments’ and essentially thrown ‘President Trump’ a ticker tape parade-he’s totally vindicated! No collusion! 

You see President Trump they chide him, oh so gently, you thought it was a witch hunt but you’re cleared. 

Of course, this is nothing but wildly leaping to conclusions-as we haven’t seen a word of the report or the underlying evidence how can this ‘vindicate’ the illegitimate ‘President?’

Ok so Ruth Graham… She really is exactly  the prototypical snarky, snotty MSMer of today  who  manages to demonstrate in one snarky post everything that’s wrong with today’s ‘smart set.’

“Resistance-Fantasy Twitter Is Speculating Wildly About the Mueller Report, Having a Blast.”

So she’s taking it upon herself to make fun of the ‘conspiracy theorists’ of Twitter. I appreciate it as it shows you what most of the MSM thinks of liberal Twitter. Who are these people to go beyond anything we are willing to say?! We’re the authority!

If we say ‘the President’ is vindicated because of the three words ‘no more indictments’ he’s vindicated. 

Essentially Ms. Graham is having quite a blast herself making fun of what she, Chuck Todd, Kasie Hunt and Wolf Blitzer see as the uncool kids, the unsavvy kids who unlike they, the Smart Set, don’t realize that it’s self evident that it’s always been farfetched to believe ‘president Trump’ colluded with Russia.

Now Whitewater, Emailgate, or even Vince Foster-those were respectable conspiracy theories-judging by the respectable way the MSMers covered them

So her point in this snarky little piece is to showcase how superior she and her fellow MSMers are to these ‘Conspiracy Nuts of the Loony Left’-she doesn’t use these words exactly, of course-she’s too ‘serious’ for that but that’s the subtext:

“As of this writing, here is what we know for certain about special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election: He has delivered the report to attorney general William Barr. A senior Justice Department official also told reporters that Mueller is not recommending any additional indictments. Barr told congressional leaders that he is now reviewing the report and “may be in a position to advise you of the special counsel’s principal conclusions as soon as this weekend.” So now, we wait.”

Ok-so far she’s right as far as it goes. This is all we know. Though her last half sentence is debatable-her point is we should just sit like passive vessels and wait for what Barr deems ‘appropriate’ to dole out that can hit the sweetspot between being able to argue he was transparent but not enough that in any way damages ‘President Trump.’

In other words she has a rule-no speculating. 

Ok so conspiracy theorist liberals, etc, are speculating showing themselves to be uncool like she and Chuck Todd are.

“A loose cohort of online activists and quasi-journalists has spent the last few years creating the digital equivalent of a bulletin board covered in yarn, thumbtacks, and photos of everyone who has ever shaken hands with Donald Trump. And unsurprisingly, some of its biggest stars seemed preeeeetty sure on Friday night that “no new indictments” could mean only one thing: tons of new indictments.”

Actually no. All that is being pointed out is that ‘no new indictments by Mueller’ doesn’t rule out that there could be new indictments coming from other spinoff investigations. But apparently this is too subtle a point for the Savvy. And while she forbids speculating, of doing anything beyond having a lobotomy and only believing what she and Chuck Todd say, her and her MSM friends have actually speculated wildly since Friday night based on the false premise that ‘the President’ is fully vindicated-‘it’s all over!’

It’s not that the MSM doesn’t speculate-they just speculate on what they deem worthy of speculation. You’re not a conspiracy theorist if you only speculate about the things they see as legitimate speculation-like they speculated wildly beyond the known facts that ‘will Hillary Clinton be indicted? If so who will the Democrats run in her place? Will it be Vice President Biden?

Cable program after cable program had MSM talking heads pontificating on this rampant speculation all day and into the night-never adding anything remotely new but creating the disgusting meme of Lock Her UP!

Even now as they declare vindication for ‘President Trump’ he and his Deplorables continue to chant Lock Her UP! something that formed largely because of their own irresponsible and vapid speculation.

On Friday night they were rabidly speculating that the Democrats may ‘face a dilemma’ now that ‘President Trump has been vindicated.’

Even though declaring he’s vindicated is to go way beyond the small body of facts we know-yet Ms. Graham is wrapping the knuckles of liberals on Twitter for ‘speculating’-an unpardonable sin among the Smart Set unless it’s issues they think are worth speculating about like-‘what is the strategy of President Trump for saying offensive and dishonest things? Yes it’s offensive and dishonest but will it work?’

The MSM is capable of going hour after hour on cable news speculating wildly about ‘what’s the President’s strategy here?’ in a way that is both stunningly repetitive and completely vapid-the conversation always ends up driving slowly around the same intellectual cul de sac again and again and again. It’s offensive and false but his base loves it. Should the Democrats be worried? I think maybe they should Chuck…

The main point that ‘Resistance-Fantasy Twitter’ is making is twofold:

1. Just because Mueller apparently-I say apparently as the statement was so terse and lacking in elaboration-isn’t going to indict anyone himself doesn’t mean there won’t be any further indictments elsewhere. Indeed as has been reported, the legal exposure of TrumpWorld is far from over. 

“Trump’s legal troubles are far from over even as Mueller probe ends.”

“It’s the end of the beginning, but it’s not the beginning of the end,” Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.), who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told reporters Saturday. “It’s important to remember that whatever is concluded by Robert Mueller doesn’t mean that the president and his core team are free of legal jeopardy.”

And then Roger Stone’s case is in DC and will be heard in November this year-hopefully we don’t have to explain to even a Ruth Graham that this is Russia related.

Adam Schiff and Richard Blumenthal-who have a lot more information than either Resistance-Fantasy Twitter or Ruth Graham and Wolf Blitzer both believe there will be more indictments-from other investigations-Blumenthal suggested Friday night-as Schiff himself had in the past-that Trump himself could be indicted when he gets out of Office.

But maybe this is too subtle a point for the SmartSet.

2. The other point ‘Resistance-Fantasy Twitter’ is making-certainly I think it’s a point that needs to be made-is that even without Mueller making any more indictments-and aside from the question of what indictments there could be in the future-that doesn’t mean that there isn’t very damaging information about ‘President Trump’ in the Mueller report.

What’s interesting is though this is too subtle for Ms. Graham and Wolf Blitzer and his guests, Trump and his legal team seem to recognize that it’s premature to declare vindication before you even see what’s in the report.

The Trump team clung to hopeful signs — such as word from the Justice Department that there would be no more indictments from Mueller’s team — that the president could end up exonerated after a nearly two-year investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.

But there was also widespread recognition within the Trump orbit that the Mueller report could still contain damaging information for the president — and that his legal troubles are far from over, with separate investigations into Trump’s business, inaugural committee and conduct continuing apace in New York and on Capitol Hill.”

Right. Just because there aren’t any indictments for collusion coordination and conspiracy doesn’t mean there’s ‘no evidence of collusion.’ For Mueller to get an indictment of ‘collusion’ in court he needs 90% confidence for reasonable doubt. But if he has say 85% confidence collusion happened is this really ‘vindication for the President and it shows he didn’t collude with Russia?’

Again if point 1 may have been too subtle for the MSM you suspect 2  is way too subtle but that’s the reality of a counterintelligence investigation-there are few convictions.

But then the narrative on Russian Collusion Coordination and Conspiracy has been totally bastardized from the start. Trump and his GOP co-conspirators have been wildly successful in getting the SmartSet to adapt their dishonest and misleading narrative.

First of all, it’s been accepted that ‘process crimes’ don’t matter. While Nixon was impeached and convicted-he would have been had he not resigned-over obstruction and the GOP impeached Clinton for obstruction-and perjury, another process crime-process crimes don’t matter if the ‘President’ is a Republican.

The MSM has accepted the premise that if Mueller were for example to argue Trump committed obstruction that’s somehow cheap if you haven’t also proven the underlying collusion. So the MSM has obediently not speculated on the possibility that Mueller has obstruction in his report because Trump unlike past Presidents is allowed to obstruct justice unless you can prove he was guilty of the underlying crime.

Note that Ken Starr defined ‘obstruction’ as Clinton operatives criticizing Starr in public. But now we’re supposed to believe that the constant cries of ‘witch hunt’ is not obstruction. The Savvy scrupulously don’t notice the double standard that they themselves have done so much to perpetuate.

So only ‘proof of collusion’ matters. But here too the narrative has been totally flawed as it’s been reduced to the question of wether or not there are chargeable crimes of collusion ignoring that if you have 85% confidence in collusion that’s still pretty damning evidence even if not high enough for beyond reasonable doubt.

Again, #TeamTreasonTrump seems to get it. Trump astonishingly hasn’t tweeted about this once yet in over 37 hours.

 

In any case, so much for Ruth Graham who’s snarky post did show everything that’s wrong with MSM journalism today:

But then this is par for the course in today’s MSM-she is just showing us how most of these people feel about you and I-we’re to be seen and not heard. Leave the speculating to them. My experience is that the majority of MSM pundits will block you immediately if you in any way criticize their flawed coverage-they see themselves as above the public they pretend to serve.

It’s funny though-as fast as Maggie Haberman blocked me on Twitter-only Donald Trump gets to snark on her without being blocked-Ken Dilanian was 100 times faster. I sent one tweet questioning his framing or the Mueller investigation and it was an immediate block.

He’s clearly sensitive to how bad his coverage actually is. After the news Bill Barr had Mueller’s report Ken Dilanian is still getting it wrong-falsely claims that it’s been proven collusion didn’t happen-it has not.

He’s falsely inferring this as 1 and 2 listed above is apparently two subtle for him.

But this canard is widely held in the Beltway:

Melber is one of the better MSM journalists-his show is almost always highly watchable unlike say Hallie Jackson who where’s her MSM insipidity on her sleeve like a badge of honor. But he’s totally drunk the mainstream Coolaid on Trump’s ‘vindication.’ He kept pressing every Democratic guest to basically ‘admit’ that collusion has been shown conclusively shown not to have happened.

He simply ignored Figliuzzi’s point and changed the subject a la Halle Jackson. You don’t like what a guest said as it’s off message just pretend they never said it.

I’m not surprised this is too subtle for a Halle Jackson or a Wolf Blitzer-to say nothing of a Ruth Graham but I am surprised it went right over Ari’s head-considering the kind of lawyer he is.

FN: For more on Dilanian’s flawed reporting on the Russia investigation see this post by EmptyWheel.

“I’d like to point out something about this NBC report headlined, “Senate has uncovered no direct evidence of conspiracy between Trump campaign and Russia,” but instead showing,

investigators disagree along party lines when it comes to the implications of a pattern of contacts they have documented between Trump associates and Russians — contacts that occurred before, during and after Russian intelligence operatives were seeking to help Donald Trump by leaking hacked Democratic emails and attacking his opponent, Hillary Clinton, on social media.

I sometimes beat up on Ken Dilanian and I don’t mean to do so here..”

She doesn’t in this case but she has done on other occasions and he deserves it and I do want to do it here. Because this is so typical of the MSM’s framing. He puts the stark headline that is all most people ever see: No direct evidence of conspiracy between Trump and Russia. 

Most people who see it don’t really notice the word ‘direct’ all they see is after two years of investigations there’s still no evidence Trump colluded with Russia. 

Yes, Dilanian  provides more context and nuance within the piece-but most people don’t read it. And his headline is the narrative he’s telling and that is picked up by cable news not the nuance which will get short thrift-if any thrift on Halle Jackson and Stephanie Ruhle.

It will just be ‘no evidence of collusion…’

Again ‘collusion’ itself is part of the bad framing which is the larger point of EmptyWheel in this post:

This is important not just for the specific issue of the Russia investigation but more generally  standard operating procedure for the MSM on how they choose to frame things. They do cover their bases if you actually take the time to scroll to the bottom of the page but few do and when cable news picks it up the nuance will all but disappear. President Trump didn’t collude with Russia even Democrats admit after investigating it two years. 

But, again, I was particularly disappointed in Ari Melber who often does a lot better than most of the MSM-even when he picks up their same meme his legal analysis tends to put more nuance and context in it. But here he was pushing the same flawed line that collusion has been all but disproven because of the three little words ‘no further indictments.’

I was very pleased to see Congresswoman Sheila Jackson refuse to let him pigeonhole her into saying ‘Yes right-there is no collusion…’

Ryan Goodman has a very important primer on the difference between a criminal vs a counterintelligence investigation that you wish the Dilanians of the world might take a break from spinning their false narratives and generally acting like ‘President Trump’s defense attorney and read and-hopefully absorb.

Though the only point I’d add is that if most Americans were to understand they need to care about Mueller’s counterintelligence investigations that would have a political effect. If ‘President Trump’ is endangering our national security-and that’s the predicate beyond the counterintelligence investigation thats clear grounds for impeachment-maladministration.

So I sort of wish he’d left out the word ‘political’ here-because if there’s no political solution what can Americans do about it? But at this moment the true significance of his posts are only now coming to full light.

UPDATE:

 

License

October 28, 2016: a Day That Will Live in Infamy Copyright © by . All Rights Reserved.

Share This Book