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As I cover in Chapter A the entire MSM complex has ‘President Trump’ on its hands-and that includes, alas, Chris Hayes. On an interview he did with Hillary Clinton late in the Democratic primary in about March 2016 he waited until the last question of the interview to ask her: are you worried you’re going to be indicted?

That was awful as it showed that even someone with a reputation as a leading MSNBC liberal light had bought into the canard that there was a very good chance Clinton could be indicted-when as we see in Chapter B that was always very remote-indeed because it was so remote it’s arguable that the Emailgate investigation never should have been opened in the first place.

Hayes’ question both showed how thoroughly everyone in the MSM was using this false narrative frame and further entrenched it as ‘even a far left liberal Democrat like Chris Hayes knows she very may well go to prison.’

For this reason Hayes along with his (Not So)Savvy brothers and sisters actually created the Lock Her Up meme-they-along with the highly incompetent and unethical way Comey and the Clinton haters at the FBI mishandled the investigation-by creating a strong public expectation that she very well could be indicted and convicted-but the likelihood was always remote.

So as much as I like Hayes and watch his show every night he really does have a lot to answer for-that like the rest of the View From Nowhere pundits have taken no responsibility for getting us to where we are today- a Constitutional crisis which every day gets worse as Trump even more egregiously engages in abuse of power and maladministration-the latest being his call for Adam Schiff to leave Congress-which Devin Nunes and friends dutifully acted on yesterday morning-though watching the Chairman’s epic takedown was worth the price of admission. 

Can you imagine Devin Nunes calling on another House Intelligence Chairman to resign after criminally obstructing the Russia investigation for two years?

This week it seems maybe Hayes is focusing more on Trump-Barr vowing to abolish Obamacare. While that’s an emergency-and another example of Trump’s maladministration-ie, yet another impeachable offense-what the notion that you should ignore the Mueller Report-which we haven’t yet seen-in favor of Trump’s attempt to take healthcare away from millions of Americans-misses is that it’s largely the fact that Trump and Barr were able to successfully roil Chris Hayes and friends that has so emboldened Trump-Barr that they think they can get away with anything.

So turning the page from Mueller will actually spur Trump to even more abuse and maladministration.

Again-I’m a fan of Hayes, watch him nightly. But what he said last night was simply stunning-and not in a good way.

He had argued to Blumenthal that he doesn’t expect the Mueller Report to be much different from what we learned on Sunday from Barr’s letter. If you can some everything up in 23 words it sure was a waste of time writing a 300+ report-I wonder if it’s not actually much longer than that; Barr doesn’t want to release the whole thing.

Hayes is just another MSMer who doesn’t understand that even if you can’t establish collusion beyond a reasonable doubt-90% confidence-say 80% is still pretty damning.

Natasha Bertrand correctly explains what the Mueller report will show and why the book on collusion hasn’t closed it’s only just opening.

But the final findings, which reportedly run to at least 300 pages excluding exhibits, could offer important insights into Mueller’s legal reasoning and explain whether the evidence he collected in the obstruction and conspiracy cases was either substantial but not enough to rise to the level of a criminal offense, or flimsy and not even close to criminal.”

In reality, though, it’s very unlikely that it’s flimsy-if it were flimsy the investigation would never have been opened in the first place-which requires probable cause.

This canard is anything but innocent as if you wrongly think that while the Mueller Report may give us some extra color nothing will change as we already know Trump wasn’t charged with collusion. But if you believe nothing will change by reading the report-at least 301 pages, maybe more, with the raw intelligence on this running into millions of pages-then the idea that the Democrats should just move on seems reasonable. After all if actually reading the full report rather than Barr’s 4 page cliff notes won’t change anything materially then it does seem that the Dems are just trying to ‘relitigate the Mueller Report’ or even ‘moving the goalposts.’

Right-wanting to actually read the full report before jumping to conclusions is moving the goalposts. But as absurd as this framing is, if you believe what Chris Hayes-and many MSMers-believe, it makes sense.

Marcy Wheeler makes the same point:

If Hayes really believes there is little evidence of collusion at this late date he ought to watch Schiff’s masterful takedown of Trump’s co-conspirators yesterday morning. Or just watch the archives of stories he’s discussed on his own show.

And having said all this it’s fair to say that we-the #Resistance, the Dem base, Mueller fans, etc-did err in failing to manage expectations. As covered in Chapter C folks like David Frum and Ryan Goodman had warned us that it was unlikely there would be criminal collusion charges-as collusion is not a crime.

But my instinctive reaction when I heard this was ‘If colluding with the Russian government isn’t a crime it sure ought to be.’

But that’s just it. Chairman Jerrold Nalder has emphasized the difference between crimes on the one hand and impeachable offenses on the other. Nadler explains that impeachable offenses are often about conduct that ought to be a crime but isn’t.

This is why as you can see in the pages of this book why I put such stress on the idea that if Trump is guilty of impeachable offenses he must be impeached-Senate math on conviction be damned.

But I did notice that many in the #Resistance and in the base have focused a great deal on the idea that Trump is going to be indicted and seemed to believe that Trump could be arrested right after the Mueller Report were released-as Mueller would indict him. This I always saw a pretty remote-it’s always been clear to me that even if indictment is in Trump’s future it would likely come after he leaves office-which while it would certainly prove that Justice is Poetic, Karma is a Bitch, that God is a woman and She’s pissed, nevertheless really wouldn’t protect us from Trump’s abuse and maladministration now.

And if Trump has committed indictable offenses-Cohen’s three year prison sentence certainly implies he has-he shouldn’t be held accountable just like anyone else. If he and his kids have committed crimes that would send anyone else to prison so should they go.And you can argue that Ford’s shameful pardon of Nixon was also a terrible precedent letting future GOP Presidential dirty trickters that they won’t go to prison so why not go big?

However, if Trump and/or his kids are indicted after he leaves Office how does that protect us now from his abuse of power and maladministration? It doesn’t. Which is why as you can see throughout this book always focused more on impeachment than indictment. After all,  an indictment is about Trump the individual-Individual One-but impeachment is an indictment of his illegitimate ‘Presidency.’

And what we really care is about Trump’s so-called ‘Presidency’ rather than his so-called ‘Manhood.’ Because it’s the precedent around the Office of the Executive that really matters here.

UPDATE: Maybe Chris Hayes should talk the the voters-who clearly haven’t been roiled

 

 

 

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

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