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It’s happening again…

Talk about a bad and recurring dream. Every time the DOJ has taken such irregular and unjustified actions in the last almost three years-going back to Comey’s very careless press conference in July, 2016-it has benefited Trump and his GOP co-conspirators. After piously claiming that his summary wasn’t a summary and that the one thing he didn’t want is for anyone to summarize Mueller’s findings Coverup AG Barr is now telling us he’s going to hold a 10:30 press conference: to again summarize things in the report.

But it’s even worse than that as we learned of Barr’s own very careless presser from ‘President Trump.’ Indeed, I appreciate what Congressman Hakeem Jeffries said last night-he referred to Barr as the ‘so-called AG’ and he’s absolutely right. Barr is acting like Trump’s mob lawyer or publicist-anything but the People’s Attorney General.

He’s right and the only mystery is how Coverup AG Barr ever had any credibility-it’s the fault of ‘institutionalists’ like Ben Wittes and Friends who think if you’re part of their club then you just have to be a swell guy-as we noted in Chapter A. 

The punchline for all these highly irregular actions is: there is no such thing as a Republican institutionalist: Barr misleading about the OLG report 1989, Barr pardoning Iran-Contra co-conspirators during Bush Sr’s reelect campaign in 1992, Bush V. Gore, the Comey Presser, the Comey Letter, the Barr Letter and now the coming Barr Presser, the song remains the same. 

Whenever a supposed GOP institutionalist takes some sort of irregular action it always: benefits the GOP just like anything done by Mitch McConnell or Devin Nunes-the song remains the same, and the beat goes on same as it’s ever done.  

Ok maybe I sound cynical. My worry is you can never be cynical enough when it comes to the GOP Party of Treason P.O.T. the party willing to put it’s own partisan interests above anything-the American soldiers in Vietnam in 1968, the Iranian hostages in 1980, the legitimacy of a Presidential election in 2000, the health of the US economy in 2009-2010-McConnnell could care less about the future of the economy he just wanted to beat Obama; just like in 2011 he declared the debt ceiling a hostage worth taking. 

In 2016 McConnell could care less about Russia’s attack on our election-just what it meant for Team Republican.

Sarah Kendzior has been right all along-institutions can’t save us.  They are all upon closer inspection nothing more than a glorified Mitch McConnell or Devin Nunes. Is Mueller the exception to this? Maybe? But in truth even his conduct during this investigation is open to question.

As former Watergate Prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks has pointed out it’s arguable Mueller was too tight lipped is there no happy medium? Between Ken Starr talking to reporters at the end of his driveway, Comey’s ‘extreme transparency’ when a Democrat is the subject of an investigation vs utter radio silence when a Republican is? As wrong as Republicans like Starr and Comey were, Mueller erred too much to the other side.

Wine-Banks relates how the SCO during Watergate-the first one-went out if its way to let Americans know who they are as well as what they were up to. At this point we still don’t even know what Mueller’s voice sounds like.

Speaking of Mueller I’m very happy to hear that both Pelosi and Schumer are now saying he needs to speak to Congress about the investigation soon. 

Very true.

At this point there is just so much confusion going into Barr’s totally unnecessary press conference. What is clear is that they have something to hide-probably a great deal. So Barr is trying to yet again frame the narrative. Will the MSM allow this again? Will they treat anything he says without skepticism? If so they have still learned nothing.

Yet the Washington Post is reporting that the report will be lightly redacted:

“Mueller report will be lightly redacted, revealing detailed look at obstruction of justice investigation.”

Really? So what about collusion?

https://twitter.com/benjaminwittes/status/1118679875479646208

Oh I get it Barr quoted-half a sentence, he wasn’t even confident enough to read the whole sentence–that said ‘unable to establish conspiracy with the Russian government’; which is actually amazing to know-Mueller actually thought there was probable cause to look for that-and so we don’t even need to see what Mueller said about that. 

How about we get to see the other half of that sentence? I mean when you’re not even confident enough to quote the entire sentence that allegedly TOTALLY EXONERATES PRESIDENT TRUMP

I think it’s reasonable to surmise this exoneration is pure fiction.

Overall, we should regard this Washington Post piece itself with great skepticism-not because these aren’t excellent reporters but:

A major nub of the problem is ‘light redactions’ is pretty subjective.

https://twitter.com/benjaminwittes/status/1118682523406614533

In some ways a simple percentage would be more revelatory-though you could actually ‘only redact 5%’ and still be very misleading. But Barr’s idea of light might be very different than the rest of us.

I think it’s pretty fair to ignore Barr’s press conference altogether-if only the MSM would. Whatever he says is going to be the opposite of inform us-it will only raise further questions, by design. Then Congress is getting the report at about 12 PM. Just to underscore how much this report really exonerates this illegitimate ‘President’ consider that they are insisting on releasing this in hard copy form.

Let’s not kid ourselves-if this exonerated Trump it would be PDF.

Then from what I understand we’ll actually get to see the report ourselves around 2 PM? That’s what I’m waiting for.

Regarding the Presser I’m considering going to the gym so that I can’t watch it even by accident! As Barr spins I’ll be swimming LOL.

What should we look for in the report? Personally I won’t be looking for obstruction-which is unfortunately what many in the MSM seem to be focused on. As Seth Abramson explains we already know Trump obstructed justice many times over.

It’s up to the Democrats. Will they make the right decision? Which I could be 100% confident of the answer and much of the reaction last night-by Nadler, Schiff, Hakeem Jeffries, Ted Lieu, Pelosi-Schumer-though, of course, the best reaction was Maxine Waters who is rightfully still demanding Trump’s impeachment-though Jim Himes worried me some in what he said on Chris Cuomo.

He seemed to be suggesting that depending on what’s in this report-or isn’t-this might be the end of the whole issue of Russian interference. Now Nadler and Friends were clear that this is just the End of the Beginning-as Lawrence O’Donnell put it last night. The notion that after waiting for 2 years we’re simply going to finally read a redacted version and never discuss this again is obscene. It’s what the GOP wants and many MSMers seem to have that expectation but Himes ought to have pushed back but instead he endorsed it.

The truth based simply what we already know there is more than enough to impeach this illegitimate ‘President.’

Exactly. Listen there’s no way the full Mueller Report could ‘prove there was no evidence of collusion as what we already have plenty of such evidence in the public record. If there were no evidence this investigation would never have begun in the first place-as it would lack probable cause.

Yet Himes is on the Intelligence Committee and seems to be unaware of this elementary fact(!)

Listen today is going to be a minefield. Between Barr’s preemptive presser which will attempt to frame the response to the MSM’s gullibility to anything Trump and the GOP co-conspirators say the Democrats are going to need their A game. Himes at least doesn’t seem to have it.

The GOP’s aim is simple-to say we have our verdict-based on the Barr Letter with 23 words about ‘failed to establish’-and we should now move on. Many in the MSM are susceptible to this argument. If even the Democrats don’t get why it’s wrong what hope is there?

The Democrats are going to have to be ready to make the case that this is not the end just the end of the beginning. Maybe Himes should stay off tv…

I’m still not sure the Dems are ready to go to the mat on this-many of them are saying the right things but are they going through the motions or do they really mean it? To truly do whatever’s necessary to hold Trump accountable? Receiving the report is just the beginning of a public discussion about Trump’s conduct. Those who talk about relitigation are-deliberately-confusing the issue-turn the telescope up. The Mueller investigation was entirely secret-as noted above, too secret in terms of public relations; the Mueller team basically did no PR whatsoever and that was a costly error.

There’s been no public debate-we’ve still had only one public hearing on Russia in 27 months. That’s what can start with the release of the Mueller Report. What makes me at least question the Dems resolve? Articles like this:

“Lawmakers intent on sticking to script, no matter what Mueller report says.”

“All of Washington seems to be bracing for the Justice Department’s release of the report on the nearly two-year investigation of the Trump campaign and Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election.”

“Everyone, that is, except many members of Congress, who are in the midst of a two-week spring break. Lawmakers are scattered across the country and, in some cases, the world as Attorney General William P. Barr is set to release on Thursday a redacted version of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s nearly 400-page report.”

“The report is certain to be a major focus of official Washington as congressional lawyers and staffers examine the inner workings of the investigation, particularly the piece of the probe that explored whether President Trump obstructed justice, an issue that was left unresolved by the prosecutors on Mueller’s team.”

“And lawmakers on the half-dozen committees with some oversight of the Trump administration will be particularly focused on what comes from the report, whether it sheds light on ongoing investigations or opens potentially new lines of inquiry.”

“By and large, however, most lawmakers are expected to carry on Thursday and for the rest of this recess period as they have been for the past few months, according to advisers in both parties.”

“Democrats, who believe they won back the House majority by focusing on kitchen-table issues, mostly ignoring Trump scandals, have pushed their freshmen who won GOP seats to keep their focus on that agenda and spend time in their districts talking to voters about lowering health-care costs and boosting wages.”

Here we go-kitchen table issues. Only kitchen table issues matter, democracy doesn’t matter, it’s a mere abstraction, the Rule of Law, of Precedent, matters not a whit. We just care about winning an election.

“Republicans, according to their advisers, already received all the information they needed when Barr released a brief summary of Mueller’s findings, the principal conclusion being that the investigation did not find a legal case to bring charges of conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives.”

See this is why Democrats always lose-they don’t fight. The GOP will be saying there’s nothing new in what we see-so it doesn’t matter-TOTAL EXONERATION.

The response of the Democrats? We don’t care, we just want to talk about healthcare.

And clearly the GOP is not confident that voters don’t care about this-or they wouldn’t bother saying it’s over-it’s just beginning.

And this gets back to Abramson’s point-the idea that the main point of interest is obstruction plays into this GOP narrative that’s it’s over and there’s nothing to see here. As Abramson says we already know all about Trump’s obstruction of justice-he keeps writing new chapters like Barr’s presser this morning is a blatant and major example of obstructing justice.

So if everyone looks in the report for obstruction what will happen? We already know a good deal about it in the public record. Ok, maybe there are more examples we didn’t know about. But no matter what new and even more egregious examples of obstruction we see, the GOP refrain will be ‘Ok but that’s a process crime what about collusion? No collusion!’

When the GOP says this it will be even more hypocritical when you remember they impeached Clinton over obstruction-defined as criticizing Starr in public! Trump literally tweets about Mueller 50 times a day.

Exactly-it’s the evidence of collusion they’re truly worried about. Do even the Democrats understand this? Maybe Schiff does. Possibly Nadler. If anyone does its Schiff who rightly says there’s plenty of evidence on collusion.

Exactly. So what we should be looking for is collusion. How much will actually be in the report is the question. If you don’t trust Barr there’s no reason to believe him that it will be ‘only lightly redacted.’

So collusion is what I will be looking for and what I would urge you to look for-we already know Trump obstructed justice-and that he’s a felon, a la Cohen and the hush money payments.

As Washington anxiously awaits the Thursday release of the redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, some questions surrounding specific, publicly-reported instances of then-candidate Donald Trump’s campaign contacts with Russians remain unresolved.

Yes-this is the ballgame. Here are some of what I will be waiting to see if it’s in the ‘lightly redacted’ report. In each instance the point of interest is what Mueller concluded regarding each.

1. Russia if you’re listening! The day Trump said this we now know that the Russians attempted to hack Clinton’s office.

2. Soon it will be Podesta’s time in the barrel. It’s now clear that there was coordination between Roger Stone, Jerome Corsi, high ranking members of the Trump campaign-Steve Bannon, quite plausibly Paul Manafort-and Wikileaks.

What did Mueller conclude on all this? Is there more information on this beyond the quite extensive info we have in public? I would assume yes though we’ll see if any of it escaped Barr’s redactions.

Note as well that while part of Stone’s defense has been to claim Wikileaks didn’t work with the Russians in late July and early August, 2016 he had suggested that it very possibly was the Russians-then around August 4 he did a 180.

This was soon after Corsi got back to him on August 2 and told him Assange had Podesta’s emails and would release it around October

3. As Malcom Nance likes to say coincidences take a lot of planning. On, August 2, the very same day Stone got the email from Corsi, Manafort met with Russian intel operative Konstantin Kilimnik in NYC and handed him 75 detailed pages of campaign polling data-they also discussed sanctions and the DNC hacks. 

This is a ‘totally innocent’ conversation between the Trump campaign manager and a GRU operative.

4. Then there’s the late GOP operative Peter Smith-remember him? The MSM sure doesn’t. We heard in October that Mueller was very interested in Smith’s crusade to reach out to Russian hackers and work with Wikileaks to hack Clinton’s emails.

As I’ve argued elsewhere in this book Stone-Corsi-Bannon-Manafort?-provide evidence of coordination. Smith potentially could prove conspiracy to commit computer crimes with the Russian hackers if yoo can

A. Connect him to the Trump campaign-and you can via the emails he sent expressing his intent to pay Russian hackers to hack Clinton’s server to top Trump campaign aides-Michael Flynn, Steve Bannon, Sean Spicer, Kellyann Conway, etc

B. This would show intent. The next question is did he actually carry out this plan? There’s reason to believe he did..

He made payments:

An email to him after the Podesta emails were leaked referencing ‘happy students’ that has been read as referring to the hackers.

While Barr’s letter had the half sentence ‘failed to establish conspiracy with the Russian government’ the hackers Smith paid weren’t technically with the Russian government.

That’s why Barr’s use of this half sentence is so misleading.

We know that Michael Flynn cooperated very fulsomely with Mueller so if that’s so you’d presume Flynn told about all his conversations with Peter Smith and what they lead to.

Beyond that Adam Schiff stated last year that-even as the minority and even though the GOP had shutdown prematurely shutdown the Russia investigation in February, 2018-that the Dems actually have made good progress on Smith.’s crusade. 

“House Democrats, poised to reactivate a probe of President Trump’s campaign ties to Russia, said this week that an investigatory priority is learning more about a Republican activist who sought 2016 Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s private emails, and whether he served as a conduit between the Trump campaign and Russia-tied groups.”

“That is an area of continuing interest for us,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D., Calif.), who is expected to become chairman of the House Intelligence Committee when Democrats regain control of the House in January, said in an interview. “In fact, that’s one of the areas that we’ve been able to make progress” on, despite Republican attempts to end the probe.

“Mr. Schiff declined to detail what more the panel has learned.”

Again, this allegation is potentially the most serious one against the Trump campaign we’re aware of as it’s not just about coordinating on the release of hacked emails after the fact-a la Roger Stone and Jerome Corsi-but actually working on the supply side with the Russian hackers themselves-which was Smiths’ clearly stated intent.

5. We haven’t even gotten to the Trump Tower meeting-part of the Russian government’s support for your father’s campaign. 

Donald Jr exclaimed ‘I love it.’

Did Trump Sr know of it in advance? Michael Cohen says yes. What did Mueller find?

Then there’s the Trump Tower meeting of August 3 that in some ways was more important-as there was clearly an agreed upon conspiracy there-though not directly with the Russian government-you can make an agreement without it being direct and in reality it never would be direct for deniability.

Erik Prince ‘forgot’ to mention he set this meeting up under oath. 

“According to The Times, the meeting was attended by Prince; Donald Trump Jr.; Stephen Miller, a White House policy adviser; George Nader, an emissary for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates; and Joel Zamel, an Israeli social-media specialist.”

“At this meeting there was an agreement to do social media work for the Trump campaign-which by definition is illegal-foreigners can’t do any campaign work for US elections. ”

Did they ever go forward with this plan of Saudi Arabian interference?

What we do know is that Nader-who cooperated extensively with Mueller-paid Zamel $2 million dollars after the election for some clearly very valuable services.

6. The Trump Tower Moscow deal that Cohen admitted to lying when he testified before Congress that they stopped trying to build it in January 2016-admitting they didn’t stop until mid June-after the report of the DNC hacks-interesting correlation in itself.

Then Rudy Giuliani stated and had to walk back that they continued to pursue the TTM deal through the election and beyond. Earlier this year emails from Papadopoulos suggested that the project may have been handed off to him and that Coffee Boy expected to be set for life.

Speaking of the Coffee Boy…

7. Papadopoulos has claimed that he didn’t tell anyone in the Trump campaign what Mifsud told him about the incriminating emails the Russians had on Clinton. But in March, 2018  a Chicago sports bar patron, Jason Wilson, states that the very much glorified Coffee Boy told him that he did tell Jeff Sessions about the emails. 

Did Mueller ever speak to Jason Wilson?

8, Then there was Jared Kushner’s proposing to Russian ‘diplomat’ Kisylak setting up a Russian back channel inside the Russian embassy on December 1, 2016. 

Note Flynn was also present at this meeting and so presumably has told Mueller everything he knows about it.

These are just some of the things we need to look for in today’s ‘lightly redacted’ Mueller Report.

Ok so in summation:

A. Skip the presser if you like. For many that will probably be a good thing.

B. Assume it won’t be ‘lightly’ redacted but highly and over redacted.

C. Collusion is what we should look for in this report.

D. The GOP is a lost cause but monitor the response of the MSM and the Democrats.

The Dems are our last line of defense. It’s on us to let them know they must go to the mat for this-we want, need, and demand total vigilance from them on this.

But look at the time! It’s 10:09-did I miss Barr’s presser? I can only hope.

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

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