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Sorry but it’s hard right now to be super bullish. My lack of faith is based on two things: a lack of faith in both Mueller and the Dem leaders.

Everything points to the fact that Mueller plans to pull his punches and that the Dem leaders intend to let him.

I’m relatively bearish on Mueller’s testimony tomorrow based on the record we’ve seen at every level of the elite establishment’s failure to confront Trump the last four years-going back to the 2016 primary which begun in June, 2015. Wether you’re talking about the GOP leadership-‘Never Trump’ became ‘Actually Trump if he wins’,

The GOP’s position at present is essentially fascist-‘Sure I don’t love the tweeting and he puts some things in a rather crude, inartful way. And we wish he’d do better but hey, the American people voted for him. I will criticize the ‘President’ where I disagree and praise him where I agree.’

Essentially the GOP defense of Trump is ‘maybe he says some offensive, crude things that we could all do without-and we wish he’d better respect separation of powers but at the end of the day we like his policies.’

But this GOP position is the definition of fascism-to say that only policies matter-that the process doesn’t matter so long as we approve the policy outcomes.

Indeed, an interesting question is wether certain policy preferences require an undemocratic process-and the answer is clearly yes-unpopular ideas like the GOP Establishment’s agenda-Trump won the GOP primary largely by running against this unpopular GOP agenda-while he ran against it as ‘President’ he’s largely enacted this unpopular agenda beyond the GOP Establishment’s wildest dreams.

Then the MSM which has largely normalized him the last few years-with the Beltway press everything is seen in a ‘both sides do it lens’  where everything is a matter of partisan opinion-‘Ok sure it’s racist, sure it’s offensive, sure it’s false, but will it work?!’

The press largely sold Bob Barr’s fake narrative of NO COLLUSION NO OBSTRUCTION TOTAL EXONERATION!

Even now that the press has acknowledged how false and misleading the Barr Letter actually was they still helplessly say ‘But it doesn’t matter the narrative has been set.’

Conveniently ‘forgetting’ they set the narrative and could challenge their own narrative if they wanted to but clearly don’t want to. Why is this? Katie Couric clearly gave away a lot of the game on the Sunday evening just before the fake exoneration letter when she declared ‘a lot of people have Mueller fatigue.’

This reminds you of ‘Clinton fatigue’ during 2016. As we saw in Chapter A Chuck Todd admitted in 2014 that Clinton fatigue was not about how the American people felt but rather the MSM. Couric was playing from the same playbook that night-attempting to spin a MSM sentiment as the sentiment of the people themselves.

Then there was the quite arresting comment by a number of MSMers the night of Trump’s fake ‘exoneration’-that ‘Our President didn’t conspire with Russia-Democrats should be grateful.’

So maybe the reason they continue to use Barr’s narrative after he’s been debunked is they just feel the idea that ‘our President’ colluded with Russia is not a very nice thought to have so it’s best that we banish it from the public discourse-no matter how true it in fact is.

Still it must be said that way too much faith and hope was placed in Mueller in the first place. The #Resistance such as it is failed to manage expectations-way too much focus on the idea that a life long Republican ‘institutionalist’ like Mueller would  upon handing in his report, take Herr Trump out in handcuffs.

Even looking at the report on its own terms, it’s clear Mueller constructed it in a way that downplays Trump’s wrongdoing as much as possible-don’t get me wrong, if you read the report through-as I personally have done-ok not all the footnotes but…-it’s very damning.

But it’s framed in such a way that you have to read it all pretty closely and have a pretty good idea of legal theory to see how damning it is.

I mean when Mueller said they were unable to establish conspiracy, properly understood that’s a pretty damning statement if understood the right way. It means that there was plenty of evidence that the Trump campaign did conspire with the Russian government-just not enough-in Mueller’s estimation-to establish it beyond a reasonable doubt.

But it’s quite possible that the average person reads it in the upside down way Barr spun it-and the MSM accepted it-‘wow that’s very significant he’s innocent!’

That’s certainly not the legal meaning of what Mueller said-who cautioned that saying something wasn’t established doesn’t mean there was on evidence for it. But such nuances are lost on the MSM who continue to uphold Barr’s narrative after he himself has been roundly debunked.

Even to say that Mueller didn’t ‘establish conspiracy’ needs to be questioned-as arguably there was enough to establish it-this is something the Democrats need to ask him about-wether they will or not I have my doubts.It’s a fair question to ask wether another more aggressive prosecutor-say Ken Starr investigating a Democrat-would have felt there was enough to establish conspiracy with the Russian government based on the fact pattern.

What you have to understand about Mueller is there are many questions of which he has great discretion. As for the idea that he downplayed it I’d start by arguing read it next to the Starr Report to see an example of an overly aggressive prosecutor rather than an overly cautious one. Starr constructed his report in such a way he clearly advocated for impeachment-and the idea that Clinton had done a bad, bad thing. Mueller’s whole style and framing gives a totally different impression.

Again it’s all there in the report-or a lot of it is-much of Trump’s evil deeds but in such a way that may well escape the average person who doesn’t live and breath all things Trump-Russia-as say I and many in the #Resistance do.

Ron Klain had warned for some time the dangers of intemperate Mueller worship.’

As a GOP institutionalist it should have been clear to us all along that too much faith was placed in Mueller. I like to say a GOP institutionalist is a contradiction in terms. Rod Rosenstein is only the latest example of the perils of believing in this canard.

Is Mueller the one exception to this rule? Would  he have wrote things in such an anodyne way with this fact pattern applied to Hillary Clinton rather than Donald Trump? We can never know for sure but I have my suspicions.

But even giving Mueller the benefit of the doubt-something I’m not a fan of ever doing for Republicans considering their record-Bush v. Gore, the Comey Letter, Barr’s pardoning the Iran-Contra co-conspirators for Bush Sr during the 1992 election; the Barr Letter Circa March 2019-Rod Rosenstein: I can land the plane, I will miss the courtesy and good humor from our personal conversations-the record in trusting in GOP institutionalists is a grim one-he’s still at best an institutionalist.

The notion that institutions will save us is a comforting fiction that ought to be a little moribund by now. Some-a la Sarah Kendzior’ have long since warned us of this canard.

It’s certainly fair to call her a prophet particularly as she wrong this the over 2 months before the release of the redacted Mueller Report-over six weeks before the fake Exoneration Letter.

Mueller certainly didn’t save us. Yes the Barr Letter caused damage-but with the complicity of the MSM; even now that they acknowledge Barr’s rank dishonesty they continue to use the narrative that  essentially this whole Mueller-Russia thing is over with.

Even so, Mueller has done everything he can to downplay Trump’s wrongdoing. In his presser he said that Russia’s interference deserves the attention of every American but his own actions aren’t exactly helping Americans focus their attention. He fought testifying in public every step of the way.

Then yesterday Barr’s DOJ released a letter ordering Mueller to stay within the four corners of his report.

Greg Sargent sounds more bullish on tomorrow’s testimony than I do.

With Robert S. Mueller III set to appear before Congress on Wednesday, the Justice Department is trying to constrain Mueller’s testimony. In a new letter, the department just warned the former special counsel not to “go beyond” what’s in his report.

Whether intentional or not, this directive serves to pre-frame the hearings, potentially in a manner that politically benefits President Trump.

Wether intentional or not? There is nothing Barr has done that suggests he’s agnostic on the subject of doing whatever is possible to benefit his fake ‘President.’

It sets up the core question as this: Will Mueller go outside the four corners of what’s in his report, or will he remain inside them?

But Mueller doesn’t have to “go beyond” his report for his testimony to be very damaging to Trump. What’s in his report is already deeply devastating.

A few things need to be pointed out. As outrageous as Barr’s demand that Mueller hew to his report-there is certainly no legal or precedent basis for this-it’s actually even worse than this: as Emptywheel points out Mueller himself asked Barr to shackle him.

It’d be bad enough if it were just Barr trying to shackle Mueller-but it’s three times as bad as Mueller himself is asking to be shackled. In other words it sounds as if Mueller wants to pull as many punches as possible tomorrow.

But it’s even worse than that-the Dems sound like they plan to help Mueller pull his punches. Nancy Pelois-aka Nevile Chamberlain 2.0-is telling the Dems not to even try to go beyond the four corners.

And this is in line with everything Pelosi has done-and not done-the first 7 months of the Dem House to investigate Trump and hold him accountable-there’s been precious little of it. We have had the public testimony of exactly 1 fact witness in 7 months. We’ve been waiting four months for Felix Sater who ditched in June and who will now be testifying-where else?-behind closed doors.

At every turn Pelosi seems partial to the less confrontational approach-so that she’s counseling the Dem members not to push Mueller too hard to go beyond the report is certainly in line with her strategy until now. At heart she seems to see all things Mueller as a ‘distraction’ from what really matters- a bunch of messaging bills passed by the House Dems and put in the shredder by Mitch McConnell aka the Grim Reaper.

Pelosi’s strategy seems to be for the Dems to be ‘the adults in the room’-while Trump breaks every norm and law in his path the Dems can sit back tsk tsk a little but do nothing to stop him with anything resembling their own power. Pelosi seems to think voters will reward giving Trump a pass.

So the elite failure in confronting Trump is complete-the GOP has decided if xenophobic authoritarianism can win they are all xenophobic authoritarianism. The MSM has decided that Kellyann Conway is right-it’s all about alternative truth. If pointing out Trump’s a liar, racist, and putting a flame thrower to the rule of law upsets the GOP base then they won’t do it-everything becomes a matter of ‘but will it work? Is it a winning political strategy to put kids in cages? His base likes it…’

Everything is just a matter of what ‘Republicans vs Democrats say’ and what independents think about it. So while they may excoriate Kellyann they sing from the same morally and factually relativist playbook that fascism requires.

Mueller pulls his punches, decided Jr ‘wasn’t smart enough’ to break the law without interviewing him, and wants to say as little illuminating as possible. And the Democratic leaders now seem to agree with Trump himself when he said he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and get away with it. The position of everyone from the MSM pundits to the Dem leadership is no matter what Trump does he should not be held accountable as that’s bad politics for the Democrats-what Rule of Law.

This takes us back to Chris Rock who argued-an argument that gets more persuasive by the day-Trump is ‘President’ because no one remembers how to fight a bully anymore.

Certainly no one in the American institutionalist scene has a clue-not GOP establishment, not the MSM, not Mueller, and not the Dem establishment. All ultimately decide the ‘smartest most savvy strategy’ is to avoid confrontation at all cost-if you want to understand how he ‘won’ start with such stunning cowardice.

But back to Greg Sargent who argues that to hurt Trump politically you don’t need to go beyond the Mueller Report. First of all lets clarify that there are two things you could hope to achieve by having Mueller testify-educate the public about what’s already in the public knowledge stream but which much of the public has yet to properly digest-thanks in no small part to Barr’s sophisms, the MSM’s gullibility and bad faith in running with them, and Mueller’s pulling all those punches.

But the other thing the Dems could achieve is to learn some new things that would be useful for their own investigations in terms of picking up where Mueller left off.

To be sure there is plenty to learn from what’s in the report itself but only if you push Mueller to clarify. There’s an idea that simply having Mueller read his own report could be greatly beneficial in terms of giving color to something many Americans still haven’t fully digested.

.

Is this true? It might provide some value though I’m not certain. After all, according to Qunnipiac even if few Americans have read the report cover to cover the majority understand Trump’s a criminal though they say they’re not ready for impeachment-yet.

I feel that a big key is to push Mueller to clarify his findings-certainly his declination decisions. Again I think that much in the report is put in an anodyne way that kind of obscures the full implications of the findings.

Some of the most important questions aren’t necessarily about going beyond the report. Like the point I made above that it’s far from true that Mueller found no evidence of Trump campaign conspiracy with the Russian government just that

https://www.axios.com/nancy-pelosi-memo-robert-mueller-hearings-03a649b5-01a6-48f7-8ddb-b903758d0bbd.html

 

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/mueller-testimony-expected-heighten-scrutiny-perceived-conflicts-attorney/story?id=64484422

 

https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/top-democrat-adam-schiff-tears-apart-the-justice-departments-demands-in-letter-to-mueller/?utm_source=push_notifications

 

 

 

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