The Truth Shall Set You Free
Today we will finally see a part of the Mueller Report. We don’t know what to expect; how much will be redacted, and what facts and conclusions the Mueller Team reached. Hopefully that will be revealed – I fully anticipate working through a colorful four hundred-page document in the next twenty-four hours. I’ve laid in a supply of paper, color printer ink, and copious amounts of coffee for reading, and beer for ruminating. It’s that serious, I want to know what Mueller learned in his two-year investigation, and I want to draw my own conclusions from his study.
We have been “played” by Attorney General Bill Barr. So far, he has done the President’s bidding: allowing a narrative of exoneration to marinate for the past two weeks, even though Barr himself made it clear that Mueller reached no conclusions about obstruction of justice. We really don’t know what Mueller said about that, or about what Russians did, or about what the Trump campaign did. All we know for sure is that Mueller was unable to reach a criminal standard for indictment regarding Americans conspiring with Russia. With the Department of Justice having a policy preventing the President from being indicted, we don’t even know whether that was the sole reason for Mr. Trump being left out.
The Attorney General is an “odd man out” regarding Cabinet appointments. Since the Nixon years, we have expected him or her to take a different role than just a Presidential representative. Ever since Eliot Richardson resigned as Nixon’s AG rather than fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, we have held the head of the Justice Department to a higher standard than the normal political appointee.
The Attorney General is the chief law enforcement officer in the United States. Americans expect their law enforcement to be fair, above board, and unbiased. We certainly expect that the chief exemplify that role. From Richardson’s replacement, Ohioan Bill Saxbe, to Clinton’s Janet Reno, to Obama’s Eric Holder; the AG has placed a barrier between the White House, the Presidency and the Department of Justice. Even Jeff Sessions did his duty, recusing himself from the Trump investigation, and defending his department despite being continually lambasted by the President.
Bill Barr has proven that he sees his role as “the President’s Attorney,” not the attorney for the people of the United States. We should have realized this, despite all of the original talk of Barr as an “institutionalist.” He wrote an unsolicited nineteen page legal opinion about the power of the President and his inability to obstruct justice, and he has continued to act in concert with the White House plan. He has joined the President’s theme questioning the validity of the Mueller probe, even going so far as to say that Federal agencies “spied” on the Trump campaign. Though he later tried to explain this as “legal spying,” his word choice was exactly the same as the President’s real attorneys, Giuliani and Sekulow.
Last night we discovered that Mr. Barr has been briefing the White House on the Report, giving them a head start on their preparations. The White House has been authoring a rebuttal, which I’m sure will be summarized quickly as soon as the actual Report becomes public. Barr gave no such head start to Congress, and has acted disdainfully towards the House Committees most involved in investigating the election of 2016. The Congress will get the exact same version of the report that the public will see, making it clear that Mr. Barr holds their Constitutional duty in low regard. In the past Congress got an unredacted version, and the public got the “rainbow” edition.
There is a tradition in Washington called “Friday evening taking out the trash.” It is when the stories that they want buried are released, Friday after five in the afternoon, when everyone has started the weekend. Mr. Barr has tried to “trash” the Mueller report, releasing it on the Thursday before Easter and Passover weekend. The result won’t be a report in the trash, it will mean that the media won’t get an Easter break this year. Ari will miss Passover, and Rachel won’t go fishing.
So this morning Mr. Barr has called a press conference, after the President tweeted him to do so. The conference is about the report, but will be held several hours before the actual report will be released. It is Barr’s last chance to shape the narrative, to put his obscure “unitary executive” spin on whatever it is the Mueller Report will reveal. Mr. Mueller himself was not invited to participate. It is vaguely reminiscent of a press conference in the summer of 2016, when FBI Director Comey tried to shape the Hillary Clinton email story: no charges but reckless behavior. We saw how well that turned out.
All of this action and reaction to the unreleased report seems to indicate that the Mueller Report will not be good for the Trump Administration. If it actually did exonerate the President and his campaign from blame, then none of this “spin” would be necessary. Like most of the Russia crisis, there seems to be so much smoke, there must be a fire somewhere.
Today we will find out. And no matter how much shaping and spinning Mr. Barr, Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Sekulow, Senator Graham, Congressman Jordan and all of the rest may do, we will soon know for ourselves what Mr. Mueller had to say. And that’s the foolishness of all of this; the American people can and will read. They will know directly without the filter of spin and interpretation. By Good Friday, or at least Easter Monday, we will finally know the truth of what Robert Mueller did, and found: Hallelujah!
So a quick overview of the Mueller Report – and yes I read fast and skimmed faster and it’s time for a beer!!
1. The Mueller Report does not exonerate anyone from anything. It states that the Muller team had evidence of conspiracy and cooperation with the Russians, but not enough to convict on criminal charges.
2. The reading of the Mueller Report Volume I, the Russian part, shows that there was an enormous amount of activity and contact between Russians and the Trump Campaign. It also hints that Roger Stone did have contact with Wikileaks and foreknowledge of what they were going to release (though most information regarding Stone has been redacted.) Mueller saw as much smoke as everyone else did – he couldn’t find enough to make a fire.
3. The Mueller Report specifically chooses not to reach an indictment of the President on Obstruction of Justice, because of the Justice Department policy on not indicting a sitting President. The Mueller team noted that if they did reach a conclusion to indict, but couldn’t proceed because the President can’t be tried while in office, then that would be unfair to the President as he would have no way to clear himself. Therefore, Mueller chose to make no indictments, and specifically states that this does not exonerate the President. Note: Attorney General gave his “opinion” which precludes indictment, but Mueller already precluded that anyway.
4. Mueller Report Volume II is a ten-point list of otherwise indictable charges or articles of impeachment for obstruction of justice. Mueller specifically makes every point of criminality for each count.
Two notes: there is no mention of RICO statutes, that is, Racketeering Influencing and Corrupt Organization laws. Mueller was trying to make his case on standard conspiracy law. There also is no evidence, either way, of Donald Trump’s financial situation, including possible indebtedness to banks with Russian sources. That is left completely out, and maybe will be seen later in the Southern District of New York.
And finally, the Special Counsel has passed ongoing investigations onto other Federal jurisdictions, a total of eighteen (including Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, Greg Craig, and Michael Cohen.) It’s not over at all.