The Truth Shall Set You Free<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today we will finally see a part of the Mueller Report. We don\u2019t know what to expect; how much will be redacted, and what facts and conclusions the Mueller Team reached. Hopefully that will be revealed \u2013 I fully anticipate working through a colorful four hundred-page document in the next twenty-four hours. I\u2019ve laid in a supply of paper, color printer ink, and copious amounts of coffee for reading, and beer for ruminating. It\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We have been \u201cplayed\u201d by Attorney General Bill Barr. So far, he has done the President\u2019s 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\u2019t 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\u2019t even know whether that was the sole reason for Mr. Trump being left out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Attorney General is an \u201codd man out\u201d 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\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\u2019s replacement, Ohioan Bill Saxbe, to Clinton\u2019s Janet Reno, to Obama\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bill Barr has proven that he sees his role as \u201cthe President\u2019s Attorney,\u201d 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 \u201cinstitutionalist.\u201d 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\u2019s theme questioning the validity of the Mueller probe, even going so far as to say that Federal agencies \u201cspied\u201d on the Trump campaign. Though he later tried to explain this as \u201clegal spying,\u201d his word choice was exactly the same as the President\u2019s real attorneys, Giuliani and Sekulow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\u2019m 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 \u201crainbow\u201d edition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is a tradition in Washington called \u201cFriday evening taking out the trash.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0It is when the stories that they want buried are released, Friday after five in the afternoon, when everyone has started the weekend.\u00a0\u00a0Mr. Barr has tried to \u201ctrash\u201d the Mueller report, releasing it on the Thursday before Easter and Passover weekend.\u00a0\u00a0The result won\u2019t be a report in the trash, it will mean that the media won\u2019t get an Easter break this year.\u00a0\u00a0Ari will miss Passover, and Rachel won\u2019t go fishing.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So this morning Mr. Barr has called a press conference, after the President tweeted him to do so.\u00a0\u00a0The conference is about the report, but will be held several hours before the actual report will be released.\u00a0\u00a0It is Barr\u2019s last chance to shape the narrative, to put his obscure \u201cunitary executive\u201d spin on whatever it is the Mueller Report will reveal.\u00a0\u00a0Mr. Mueller himself was not invited to participate.\u00a0\u00a0It is vaguely reminiscent of a press conference in the summer of 2016, when FBI Director Comey tried to shape the Hillary Clinton email story:\u00a0\u00a0no charges but reckless behavior.\u00a0\u00a0We saw how well that turned out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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 \u201cspin\u201d would be necessary. Like most of the Russia crisis, there seems to be so much smoke, there must be a fire somewhere. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today we will find out.\u00a0And 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.\u00a0\u00a0And that\u2019s the foolishness of all of this; the American people can and will read.\u00a0\u00a0They will know directly without the filter of spin and interpretation.\u00a0\u00a0By Good Friday, or at least Easter Monday, we will finally know the truth of what Robert Mueller did, and found:\u00a0\u00a0Hallelujah!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"