5144

Good piece.

“Time to put Roger Stone in the grand jury to find out what he knows about Trump but would not tell. Commutation can’t stop that,” tweeted Andrew Weissman, one of Mueller’s top prosecutors, following the president’s action.

That’s most unlikely while the Justice Department remains in the hands of Attorney General William Barr. But it’s far from unthinkable should Trump leave office in January. What’s more, the commutation means that the story Mueller tells about potential obstruction vis-a-vis Stone did not end with the activity described by the Mueller report. It is a continuing pattern of conduct up until the present day. That potentially makes it easier for a future Justice Department to revive at least one of the obstruction questions that Barr squelched when he closed the cases Mueller intentionally did not resolve. In addition to all the facts reported by Mueller, including facts that have been redacted until recently, Trump has now consummated the deal he dangled before Stone.

That’s something the Justice Department may want to examine anew—someday.

5145

Stone has already said that he ‘would never tell lies or falsehoods about Trump’. Okay fucker. Then tell the truth.

5146

I’m sure that there are lots of people in a potentially future Biden administration that would like to close the chapter on Trump and just let it go because they feel the political risks outweigh the benefits, but is there a point at which they just have to start pursuing his accomplices (because otherwise the rule of law is out the window) and has that point been reached now? Because permitting something like this to slide seems incredibly dangerous.

5147

Hoping Biden appoints an aggressive AG and just gets out of the way and let an independent DoJ do their thing.

5148

You would think so, but the last administration turned the page on kidnapping, torture, murder and taking the country into an unnecessary war on false pretenses. I think it’s possible the ship has sailed.

5149

I’d think there would also be an internal shakeup as well. The rot goes further than just Barr by now.

5150

The judge in the Roger Stone case asks Trump for receipts (yeah, good luck with that, judge.)

5151

Don’t worry, if it doesn’t cover the probation he can just sharpie it on.

5152

Does this administration keep records, or do they just refer people to the tweets?

5153

Turns out when it comes to getting their criminal pals out of the pokey, they’re models of efficiency!

5154

I’m about halfway through this article and am learning some new things.

So far this is my main takeaway. The “why not.”

“Mueller did not use the F.B.I. information as a catalyst for a deeper examination of Trump’s history and personal finances. Nor did he demand to see Trump’s taxes, or examine the roots of his special affinity for Putin’s Russia. Most important, Mueller declined to issue a grand-jury subpoena for Trump’s testimony, and excluded from his report a conclusion that Trump had committed crimes. These two decisions are the most revealing, and defining, failures of Mueller’s tenure as special counsel.”

5155

I think it’s safe to say, with 20/20 hindsight, that Mueller fucked up.

5156

I think his strange notion that, because he was not allowed to charge Trump with a crime, it would be unfair for him to say that Trump had committed a crime; and the resulting tap dance he did around the question gave people all the room they needed to shout ‘totally exonerated!’

5157

In retrospect everyone working with Trump since 2016 has fucked up.

People like Fauci or Mueller try to thread that needle of appeasing the despot while serving the public good by circumscribing the truth to acceptable, inoffensive domains, try to keep worse people from taking their place, ect. In the end, the truths they carefully avoided and hid at behest of the despots will be turned against them when the despots dismiss them. The despots will dismiss you if you tell them X early, or dismiss you if you failed to tell them X later. Either way, it’s going to be your, not their, fault.

We live in a time where the bureaucrats trying to defend the system know they will be instantly dismissed if they don’t comply, nod their heads to untruths at least part of the time. So they comply. What they don’t understand (or really want to believe) is that reach that stage, it’s really collapse, not tottering houses of cards, that is the solution.

5158

But Mueller erred badly on the side of caution. He didn’t go far enough. Not out of some fear of Trump. But because he was afraid of overstepping some kind of moral boundary. He was just wrong.

5159

Mueller thought the system mattered more than the country it was supposed to serve imo.

I don’t give a fuck what DoJ internal guidelines are. Serve the nation not your department.

5160

I don’t really see this as a failure of Mueller. It really wasn’t in the remit of his appointment and he’s not a Ken Starr type hack. I’m also not really sure that an “affinity for Putin” is something he could meaningfully investigate more than he did. What’s he supposed to do, write a pop-pscyhology book? The other stuff, sure.

5161

In other words, you’re okay with it, and you own it, forever. Craven coward.

5162

But after Trump loses in November they’re going to write scathing OpEds in the New York Times about how they never agreed with Trump and were constantly horrified and ashamed of him. Redemption!

5163

But if they do that they’ll never get invited to appear on TNN (Trump news network).