Trump/Russia 2016 election investigation (continued, now with Ukraine!)

At some point the House Judicial may flex their muscles to get the full report.

And no matter what, they’re going to call Robert Mueller to testify. And if Barr doesn’t make the full report available, the Democrats are going to drip-drip-drip them by calling every single Mueller team investigator in as well.

Full text of Barr’s summary:

Oh, yes. I agree with all of that. The booze is how I’m planning to live through the GOP spin machine while all of that is going on.

Totally clears the president! Thank you!

Putting my cards on the table here. I genuinely hope the report fully clears Trump of any wrongdoing.

Knowing he is not a traitor who colluded with a foreign power would actually make me feel better.

He still should be removed from office obviously, as he is demonstrably unfit for it. But I would feel better if he was cleared of crimes by Mueller.

It would mean he is an idiot surrounded by crooks rather than a crook himself. Which would be better.

Everyone is going to try to interpret the summary but now I really want to see the full report, specifically the portion where Mueller sets out the evidence about obstruction of justice.

I read the letter. It appears that Trump is merely a racist Islamophobe who is destroying America’s alliances and the environment, tearing families apart and putting brown children in cages, encouraging violence and domestic terrorism, and enriching himself and the rest of the country’s wealthiest at the expense of everyone else.

But he didn’t, apparently, conspire with the Russian government in attempts to affect the election, and he didn’t, in the eyes of the law, obstruct justice.

So, congrats Republicans!

“The Special Counsel states that ‘while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.’”

Nadler on Twitter.

Edit: Mueller’s role was investigative, not prosecutorial. Unsurprisingly trump toady Barr concludes there is no obstruction.

This likely means more hearings.

What a surprise. A whole lotta nothing.

In short, Mueller found at least some evidence of obstruction, punted the sufficiency question to DOJ, and DOJ decided it was insufficient.

Let the goalpost shifting begin!

Did someone hear a fart? I’m sure I heard a fart.

We may as well harden ourselves to a certain amount of crowing, it’s gonna happen.

For my part, I always felt the Russia connection was a Al-Capone-Tax-Evasion type of thing. It was just the most likely way to get rid of the guy, who clearly should not be president. But I guess we just have to try to survive him for a while longer.