Mueller

zn wrote:

<span class=”d4pbbc-font-color” style=”color: red”>Kate Mitchell</span> from Facebook

From today:

“[Rep.] Lieu asked Mueller point-blank: ‘The reason, again, that you did not indict Donald Trump is because of the OLC opinion stating that you cannot indict a sitting president, correct?’

This phrasing directly entails that, were it not for the OLC opinion, Mueller would have indicted Trump — something he has steadfastly refused to acknowledge.

And yet Mueller answered without hesitation: ‘That is correct.’”

Well-not exactly, unfortunately. If you noticed after answering Lieu’s question in the affirmative he started to raise his hand but time was out so he let it go. After the lunch break he stated before any questioning that he wanted to clarify that answer. He said that the OLC opinion was NOT the only reason he declined to file charges on obstruction. And unfortunately it was left at that. The best that can be said for Mueller was that he is likely the truest patriot at that hearing and its more important to him to not do anything that will breach this country any more than what has been done. I think he honestly believes that this country is in deep peril and doesn’t want to cause it any further damage. He is also a technocrat and like several great lawyers very care to parcel his words with caution. In that light he could be thinking that since the OLC opinion prevented an indictment of the sitting President he could not gather sufficient evident to actually file an indictment. So-unfortunately-the main issue was left up in the air. I’m positive Lieu was not happy with the amended answer. Nevertheless, Mueller said from the beginning if was force to testify via subpoena he would not go beyond his written report. And he didn’t-again unfortunately. I think it was a disaster for the Democrats.

I didn’t express myself well above. It came across as overly hard on Mueller, as a human being, likely suffering from some medical condition, or just the aging process itself. We all will go through this or something similar, if we live long enough. I have a great deal of sympathy for him on those grounds.

But I don’t for the Dems, who apparently knew about his medical struggles but put him on the stand anyway.

Billy, I agree.

I just watched Schiff on CNN basically say they were not ready for an impeachment inquiry and that if impeachment failed in the Senate it would be like an acquittal for Trump.

MAKE THE REPUBLICANS DEFEND HIS CORRUPT ASS!

The Dems are soooooo weak and useless.

They will putter around with hearings and continue to subpoena witnesses who will never show and wait while the courts take this into the election and do nothing. If they do nothing then THEY acquit Trump. He doesn’t need the Republicans to defend him when you have the Democrats.

Just awful. And frustrating.

I actually did learn a coupla new things from watching. Admittedly, others may have known this going in. But it was new for me:

1. I can’t remember seeing Mueller testify in the past, so I have nothing to compare yesterday’s events to . . . but I just didn’t realize he was struggling so much, medically. He simply wasn’t in the kind of shape needed to adequately defend his work, fight off Republican attacks, or present an effective overview.

2. I finally figured out something that had confused me a bit previously, when I bothered to think about it at all: The bar is set incredibly high when it comes to “conspiracy.” Trump and his campaign could cooperate with the Russians by way of receiving their dirt (help from the Russians in order to win the election). The charge of conspiracy in this case was all about Trump, his campaign, and the Russians working together to get that dirt. Mueller couldn’t find sufficient evidence to show that they had worked together to “meddle” in the election — not that Trump and company willingly accepted Russian help.

As in, apparently, it’s not “conspiracy” to receive stolen goods. It’s just “conspiracy” to actively work in conjunction with others to do the stealing in the first place.

I’m betting I’m not the only American who didn’t note this distinction previously, or the very high legal bar in place.

PA Ram wrote:

The reason this was not a disaster is that most people simply do not care.

==================

Well, I agree with this in a sense. I dont think 90 percent of the citizens cared about the hearing itself.

Thats cuz 90 percent of the citizens have already made up their mind on the criminality of Trump. The Reps of course think its a liberal-political-witch-hunt. And the Dems think Trump is the Most Corrupt President Ever.

No hearing is gonna budge the blue/red/90 percent.

About that other ten percent or so. The deciders. I have no idea. Maybe they were out playing video games or at the mall.

w
v

PA Ram wrote:

The reason this was not a disaster is that most people simply do not care. The Dems could have started an impeachment inquiry long ago but because Pelosi is putting politics first, it will not happen unless there is a sudden groundswell of support from the public. That just doesn’t seem likely. She is worried about those “purple” states that they always worry about. They could care less about their base. They take them for granted. They care about the “independent” or so-called “lost Obama voter” who went to Trump. They chase a narrow strip to victory instead of putting any effort into expanding their base.

In short–they suck as a political party.

And often, they have the same agenda as the other team anyway.

It was always a waste of time and money to hold the hearings. There was no chance it would change anything–even if Mueller had appeared coherent.

As for Mueller…it seems obvious that he was less involved in the investigation than previously thought. He oversaw things but his involvement seems more distant. He also certainly appears to have some aging issues. He does not present at all as the image we were sold. I suspect this is why he did not want to testify and simply insisted on relying on the report. He isn’t that clear on the details himself.

But again–Pelosi didn’t need this to impeach. She had what she needed.

This may work out well for her though. If anything this will probably slow the impeachment train.

And the statute of limitations means Trump will probably never be indicted on anything.

This will make him even more bold. That is scary.

The Dems failed the country in a huge way.

And Trump may even win reelection.

This country needs an actual opposition party. Right now–we do not have one.

I’m with Pelosi on this one. Yes to impeach is a moral decision whereas not to impeach is a political one. And that is fine with me when I consider this is the single most incompetent and dangerous President this country has seen-IMO. The last polls I saw disclosed that a majority of voters don’t support impeachment even when they acknowledge how bad Trump is as a person. More important is that a majority of the pickups in the House in this last election came from moderate districts which showed a concern over the lost of health care and jobs not on whether Trump is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors. Indeed for most voters that voted for democrats he was not a factor. Simply put it was about their anxieties over important issues to them and not how horrific
Trump is. And of course impeachment proceedings will activate the Trump and Republican base and his acquittal in the Senate will fit in with their position which all along has been the Democrats are guilty of overreaching and can’t be trusted. That could translate into “they are all bad so why should I even vote”. Of course that would just what the democrats don’t want which is to get out the same number of minorities that came out for Obama. Then the only “concerned” voters would be those who think Trump will make America Great Again.

IMO should they try and impeach they will not have learned any lessons at all from their victories in the 2018 midterms.

Waterfield,

I strongly disagree with Pelosi’s position. Part of the reason the Dems won the house was Democratic turnout, and while healthcare had a lot to do with that, so did Trump. He was, in fact, a threat to healthcare. He was also a disaster.

If Pelosi depresses turnout because the energy in the party whithers–if people see no point to the Democrats, they will lose. Trump’s cult will show up either way. The Dems will have to live with their failure to impeach for a long time.

She will, of course blame AOC and the progressives but they owe her nothing when they are so easily dismissed.

And if she tries leading, the public may come along.

She is, IMO, a terrible leader, only slightly better than Schumer.

At what point in this corrupt authoritarian loving Trump regime, do you stand up and say, enough is enough?

The View from Fox:

I used to think Pelosi’s decision to not start the impeachment was an acceptable decision like Waterfield. But as the election starts to come into view, I’ve changed my mind.

The Democrats official position should be that Trump is a lying, piece of shit, con man; a racist asshole. They should be going to war with him, not playing political games. Congress can accomplish this by starting impeachment proceedings and dragging Trump’s name through the mud everyday.

Now, maybe Pelosi will make a smart, strategic decision and start the impeachment hearings this winter so people don’t get tired of being drug through the mud everyday. But the democrats should be stating over and over that Trump is incompetent, a liar, and a disgrace for a sustained period before the election by conducting the impeachment hearings and having people testify and talk about how sleazy Trump is.

I agree that the Dems are generally incompetent and won’t take that approach. We probably won’t see ANY impeachment hearings. Pelosi and the current Democratic leadership will continue to walk the tightrope of saying Trump is unlawful and corrupt but they can’t actually do anything about it.

The recent debate/issue about extending the debt limit for 2 years is another example of Pelosi’s incompetence and stupidity. Instead of protesting Trump’s handling of the economy, Pelosi and the democrats agreed to dump more money into the economy.

The next year, know nothing Americans should be reminded everyday that Trump’s economy doesn’t work. You can’t just a borrow a trillion dollars every year without making an investment on the future–green jobs, re-shoring American factory jobs, etc.

Pelosi’s decision to not do anything about Trump’s wasteful spending and tax cut for the rich just allows Trump to continue boast how he has fixed the economy. This will be his main boast for the next year. Instead of actively protesting this stupid credit card economy, Pelosi and the dems will just have empty, long-winded criticism of Trump.

Boasting about how good the economy is will help Trump get re-elected, not the democrats holding impeachment hearings for 6 months.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by Cal.

zn wrote:

Actually, Robert Mueller Was Awesome
History will show that he had one big goal, and nailed it.

RENATO MARIOTTI

Renato Mariotti is the Legal Affairs Columnist for POLITICO Magazine. He is a former federal prosecutor and host of the “On Topic” podcast.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/07/25/robert-mueller-hearing-was-awesome-227478?fbclid=IwAR0m0FnWpRh-OKI3uTETf9oalO9FSuieGGBU6vtDH0pmEKzevdFoG_8VAf0

Former special counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony Wednesday has been described as “excruciatingly awkward,” “confused,” “struggling” and “a stammering, stuttering mess.”

I saw something completely different. From my perspective, after six hours of testimony, it was the 74-year-old career prosecutor and law enforcement officer who won the day. It wasn’t that close.

Tasked with overseeing the most high-profile investigation of our time, Mueller managed to complete the investigation without appearing to have a partisan agenda, with both sides embracing him at times. Even Trump said he acted “honorably”—before he turned on Mueller as “conflicted” and partisan—and touted “total exoneration” soon after Mueller concluded his work. Mueller’s down-the-middle, leak-free handling of the high-stakes investigation was an object lesson in professionalism.

And Wednesday’s performance was no different.

Mueller didn’t want to testify, for good reason. He had done his work already. As a prosecutor, he had to ensure he stayed detached from the political process, presenting his findings in a manner that did not make it appear he was choosing a side or advancing an agenda. One slip of the tongue could be used to undermine his team’s work.

In the long view, the verdict of history depends most of all on Mueller being seen as nonpartisan, measured and above the fray—an operator whose work is unimpeachable and can be relied on (now, or after Trump’s term, or years from now) as a bulletproof statement of fact. So all the little details of the case that members were trying to ferret out pale in comparison to his ability to maintain that status and be seen as a reliable agent of impartiality. During the hearing, that was clearly his goal. In doing that, he succeeded, and history can thank him for it.

It was clear from the start he knew Democrats wanted to use him as a prop to bring the findings of his report to life as part of a push for an impeachment inquiry. Mueller went out of his way to avoid regurgitating the contents of the report, wary of creating sound bites that could be used to suggest he supported impeachment. For instance, when Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) asked him whether his language referring to a constitutional process to “formally accuse a president of wrongdoing” was a reference to impeachment, he refused to admit the obvious.

Mueller did that all day long. He refused to answer leading questions whenever answering the question might draw him too close to the political fight, force him to say things that could spur controversy, or cause him to veer outside the four corners of the report. Mueller wanted to go no further than his report and he rarely did so, despite both sides egging him on. He swatted away Republican attempts to elicit answers about the origins of his probe as readily as he ignored Democratic attempts to get him to make their case against Trump.

His monotonal yes and no answers might not have made for the most dramatic viewing, but they weren’t without effect. In five minutes, House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff walked Mueller through the most damning details of Volume 1 of his report. Mueller’s answers were short—“that did occur,” “accurate,” “that is correct”—but what he affirmed was that Russia engaged in a systematic effort to help Trump win in 2016, that Trump and his campaign welcomed Russian aid, and that Trump lied to the American people about his business dealings in Russia.

When Mueller wanted to say more, he did. He described in detail the threat posed by the Russian attack on our electoral process, testifying that “they’re doing it as we sit here, and they expect to do it during the next campaign.” He warned that “many more countries are developing the capability to replicate what the Russians had done.” When Mueller had the rare opportunity to testify about matters that were not partisan—matters that should concern all Americans—he testified freely and strongly.

At times, Mueller faced harsh questioning from Republicans who lashed him and his team as biased or worse. His calm demeanor was another sign of his professionalism. It would have been easy for Mueller to fight back—he has in previous appearances, after all—but that would have pulled him into the fray. It was not weakness but rather quiet strength that caused Mueller to do nothing more than calmly reply, “I take your question,” in response to GOP Congressman Louie Gohmert’s hyperbolic charge that he “perpetuated injustice.”

The hesitation you saw in Mueller before he answered questions was the face of a man who was choosing his words carefully. He played it safe, like a football team running out the clock. His constant desire to double-check his report and to refer members of Congress to the report itself was motivated by a desire to ensure that each word of his testimony was accurate. He had no incentive to hurry, knowing it would be hard for members to challenge him in a five-minute time span if he took his time.

Mueller had to be careful and precise because every word he said would be dissected. When he agreed with Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) that the reason he did not “indict Donald Trump is because of the OLC [Office of Legal Counsel] opinion stating you cannot indict a sitting president,” many took that to mean that Mueller had affirmatively concluded that he would have indicted Trump if he could do so. Mueller clarified that point in the afternoon session. It was a rare misstep and he knew he had to fix it without regard to how it might be perceived by either side.

Even Mueller’s nonanswers were carefully considered. Mueller refused to answer whether he believes Attorney General William Barr’s letter purporting to summarize his report is accurate. The letter was technically accurate but highly misleading, and an answer from Mueller that the letter was accurate would have left the false impression that the thrust of the letter were true. Mueller also refused to answer whether Trump or his son took the Fifth, presumably because commenting on a defendant’s silence can be legally problematic.

Through his careful answers, Mueller was able to thread a needle, staking out very nuanced and careful legal positions without seriously being tested by the members who questioned him. For example, Mueller refused to make any decision as to whether there is sufficient evidence to charge Trump with obstructing justice.

Mueller’s decision not to reach a prosecutorial judgment as to obstruction flowed from the DOJ’s policy against indicting a sitting president. Because Mueller couldn’t indict Trump, he felt it would be unfair to Trump if he reached a conclusion that Trump would be unable to challenge in court. But if Mueller merely reached no conclusion, that could leave the false impression that he found no evidence that Trump committed a crime. So Mueller famously said that he was “unable” to state that Trump “clearly did not commit obstruction of justice,” and thus his report “does not exonerate” Trump. This may sound confusing to a layperson, but it is a very careful approach that permitted Mueller to be as fair as possible to Trump under the circumstances.

No one had ever publicly asked Mueller about this very nuanced but unprecedented approach. Many argue that Mueller should have stated his conclusion, and in any event, it’s unclear why he chose the “does not exonerate” language instead of merely making clear that his nondecision does not mean there is not enough evidence to charge Trump.

But both sides failed to meaningfully probe Mueller’s reasoning on this key issue. Republicans criticized and grilled him as to “exoneration,” but they had to be careful not to give Mueller an opportunity to refer to the DOJ policy against indicting a sitting president. Lurking in the background was the reality that Mueller found “substantial” evidence to prove each of the elements of obstruction of justice. Pushing him to explain himself would be bad for Trump. Yet Democrats could not get him to do so either because they were in no position to push him to do something he was unwilling to do.

So Mueller got to say what he wanted to say, which is that there is “substantial” evidence to support counts of obstruction, without being forced to say that he concluded Trump obstructed justice. Despite hours of questioning by dozens of members of Congress, Mueller was never backed into a corner or forced to explain the most important legal decision he made.

Even if some think Mueller has lost a step since he last appeared before Congress six years ago, he still looked a step or two ahead of most of his questioners on Wednesday. Most importantly, he appeared above the fray, cautious, and fair in the face of bitter partisan rancor. That is what we should expect from prosecutors, and it is the legacy that Mueller leaves behind.

Those who think Mueller’s performance was “awesome” are people who can analyze critically without emotion and pay attention to the responses. Unfortunately 99.5 of the American voters lack those qualities and will see this as some sort of Trump validation. They might not vote for the guy but they won’t be persuaded by Mueller’s performance to not do so.

I remember when America was “great again” growing up I used to have dinner at neighbors homes sine my mom worked and I did not have a father. These were middle to lower class working families. I recall serious discussion between the parents on all sorts of issues-that seemed at the time to me to be about the government, earnings, and other not tv related stuff. I wonder how much of that goes on today. I suspect tv and sports in particular have replaced civil curiosity.

Zooey wrote:

But the democrats are terrible at messaging
because to the core of their souls,
they do not really care about the green new dream,
or whatever it’s called,
because THEY are on the take from the same “Looters and Polluters” as the GOP.
As we all know.

================================

Thankyou.

I tried to make it into a poem, but I couldn’t quite manage it.

Anyway its not quite dark enough. Zooey, you are too light and optimistic about America.

You need to work on your Darkness.

w
v
“My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

“Let them think what they liked, but I didn’t mean to drown myself. I meant to swim till I sank — but that’s not the same thing.”
― Joseph Conrad, The Secret Sharer and other stories

Zooey wrote:

wv wrote:

Anyway its not quite dark enough. Zooey, you are too light and optimistic about America.

No, sir.

I just still have the ability to block out everything in my head sometimes, and bash on, regardless.

==============
Very well. Bash on.

…i made the mistake of looking up “despair quotes” on Goodreads. Now, I’ve spent the last half hour laughing at 1139 despair quotes 🙂

darkness:https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/despair

w
v
“The prince is never going to come. Everyone knows that; and maybe sleeping beauty’s dead.”
― Anne Rice, The Vampire Lestat

“The only real laughter comes from despair.”
― Groucho Marx, The Groucho Letters

“When a man is in despair, it means that he still believes in something.”
― Dmitri Shostakovich

Something I wish the Dems would do, though they won’t:

Go after Trump’s supporters in DC by being brutally honest about him . . .

At pretty much every hearing on the Russia investigation, Republicans try to make disliking or hating Trump grounds for getting fired from civil servant jobs. It’s a rather unsubtle way of pushing for autocracy. Claim someone “hates” Trump, invalidate them, make that the basis to, at the very least, dismiss all of their work . . . at worst, get them fired.

The Dems need to turn the tables on this. Support for Trump should be the grounds for dismissing, at the very least, what one says on this matter. They’re already compromised and obviously biased. Trump is a serial liar, an admitted serial sexual predator and Peeping Tom. He ran on a racist platform, designed to divide Americans and pit them against each other and has never stopped doing this. He implemented policies to tear apart families, kidnap and put kids in cages, with no plan to reunite those families. He’s made a fortune off of the taxpayer, slashed his own taxes and that of his family and friends. He refused to divest his business interests and profits off the presidency daily. He sold off millions of acres of public lands to fossil fuel companies, rolled back environmental regulations, which puts all Americans in danger . . . and his cabinet has had more scandals than any other in living memory.

The question we (Democratic Party leaders) need to ask is how can you support such a despicable human being, and how does that support impact your decisions while in office?

Put them on the defensive for a change.

Billy_T wrote:

Put them on the defensive for a change.

Yeah.

That seems obvious to me.

So obvious, in fact, that is raises the question, “Why AREN’T Democrats doing that?”

And the only answer that makes any sense, is this…

A goal scored against the GOP is a goal scored against their own benefactors.

That is the only explanation for why the Democrats behave the way they do. They kiss the same ring. Nothing else explains their behavior as well, and no other explanation is as simple.