If there were any doubts about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s political intentions, his unprecedented press conference on Wednesday should put them all to rest. As he made abundantly clear during his doddering reading of a prepared statement that repeatedly contradicted itself, Mueller had no interest in the equal application of the rule of law. He gave the game, and his nakedly political intentions, away repeatedly throughout his statement.
“It is important that the office’s written work speak for itself,” Mueller said, referring to his office’s 448-page report. Mueller’s report was released to the public by Attorney General William Barr nearly six weeks ago. The entire report, minus limited redactions required by law, has been publicly available, pored through, and dissected. Its contents have been discussed ad nauseum in print and on television. The report has been speaking for itself since April 18, when it was released.
If it’s important for the work to speak for itself, then why did Mueller schedule a press conference in which he would speak for it weeks after it was released? The statement, given the venue in which it was provided, is self-refuting.
Let’s start with the Mueller team’s unique take on the nature of a prosecutor’s job. The standard American view of justice, affirmed and enforced by the U.S. Constitution, is that all are presumed innocent absent conviction by a jury of a specific charge of criminal wrongdoing. That is, the natural legal state of an individual in this country is innocence. It is not a state or a nature bestowed by cops or attorneys. Innocence is not granted by unelected bureaucrats or federal prosecutors.
At one point in his remarks, Mueller seemed to agree. Referring to indictments against various Russian individuals and institutions for allegedly hacking American servers during the 2016 election, Mueller said that the indictments “contain allegations and we are not commenting on the guilt or innocence of any specific defendant.”
“Every defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.”
Had he stopped there, he would have been correct. But then he crafted a brand new standard.
“The order appointing the special counsel authorized us to investigate actions that could obstruct the investigation. We conducted that investigation and kept the office of the acting attorney general apprised of our work,” Mueller said. “After that investigation, if we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so.”
According to Mueller and his team, charged Russians are presumed innocent. An American president, however, is presumed guilty unless and until Mueller’s team determines he is innocent. Such a standard is an obscene abomination against the rule of law, one that would never be committed by independent attorneys who place a fidelity to their oaths and impartial enforcement of the law ahead of their political motivations.
The contradictions and double standards didn’t stop there, though.
“It would be unfair to potentially accuse somebody of a crime when there can be no court resolution of the actual charge,” Mueller said, after all but stating that Trump committed a crime for which Mueller never charged him. Just as Mueller’s own words and actions at the Wednesday press conference prove that he didn’t want his team’s report to speak for itself, the report itself proves that Mueller and his team don’t believe it’s unfair to accuse somebody of something a court cannot resolve.
If they actually believed that, then the 240-page volume II of their report on their obstruction investigation of the president would never have been authored. After all, according to Mueller’s own statement, such an operation would be patently unfair. And if it’s unfair to air dirty laundry against a target who was never charged, surely it’s doubly unfair to do so in writing and on camera during a press conference whose mere existence refutes the very claims of its host.
Mueller revealed himself as little more than a clone of James Comey—the smarmy, scheming politician who replaced Mueller as the head of the FBI. Recall that it was Comey who assumed for himself powers that did not belong to him by law when he declared at a 2016 press conference no “reasonable prosecutor” would charge Hillary Clinton with criminal wrongdoing in her mishandling of classified information and unsanctioned use of a secret, private email server to evade public records laws. Just as Mueller did in his report and Wednesday press conference, Comey followed up his declaration that Hillary would not be charged with statement after statement after statement of all the awful things Hillary Clinton did.
@Michael:
He could have simply said Trump committed crime X. Of course, he would have to present evidence of crime X… which he could not.
No he didn’t. All he had to do was PROVE the existence of crime X. He couldn’t.
If it was impossible for him to draw a conclusion, why the investigation?
@Deplorable Me:
Even if you don’t like the Trump aspect of the investigation, what he learned about non-Trump-related Russian involvement in our election process is a serious matter, and it needs to be addressed. Do you not agree?
@Michael: It was never up to Mueller he had a directive, complete your assignment and that is all.
If you read the regulations the AG handles it from there, go read them it involves informing Congress.
Mueller has only caused confusion by not following his directives.
@Deplorable Me:
He could have, but he did not feel that it would be fair to do that if Trump would not have the opportunity to clear his name in a court of law.
He apparently feels that he did.
Because there were many, many, many other people involved in the possible problems than just the president. And, as he said, it was necessary to get the investigation done “while memories were fresh” and as many pieces of evidence as possible were still at hand.
Also: there are lawbreakers in jail as a result of the investigation.
Why are you asking me this stuff? Mueller went over it all already, in both his report and his press conference.
@kitt:
Mueller apparently isn’t confused. I’m not confused. Lots of people aren’t confused. I’m sorry you’re confused.
@Michael: So, what did he conclude about Russian interference? A bunch of indictments he never intended to pursue?
How concerned are YOU about Russian interference? Would you like to know why Obama ordered a stand-down on efforts to block interference?
I also want to know why the FBI was not allowed access to the DNC servers to determine IF they were hacked and by whom. There is far more to that story than we now know.
Beyond any doubt, this is nothing but a political operation.
No Democrats have been interested in fairness.
No, you aren’t confused. You KNOW you are supporting a lie.
@Michael: Using his investigation as a political weapon has caused confusion you certainly dont understand what the report was to say. There is evidence enough to make this case under this statute or there is not enough evidence to charge for the crimes I investigated.
That report goes to the AG the AG informs congress and proceeds from there.
The Weissman report was not clear as to obstruction charges.
Why did they intentionally muddy the report?
The only sane option is to toss it in the trash and drop the entire matter. Teaching future SC to follow directives and not weaponize their work.
Trump obstructed justice by not being guilty of collusion?
@Michael:
OK, I usually find responding to you a total waste of time but you need to try to understand a few things which you are either ignorant of or totally discounting.
You said:
It was not Mueller’s position, as a SC, to make recommendations. It was his responsibility to find if a crime had been committed, or not. At the point where his report is complete, he then was to turn it over, with his decisions (not recommendations) on his findings to the AG. (see Starr report)
What do you not understand about “(c)Closing documentation. At the conclusion of the Special Counsel’s work, he or she shall provide the Attorney General with a confidential report explaining the prosecution or declination decisions reached by the Special Counsel.” No where does it say one thing about “recommendations,” only decisions.
It was not his job to recommend impeachment. It was only his job to present the facts of his investigation, along with a binary decision as to whether the President had committed a crime, or not.
Again, you are wrong. If the House holds an impeachment hearing, the President is not allowed to defend himself. The President can only defend himself if impeachment is voted on by a majority of the House of Representatives at which point it is sent to the Senate for trial.
Again with the “recommendations” crap. Mueller was tasked with making a binary decision, crime committed or no crime committed. He did not do that. And your declarative statement of “the President’s criminal behavior” is a joke. You, along with Mueller, want to set our system of jurisprudence on its head; guilty until proven innocent. How do you prove a negative? In this nation, we have a system of innocent until proven guilty. Obviously, you think it should be the opposite.
Instead, Mueller decided to set jurisprudence on its head and try Trump in the court of public opinion. It is obviously working as you and Greggie Goebbels have bought into that hook, line and sinker. I assume you think that is fair.
@retire05:
Except that he was authorized to prosecute “if necessary and appropriate.” This case fell into a gray area: necessary but not appropriate.
Again, this is a gray area with not a lot of precedent to guide someone.
Don’t be a fool. When a prosecutor thinks that a crime has been committed, he charges someone with a crime. If prosecutors didn’t initially think that someone had committed a crime, nobody would ever be indicted — ever. There has to be at least that much “he’s probably guilty” in the system for anything to happen. As a prosecutor, Mueller feels that a crime was committed. But he can’t indict. In lieu of prosecuting, which was off the table in this case, he did what he could to indicate that he feels a crime had been committed. (And again, don’t tell me that he couldn’t prosecute — it was in the letter from Rosenberg initiating the investigation.)
Right. If the House votes to impeach, the president will get a chance to defend himself. As I said.
Yes, he did. In essence, “I can’t prosecute all this stuff I found that needs to be prosecuted, but Congress can.”
He’s pretty straightforward about it.
In fact, he’s been pretty straightforward about everything. He has explained this all. Instead of taking him at his word, you insist on tinfoil-hatting everything.
@Deplorable Me, #45:
Barr reduced the lengthy, unambiguous, carefully nuanced conclusions presented by Robert Mueller in his report to two short, incompletely quoted sentences that could be used to falsely suggest that no wrongdoing of any kind had been noted. After unnecessarily announcing his own summary conclusions, he then withheld the report itself—as well as Mueller’s own summaries that were specifically prepared for public release—for two weeks, so that no one would be able to cite anything that contradicted him.
What Barr said is so obviously misleading at this point that no explanation should be needed. Nor is there really any need for Mueller to publicly testify about anything, as his report unambiguously speaks for itself. In its full, unredacted state and with Mueller’s underlying evidence available for examination, it would undoubtedly speak even more loudly and clearly.
@Michael: He is a “special prosecutor” he could indict co conspirators but look at D in the letter section 600.4 through 600.10 code of Federal Regulations are applicable to the SC.
They are counting on you not reading those, ignorance is their shield. Our sources have called those to our attention, why havent your sources? Cause they want to muddy the matter.
Its so easy to look up.
No recommendations just an assignment he failed to do, now doesnt want to answer any questions as to why he took the assignment, got paid for it and did not complete his assignment.
I hope they change the locks after checking those SC offices for damage.
Well, at least he has finally let it slip that he knows Russia helped to get him elected. I can understand why his lawyers wouldn’t allow him to testify under oath to Robert Mueller.
@Greg: Your post has nothing to do with the posted article. Over 63 million people voted for the president, not Russians, he knows the Russians meddled he just had nothing to do with that. Hillary hires people who did deal directly with Russians and accept disinformation happily.
It was the DNC and the previous administration that tried to use Russians to affect the election.
Our President is innocent yea fireworks celebration. Had she won she would be guilty of what they accused Trump of….
@Greg:
That misrepresents nothing, much less “grossly”. There was no collusion; check. Mueller found neither obstruction or absence of obstruction; check (though there is no evidence or any collusion.
No, Barr didn’t release the entire report in his summary… that’s what a summary is.
It is Barr’s report; any data illegally released would be his responsibility. If Mueller can’t even do his job of finding crimes or clearing Trump, why would Barr blindly trust Mueller not to screw up the proper redactions? Obviously, he is an incompetent political hack.
Again, what did Barr “mislead” about? Because he didn’t include all the whiny, crybaby assumptions and speculation?
Yeah, there’s your “smoking gun”; one poorly constructed sentence. Well, that’s the most evidence you’ve scraped together against Trump yet. Maybe Mueller will declare hi guilty now?
You’re pathetic.
@Michael:
You’re wading off in another direction. The discussion wasn’t Mueller’s ability to prosecute, or not, but the difference between “recommendations” and “decisions.” which you are avoiding.
The “gray” area you refer to is the OLC opinion itself. You seem to think that an OLC opinion is actually a law. It is not. It is a recommendation (a word you seem to like). It has never been challenged in a court. If it were, I suspect it would not hold up. Odd that Jerry Nadler was the impetus for the OLC ruling in 2000. Now he’s saying it should be removed.
Yeah, that should work with a grand jury. The prosecutor tells the grand jury he “thinks” the defendant is guilty, based on his own personal opinion. I can tell you now, any prosecutor who did that would be laughed out of the court room.
Wrong. There is this thing called “probable cause” that you seem to be ignorant (willfully?) about. Probable cause is prosecutable evidence of a crime.
Really? Tinfoil-hatting? What you seem to know about law could be put in the eye of a gnat. IOW, you don’t know squat. You “think” Trump is guilty, end of story. Your mind is so closed you are not even willing to look at the law that governs the prosecution of a criminal act or even how our judicial system works.
I’m through with you. You are a waste of my time and just as big an idiot as Greggie Goebbles.
@retire05:
You’ve said that before, yet you keep coming back.
@Deplorable Me. #64:
Do you prefer deliberate misdirection to misrepresentation? It doesn’t really matter, because it’s obvious to anyone with a clue what William Barr did, regardless of the euphemism by which Trump apologists choose to refer to it, or the absurd spins they try to put on it.
William Barr, with his Unitary Executive Theory, is just one more willing Trump tool. That was his primary qualification for the job. It’s how he caught his master’s eye. William Barr has aided and abetted Donald Trump’s deliberate efforts to deceive the American people, and continues to do so.
What’s pathetic is that the moment Barr becomes a liability Trump will turn on him and kick him overboard to the circling sharks without a second thought, exactly as he has done with every other of this tools that has served his purpose and become damaged in the process. You would think they would learn how this goes from observation.
@Greg: How exactly has Barr done or doing this deception?
@Greg:
I guess as long as you refuse to provide some sort of validation of your accusation, you can call it whatever you want. When people are being sadly pathetic, the level of pathetic isn’t really that important.
What was a deliberate misdirection to misrepresent was your Democrats claiming they had “mountains” of evidence, right at their fingertips, readily available, which absolutely proved Trump colluded with Russians and was a “traitor”. What happened to all that “evidence”? Can a “mountain” of certainty suddenly disappear that quickly? WHO was deceptive? Who was misdirecting? Who was misrepresenting? WHO was the goddamn liars?
@kitt: You are on a futile errand. Greg has no idea what was deceptive; he was just told it was and to go forth and say it was. His hope was that no one would question him on it.
@Deplorable Me: It seems it was todays talking point. Mueller gave his little gas on the impeachment fire and now Nader gave him the pass on testifying, they love him again. Mueller will now do his best to just lurk in the shadows, with his face the darker the better. I hope if the Dems keep pushing the Rep.s drag him out and make him testify in public, and Weissman that weasel too.
@Michael: If his order was refused by a subordinate’s ultimatum, and he did not re-order it, he “effectively” rescinded it.
Analogous to telling a chauffeur to speed, the chauffeur refused and no further order to speed was given. NO SPEEDING OCCURRED!
By the way Michael, it is poor intellectualism to implicitly call me a liar (doubting my life-long career) without proof. You have just fallen a few notches on my credibility scale.
@Deplorable:
Nowhere did I ever say or even imply that you’re a liar. Anyway, cry me a river. You have repeatedly opined about what a horrible teacher I must be and how awful it is for me to be in the classroom influencing young minds. If you don’t want to have to take it, don’t dish it out.
@Deplorable: Article 2 allows the president to fire anyone in the executive branch, by trying to impeach him for exercising his legal powers it is contrary logic and reason. It would be impeaching him for signing bills into laws.
The investigation was based on faked evidence, they knew that before the investigation began.The firing was for Mueller only as he was totally conflicted. Another Prosecutor could have been assigned.
Should Mueller be destroying evidence? Who does he think he is, Hillary?
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/12/inspector_general_discovers_that_team_mueller_scrubbed_strzok_and_page_text_messages_during_critical_postelection_period.html
@Deplorable:
Telling a chauffeur to speed is not illegal. Directing an underling to obstruct justice is illegal, even if justice doesn’t wind up being obstructed. Hiring someone to murder a person is illegal, even if the person is never in any danger.
@kitt:
Simply exercising his power? Generally not a problem. The problems begin when the exercise of power becomes the abuse of power. The abuse of power by the president is impeachable.
Similarly, the president has the power of the pardon, but the jury’s out on whether he gets to pardon himself.
If he hadn’t done anything wrong, he shouldn’t have done so much stupid stuff that looks so very much like obstruction, witness tampering, and so on.
@kitt:
Prosecute him if he broke the law. People who violate the law should be punished.
@Michael: That will be up to the AG, and DOJ, but Trump had ample reason to want his ass off the investigation.
Accusing the President of obstruction when he(Mueller) was destroying government records and potential evidence.
Could you imagine if they actually did prosecute the left would be pearl clutching and saying it was revenge.
@kitt:
Mueller’s obstruction, if there is any, bears in no way on Trump’s obstruction, if there is any.
@Deplorable Me, #69:
Haven’t you been following the story? At Trump’s order, William Barr has all the evidence and testimony Mueller collected over the course of his two year investigation locked down. Congressional oversight committees haven’t even been allowed to see the unredacted report. He has also ordered that congressional subpoenas be ignored, and that subordinates break their oaths of office by breaking a totally unambiguous oversight law regarding his tax returns. Mnuchin hasn’t even bothered to provide the legal opinion he claims to be basing his refusal on.
@Michael:
Gosh, a moment of clarity. True, if Trump told someone, “Go forth and obstruct justice” that would be a crime. However, if he told someone to go and talk with the acting AG and see if there is a way to fire Mueller, something that is totally legal and within his powers, is NOT illegal because it is NOT obstruction of anything.
Had he done any of that, Mueller would have specifically and unambiguously said so. So, obviously, Trump did NOT.
Wrong. He hasn’t “locked down” the evidence Schiff said he had. He hasn’t “locked down” the evidence Waters said she had. He hasn’t “locked down” the evidence the liberal media said they have. So, where is it? What happened to it? Why would all these liberals claim to have something that, apparently, they never did? Why would they all lie to such a degree and why aren’t the majority of liberals demanding answers?
Do you believe I don’t know what utter crybaby bullshit that is? The unredacted report was available to be read by the appropriate personnel. They didn’t bother. The report with less than 4% of it redacted (by law) was available for ALL to read… they didn’t bother. These lying Democrats are not interested in any oversight; they are looking for revenge and they don’t care how they gain it.
You won’t be getting any private information without a legal necessity. Whining that you can’t find any laws Trump has broken so you want to invade his tax returns is not a legal necessity; it is a whiny, crybaby tantrum demand. What illegal activity have you found in the 10 years of returns illegal released? Or, has anyone bothered to look?
Shut up.
@Deplorable Me:
He absolutely did. I’m referring here to the stuff we all watched him do in real time out in public. Why the hell was he doing and saying all that stuff if he hadn’t done anything? Pure stupidity?
@Greg:
My gawd what ignorance Greg stop spouting the brain dead media!
Not 1 democrat has bothered to read a less redacted report available not 1, they may not have read the redacted one..
Other redactions are grand jury testimony totally out of the control of the president and Barr to declassify or allow any one to see.
Hey in the future if you want open records dont use the Grand Jury system or simply dont refer to any of it in your stinking partisan reports.
@Michael:
What are you blathering about done what said what, what did you watch him do out in public?
@kitt:
The endless attempts on Twitter to discredit Mueller and his investigation; the Lester Holt interview; the witness tampering before Cohen’s testimony where he said that somebody should look into Cohen’s father. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Let’s assume, simply for the sake of this discussion, that Trump is blameless — as pure as the driven snow. Each one of those actions was of unsurpassed stupidity, because it fed the public perception that he was trying to shut down scrutiny of things he had done because he had something to hide.
@Michael: They couldnt put a twitter gag order on the President Booo hooo , Cohen is in the difficulty he is in by his own actions, Threats to prosecute relatives is Mueller and Weissmans game and investigation into bankrupsy of the subject. So you are just saying his tweets were obstruction?
@kitt:
Well, the Cohen tweet was pretty blatant witness tampering, yes. Just to take that one single example.
@Michael:Maybe it was just a Crime-stoppers tip.
@Michael:
No. He absolutely positively never did. Pathetic grasping at imaginary straws.
So, then all the Democrats saying they had evidence that Trump committed a crime and calling him a traitor are now guilty of sedition. Since you have made the rule that words and opinion is policy and deeds, you have condemned them all.
You don’t have to assume it; it has been proven.
As we discovered, this was scrutiny of nothing he had done based on lies liberals created. THERE are the crimes, not in anything you have imagined Trump did.
You mean when Trump told Cohen to “cooperate”? Pathetic grasping. Whining crybabyism.