Felten notes that the illegally-procured FISA warrant buried, and obfuscated, the important fact that the dossier it cited was paid for by Hillary Clinton and the DNC, and compiled by a foreign agent.
I obviously can’t quote the whole thing, but here’s one use of a Fabulist Footnote.
Mueller claims, in the body of the report, that a source claimed that Trump snuck off from Trump Tower, two days after his election, to secretly attend a chess tournament in lower Manhattan and chat up some Russians.
This is footnoted, and if you don’t actually read both the footnote and the source the footnote points to, you might imagine that there’s some evidence for this fantastical claim.
The most famous man in the world as of this day — his Tower surrounded by dumptrucks filled with sand as a safety precaution against possible vehicle bombers — just sneaks off to a chess tournament, with the world press present, to have a secret talk with RUSSIANS.
He just offers a short footnote to a 302 interview report.
To get insight into Mueller’s method and intent — his penchant for building edifices of insinuation on the smallest of citations — it is worth unpacking one of the shortest footnotes in his report. Footnote 1024 on page 150 of the report’s first volume simply reads: “Nader 1/22/18 302 at 3.” It is a reference to the FBI’s memo known as a 302 — of its January 2018 interview with George Nader, identified in the Mueller report as “Advisor to the United Arab Emirates’s Crown Prince.” Nader had spoken with a Russian who was attending the 2016 World Chess Championship in New York and who had expressed an interest in meeting Trump. Nader also told the FBI that an unnamed chess federation official had “recalled hearing” from an unknown attendee that Trump “had stopped by the tournament.”
The footnote tells us just how thin the sourcing was for this fantastical scenario. And it tells us just how little in the way of plausible proof the Mueller team needed to go off on an investigative tangent. The special counsel even used one of his precious few written questions for the president (question V. a. to be exact) to ask whether Trump had been invited “to attend the World Chess Championship gala on November 10, 2016” and whether he had attended “any part of the event.” Trump responded that he had learned in “the course of preparing to respond to these questions” that early in 2016 the chess federation had inquired, fruitlessly, about using Trump Tower for the championship match. But in any case, Trump said in his written testimony that he “did not attend the event.”
It’s worth pointing out that Nov. 10, 2016, was just two days after Trump’s election and a day the president-elect spent in Washington — it was even in the newspapers — meeting with President Obama.
Was the President-elect at the 2016 World Chess Championship in New York, two days after his election? If so, the Mueller report suggests, perhaps he was not a white knight.
As for the other days of the tournament, how plausible is it that Donald Trump just happened to pop over to the World Chess Championship? This is not just because Trump is more a WWE than a WCC sort of guy. Rather, it is a matter of common sense. Trump was the most famous person in the world, hated and loved and surrounded by unprecedented levels of security. Trump Tower, for example, was encircled by dump-trucks loaded with sand. And with such precautions being hastily imposed, Mueller entertains as a possibility worth inquiring into that the president-elect was able to slip away from his Trump Tower penthouse, travel some six miles to the South Street Seaport in lower Manhattan, take in some chess, schmooze with some Russians, and return to midtown — all without being seen?
This is where one would hope to find a more robust citation, because without a more compelling predicate than the sad little footnote provided, the special counsel’s pursuit of Chessgate comes across as naive and foolish. And yet, Mueller’s team finds it hard to let go. Back in the main text, Mueller uses his favorite grudging formulation of innocence: “the investigation did not establish that Trump or any Campaign or Transition Team official attended the event.”
What he means is that Mueller, rather than stating conclusively that this rumor appears false, always tries to keep the allegation open and alive by saying “we failed to establish this fucker is guilty, but you know damn well he is.”
Another of Mueller’s tricks is to footnote a source supposedly supporting the claim he makes in the text, when in fact the source actually refutes his claim.
If Mueller had only included the accusations that were supported with real, verified evidence, the report would have been the same length as Barr’s summary.
The lies by ommission who was Mifsud. Why did they attempt to destroy evidence?
19,000 Texts between Lisa Page and her lover, Peter S of the FBI, in charge of the Russia Hoax, were reported as being wiped clean and gone. As discovered by the IG
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/12/inspector_general_discovers_that_team_mueller_scrubbed_strzok_and_page_text_messages_during_critical_postelection_period.html
Some of these texts refer to a spy in the White House
@kitt: And why does Mueller say today that his team was of the highest integrity when, obviously, they were not?
@Deplorable Me: Mueller can not/will not speak to that.
Mueller behaves like he did not read his report.
@kitt: @kitt:
Mueller’s testimony, both this morning and currently going on, seems to be answers to questions by Democrats that were coordinated before hand.
When asked a question by a Democrat, he seems to give an answer, albeit vague. When asked by a Republican, we get “that is not within my purview”, “it’s in the report” or some other obfuscation. He can answer questions posed by Democrats that address the procedure of his (and his team) during the investigation but when responding to Republicans, he said he can’t address that.
This is nothing more than a sh!t show.
I think Mueller needs to return whatever pay he accepted for being the Special Prosecutor. It doesn’t appear he knew what was going on, who was doing what or what was going into the report.
Adam Shiff-for-brains reading from a pre-prepared statement as his closing argument. Question: as Shiff addresses what Mueller did, and did not answer, how did Shiff know what to put in his prepared statement? Can I get one of those crystal balls that Shiff seems to have gotten to allow him to know what Mueller would say.
This was a disaster for the Democrats.
Much as I hate to say it, this morning’s hearing was a disaster. Far from breathing life into his damning report, the tired Robert Mueller sucked the life out of it. The effort to save democracy and the rule of law from this lawless president has been set back, not advanced.
— Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) July 24, 2019
“Impeachment’s over,” @TerryMoran (who hates Trump) says amid Robert Mueller’s long-awaited congressional testimony.
The Democrats have been trying to make something out of nothing. This time they made stupid out of nothing. Mueller was caught lying several times. I HOPE someone can give him a dose of his own perjury medicine. Then squeeze information out of him for a plea bargain.
Pelosi, Shiff-for-brains, Cummings and tummy stapled gonad-less Nadler are giving a presser.
Greggie Goebbels will have his talking points in just a few minutes.
I watched the entire hearings, both of them. I cannot believe how those four Democratic Socialists are spinning (lying about) what actually happened in those hearings. Cummings is talking about what a lady at a forum told her. Boring…………………………………………..
After seeing Trump’s televised post-testimony gloating session, I’m pretty much at a loss for words.
Mueller’s appearances was not a performance. Robert Mueller is not an actor on your reality television program.
Takeaways:
You were not totally exonerated by the Mueller investigation.
You can be prosecuted the moment you’re out of office.
Wikileaks was not a hoax. It was a Russian tool.
That the Russian’s meddled on your behalf is not a hoax.
They’re still doing it, and other enemies of America are learning how to do it.
Mueller’s clarification did not mean what you seem to think it meant.
Numerous people central to your campaign organization lied repeatedly about what happened.
The people who were convicted are not good people innocent of serious crimes.
The Mueller investigation was no witch hunt. It was completely legitimate and entirely necessary. You are continuing to deny the ongoing Russian threat to the integrity of our election system and to national unity that both the Mueller investigation and our intelligence community have determined to exist, because acknowledging the legitimacy of that threat is perceived as a personal threat to yourself.
@retire05:
Imagine trotting Cummings, accused along with his wife of stealing money from non-profits, out to talk about ETHICS!! You can’t make this shit up!! ONLY Democrats!!
@Greg:
No, he was there just for eye candy. It was the DEMOCRATS that were there to perform.
By the end, I was actually feeling SORRY for Mueller; he was definitely not up for this gig. His grasp of the situation only got worse as the theater continued. First, he lied to Nadler about obstruction, then had to correct his statement later. Of course, the post-hearing Democrats forget the correction and only cling to the lie.
To listen to those unethical Democrats discussing the unethical and unpatriotic action of accepting help from foreign powers… when HILLARY PAID FOR HELP in the form of false accusations and phony salacious information from RUSSIANS was definitely the theater of the absurd. There was collusion; Obama, Hillary and the DNC committed it, and failed.
And they failed today.
If Trump is guilty of nothing, he is exonerated. DONE. Settled science, end of debate.
The DNC wasn’t hacked; they were subverted from inside by Seth Rich, who paid for his treachery with his life.
The Russians helped Hillary in the form of the opposition research they provided her, which all turned out to be lies.
The investigation most certainly was a complete witch hunt, which was proven by the FACT that NO COLLUSION was found. This conclusion was obvious from the beginning, but Mueller continued it for the sole purpose of trying to set up an obstruction trap. Trump, once again, out smarted them and refused to be trapped.
What happened to all the “mountain” of evidence you had that PROVED Trump colluded with Russians? Where did it all go? Why don’t you mind being LIED TO by your Democrats?
@Deplorable Me, #11:
As Mueller explained, collusion wasn’t actually under consideration. They found insufficient evidence to establish criminal conspiracy. (There was also insufficient evidence found to convict O J Simpson of murder. That doesn’t prevent me from having my own opinion.)
Testimony and evidence collected during the course of Mueller’s investigation is locked down in the DoJ, as it has been since the end of the Mueller investigation. Some may emerge during the course of trials that are coming up soon.
To avoid jail time, Trump will probably have to hang onto both the presidency and a republican majority in the Senate.
@Greg:
Neither is Trump. He OWNED a reality TV show, and was/is a multibillion dollar real estate magnate who financed his own campaign and won the Presidency.
No he won’t…though the GOP is likely to win back the House anyway, keeping the Senate and definitely keeping the Presidency.
That he faces jail time is a little piece of tantrum partisan rhetoric the Left is seeding in the media because they know the Russia hoax has failed. They won’t press for the Clintons or Obama to face charges, with more evidence, on their various offenses…so whining about Trump is just politically-motivated posturing.
@Greg:
I will assume that the use of “you” means President Trump.
Prosecutors do not exonerate. If you think that is a standard practice of prosecutorial law, please provide your source.
As can Obama. Perhaps the Democrats would like to really look in all the scandals of the Obama administration.
Not according to the owner of WikiLeaks. Julian Assange who was adamant that his source was not the Russians.
We hear a lot about Russian troll farms. Yet, in a recent D.C. court, Mueller’s team could not prove that Russian troll farms had anything to do with our elections.
The Russians have been trying to jack with our elections at least since the days of Clinton when he warned Monica Lewinsky that the Russians might be listening in to their phone conversations. Knowing that fact, why didn’t Obama insist on the precautions that would have ended Russian meddling that the Democrats are planting their flag on?
What does that mean?
Misfud lied, according to Mueller, at least three times to the investigators. Why was Misfud not charged with lying, aka General Flynn? When asked why, Mueller gave so incoherent answer.
And which ones of those “people” were convicted with anything that had to do with “collusion” or even with the 2016 election?
Sorry, Greggie Goebbels, but Muller’s testimony to day was, to quote David Axelrod, “very, very painful” on Mueller’s part. And it did nothing to advance the goals of the Democrats.
@Greg:
No one has used the term “criminal conspiracy. No one, that is, except you. And Mueller states in his report that collusion and conspiracy are the same thing.
D@mn, you are such an idiot.
@Greg:
THAT WASN’T THE QUESTION. ALL Democrats were proclaiming as fact that they HAD, at their fingertips, all the evidence needed to PROVE Trump colluded with Russians to win in 2016. WHAT HAPPENED TO IT? The moment Mueller’s report came out, all that mountain of evidence simply dried up and blew away. How is that possible?
But that evidence still exists. It existed at the time, was physical in nature, was tangible and much of it you could put in your hand. It didn’t just suddenly cease to exist like all YOUR evidence. YOUR people said they had it… WHERE DID IT GO? If, of course, it ever actually existed, and if it did NOT ever exist, all your Democrats are goddamn liars who tell lies that harm this nation.
Good luck getting any court to hear such a muddled, convoluted, evidence-free, botched accusation. You just dream your little dreams.