Mueller report thread - Mueller testimony July 24

[Person Man]

If this is another thing like Benghazi or whatever then Maybe the report just says that Trump was “extremely reckless” and that’s it. If that’s the case, he becomes a generic Republican when nothing is going on and with a divided government, he becomes popular. Like low to mid 50s popular. If this report is simply very deferential to Congress, it’s basically up to them about what happens next.

[Person Man]

Whats with the idea that Trump is suddenly going to become uber-popular now that the Muller Report may not yield an indictment? His approval has been extremely static for most of his presidency, people are baked in at this point to hate the guy or love the guy. The idea that Trump will become popular is ridiculous.

Maybe not Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton popular. I can see him going from being between considerable and mildly unpopular to being simply controversial the way Obama was between 2010 and 2015. With those kind of numbers, he probably wins in a way that is a mix of 2004 and 2012. He probably nearly wins the popular vote but probably loses Michigan and Pennsylvania but wins New Hampshire and Wisconsin. That will most likely be because of some blue-collar people “coming home” but is offset by modesty  well to do and educated coming home, too. Also, a third party spoiler might not be there. So in total, I see him basically doing slightly worse than Bush in 2004 but it will pretty much seal it when he wins Florida and Arizona  by 3 and  Iowa, Georgia and Ohio by 6. He might win Texas by 10 and only lose Colorado and Virginia by 2 or 3. It will be more like an anti1976, really. He probably gets to 55 senators and maybe like 210 in the house.

This is all assuming that the report is as benign as it currently seems and We never figure out why everybody keeps on living off of loans and there’s  virtually no inflation.

[Person Man]

To be honest, I was actually pretty relieved that some dictator 7000 miles away didn’t have some sort of power and our democratic republic. Not only might that still be the case, but it appears that those of us who are involved in it were too stupid to realize it when they should have known (So “I didn’t mean to” or “I didn’t know” are not excuses) and also that those charged with ultimately making decisions based on the investigation are covering it up. At this point, I am really happy that I’m not serving in the armed service, the unarmed service, or the civil service. At this point, it could turn out that every order or every action given by the federal government since January 19 of 2017 might have been illegal. This Russia thing is still as or at least as big and pertinent a concern for Democrats as the birth certificate issue was for Republicans.

[Person Man]

WaPo is saying that Mueller wrote his own summary for the public that Barr threw out

Is that impeachable right there?

[Person Man]

"Mueller was given the opportunity to review the March 24 letter and "declined."
https://twitter.com/NatashaBertrand/status/1115614113118412805
The Great Cover-Up of the Collusion!

Hearsay much?

[Person Man]

https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1115625419460546561

There is no legitimate reason to withold the full report from the House Judiciary Committee.


Trump needs to fire Barr immediately and order his replacement to hand over the entire report. Failure to do so can and should be considered proof of his guilt of high crimes, including conspiracy against the United States, under the principle of spoliation of evidence.

Spoliation of evidence is the intentional, reckless, or negligent withholding, hiding, altering, fabricating, or destroying of evidence relevant to a legal proceeding. Spoliation has three possible consequences: in jurisdictions where the (intentional) act is criminal by statute, it may result in fines and incarceration (if convicted in a separate criminal proceeding) for the parties who engaged in the spoliation; in jurisdictions where relevant case law precedent has been established, proceedings possibly altered by spoliation may be interpreted under a spoliation inference, or by other corrective measures, depending on the jurisdiction; in some jurisdictions the act of spoliation can itself be an actionable tort.

The spoliation inference is a negative evidentiary inference that a finder of fact can draw from a party's destruction of a document or thing that is relevant to an ongoing or reasonably foreseeable civil or criminal proceeding: the finder of fact can review all evidence uncovered in as strong a light as possible against the spoliator and in favor of the opposing party.

So if there was an unreasonable amount of redaction, that would be grounds in and of itself to start impeachment proceedings.

[Person Man]

Donny half scoop was spared a conspiracy charge because Mueller decided he was too stupid to know what he was doing was potentially illegal. 

Any evidence that he was truly that stupid, as opposed to being so foolish and Reckless that he would do it anyway, it's thin. And yet Republicans overwhelmingly support him despite this toxic combination criminal behavior and rank idiocy. Good show guys!

Pretty much the same issue with W but worse. He was unable or unwilling to do the job properly yet the voters elected him and kept electing him and his henchmen in Congress and at the local level. Needless to say, the consequences were profound and pervasive.

[Person Man]

https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1118928520389046277

I'm wary of any impeachment proceedings as a waste of time.
But after this report there may be no other choice.

I would just go ahead with the impeachment, have the senate acquit him, tell the people we did our part, blame the GOP for aiding and abetting foreign corruption, and move on. If you don’t impeach at this point, it’s sanitizing these actions.

[Person Man]

I mean, you wrote "nobody actually obstructed justice" in #4.

Obstruction would have to be with the investigators or someone at Justice.  You would actually have to interfere with the investigation.  Trump's aides did not carry that order, and Trump did not push them.

Wrong.   Success doesn't matter, intention is what matters in court of law.

There’s a bunch of lonely guys on the wrong side of town that want that to be true.

[Person Man]

Obviously you guys don't know who JJ is.

[Person Man]

I see J.J. is bringing his usual gold standard of analysis.

He can be vaguely right sometimes.  The quintessential JJism is predicting an Obama presidency would be followed by him losing reelection and being replaced by W-style Republicans in both elected branches and houses. Eventually we got a hard right regime but it took until 2016 and was based on ethnic than religious nationalism and was also a one Congress wonder.

[Person Man]

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/442199-trump-says-mueller-shouldnt-testify

Trump says Mueller shouldn't testify.

Considered what he said when Mueller was appointed, he's most certainly terrified of what Mueller will say.

Gee, if Trump thinks Mueller's report exonerates him, why wouldn't he want Mueller to testify.

If I had one question to ask Mueller: "If Donald Trump was not the sitting President, would you have indicted him for obstruction of justice?"

Or better yet- had he not become president, would you have recommended any charges which the maximum penalty is more than one year in prison?

[Person Man]

So the entire jist of what happen was:

1) The Russian Government saw in the Trump campaign a potential government for multiple reasons, they would prefer over other viable alternatives

2) They started an espionage campaign to help him win again his rivals

3) The Trump campaign (and Trump himself) knew about the espionage campaign and asked to participate. Those in charge of the espionage campaign refused on the grounds they "would just get in the way" and when other individuals somehow related to the espionage campaigned offered to help, the Trump campaign interviewed them but decided that they would "just get in the way". So the Trump campaign repeatedly try to conspire with the Russian Government's espionage campaign but failed to do so.

4) When under investigation, Trump himself repeatedly tried to cover up his attempted conspiracy with the espionage campaign he incidentally benefited but was unsuccessful in trying to cover up the attempted conspiracy by employees who refused to cooperate.

We already know this but its good to know what this all really means and this hearing the confirms this suspicion-

Trump should be impeached and eventually charged for his attempt to cover up his attempt to conspire with a foreign government's espionage campaign to commit election fraud.