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The Mueller report is that rare Washington tell-all that surpasses its pre-publication hype.
Sure, it is a little longer than necessary. Too many footnotes and distracting redactions. The writing is often flat, and the first half of the book drags, covering plenty of terrain that has been described elsewhere. The story shifts abruptly between riveting insider tales and dense legalisms. Its protagonist doesn’t really come alive until halfway through, once Volume I (on Russian interference) gives way to Volume II (on obstruction of justice). The title — far too prosaic, really — feels like a missed opportunity. And it hardly helps that the book’s earliest reviewer, Attorney General William Barr, seems to have willfully misunderstood the point of it; he probably should not have been assigned to review it at all.
Yet as an authoritative account, the Mueller report is the best book by far on the workings of the Trump presidency. It was delivered to the attorney general but is also written for history. The book reveals the president in all his impulsiveness, insecurity and growing disregard for rules and norms; White House aides alternating between deference to the man and defiance of his “crazy s---” requests; and a campaign team too inept to realize, or too reckless to care, when they might have been bending the law. And special counsel Robert Mueller has it all under oath, on the record, along with interviews and contemporaneous notes backing it up. No need for a “Note on Use of Anonymous Sources” disclaimer. Mueller doesn’t just have receipts — he seems to know what almost everyone wanted to buy.
Befitting a best-selling work of political nonfiction — less than 24 hours after the report went online Thursday, paperback versions of it occupied the top two spots in Amazon’s new-release sales ranking — the Mueller report has its miniseries-ready signature moments. There is the obligatory expletive for the ages, when President Trump learns that Mueller has been appointed as special counsel. “This is the end of my presidency,” he moans. “I’m fucked.” There is the embarrassing contradiction from the president’s press secretary, Sarah Sanders, who told reporters that countless FBI employees loved the firing of director James Comey but then admits to investigators that she’d made it up. (Though, in truth, it’s only embarrassing if Sanders maintains any residual capacity for said emotion.) There’s the contrast between the president’s public bluster, evident in his Twitter rants, and his private diffidence, embodied in Trump’s lawyerly written responses to Mueller’s queries, full of “I do not recall” and “I have no recollection.”
And there is the inevitable Nixonian reference, as when White House counsel Don McGahn refuses the president’s request to instruct the deputy attorney general to dismiss Mueller, because McGahn worried about unleashing a new Saturday Night Massacre.
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The Mueller report spans 448 pages over two volumes, and it is tempting to view it as the definitive insider account of the Trump presidency, as most tell-alls purport to be. But it is not. Mueller’s work is done, yes. But how we — and the president — respond to it now will mark the first of several volumes to come.
On Nov. 9, 2016, according to the Mueller report, some redacted figure wrote to a Russian regime crony, “Putin has won.” Based on the assessment of the intelligence community and the findings of Robert Mueller, President Vladimir Putin of Russia did indeed succeed in his efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election on behalf of Donald Trump.
But Mr. Putin’s ultimate victory may have come on Thursday morning, during Attorney General Bill Barr’s news conference. By seamlessly conflating the terms “collusion” and “conspiracy,” and absolving President Trump of both, Mr. Barr revealed that the Russian information warfare technique of “reflexive control” has officially entered American public discourse — and threatens, with his recent allegations of campaign “spying,” to stay there for a while.
Reflexive control is a “uniquely Russian” technique of psychological manipulation through disinformation. The idea is to feed your adversary a set of assumptions that will produce a predictable response: That response, in turn, furthers a goal that advances your interests. By luring your opponent into agreeing with your initial assumptions, you can control the narrative, and ultimate outcome, in your favor. Best of all, the outcome is one in which your adversary has voluntarily acceded. This is exactly what has happened with much of the American public in the course of Mueller’s investigation.
The assumptions that culminated in Mr. Barr’s conclusions began almost two years ago, when the White House, Trump supporters and the media characterized the focus of the special counsel’s investigation as “collusion.” The word “collusion” does not appear anywhere in Mr. https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/967231/download: His mandate was to investigate any “links and/or coordination” between the Trump campaign and Russia. There is a good reason for this: “Collusion” is the legal equivalent of Jell-O. Outside of specific factual contexts — such as price fixing in antitrust law — the word “collusion” has no legal meaning or significance. In fact, in his report, Mr. Mueller explicitly stated that his conclusions were not about collusion, “which is not a specific offense or theory of liability found in the United States code.”
The Trump administration seized on this legal ambiguity early on, with the refrain that “collusion is not a crime.” The standard set here is that anything falling below criminally chargeable behavior is acceptable. When it comes to the presidency, this is not true. The Constitution lays out the procedure for removing an unfit president from office for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”
Over the course of more than 400 scalding pages, the Mueller reportdetails the https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/muellers-report-paints-a-portrait-of-a-campaign-intrigued-by-russian-overtures/2019/04/18/e814fe84-571a-11e9-814f-e2f46684196e_story.html (parallel and often cooperative course) traveled by Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and the sophisticated Russian operation devoted to his victory. Mueller’s report also lays out the myriad ways Trump obstructed justice through his ham-fisted attempts to either take over the investigation or obliterate it entirely.
There is but one conclusion to reach after reading this exhaustively prepared report: Donald Trump must be impeached. There is no more time for vacillation, and no room for doubt.
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“Only a terminal cynic,” wrote Hunter S. Thompson about the Watergate tapes, “can listen for any length of time to the real stuff without feeling a compulsion to do something like drive down to the White House and throw a bag of live rats over the fence.”
That pretty much sums it up from my side of the desk.
There is but one conclusion to be drawn: Trump has committed serial impeachable offenses, Robert Mueller has explained them down to the last molecule, and at long last the time has come for Congress to act and remove him from the office he has disgraced and despoiled.
There are no longer any excuses for inaction or deflection. Until now, the only things that have spared Trump from the consequences of his misconduct are the fact that time and again his staffers deliberately failed to follow his illegal orders, and the fact that Mueller left it to Congress to call what he did obstruction of justice.
That is what the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives must do now, regardless of the Republican status of the Senate. Begin the process, call the hearings, and let the chips fall where they may.
But will they? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has dusted off her “Impeachment is off the table” routine, while Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland) told CNN after the report’s release, “Based on what we have seen to date, going forward on impeachment is not worthwhile at this point.” This craven stance won’t sit well with a number of House Democrats, especially the committee chairs with subpoena power and the scent of blood in their nostrils.
Turn them loose. We are down to brass tacks with this thing, and inaction could very well shatter the Democratic caucus. The solution is not to go tharn and freeze like the rabbits of Watership Down. That’s how you get run over, right on that yellow line in the middle of the road.
Please, read it yourself. Here is a searchable version of the report to assist you in the endeavor. Read it all and then ask yourself: What should come next? What must come next? The answer to that question is as plain as the nose on your face, unredacted and uncompromising. Let the good fight begin.
To sum up, Mueller knows that something is up. But his office “did not make a traditional prosecution decision about these facts” because, for the breadth of the material included in Mueller’s 448-page report, it is still quite conservative in nature. He adheres to the the Office of Legal Counsel memo that prohibits the prosecution of a sitting president, and states as much in the report. In so many words, Mueller refers the matter both to a court of law, for when Trump is no longer president, whenever that is — and to Congress, which has the constitutional power to conduct a trial and impeach him right now.
HUCKASANS’ BFF
https://claytoonz.com/2019/04/20/huckasans-bff/
Those who work as spokespersons in politics refer to what they do as spinning. Technically, it’s propaganda but it can be done where you never lie. The real art of spinning is to not tell the truths that hurt your message. You tell the truths that help your agenda and leave out those that don’t. When those truths are pointed out to you, you find a way to deflect or use your truths to counter those. The best spin doctors never lie. With the exception of the Nixon administration, you will have a hard time finding evidence of a White House spokesperson knowingly telling a lie. Yes, that includes the George W. Bush administration.
That has changed with the Trump administration. With these spinners, it’s hard to find examples of them telling the truth. In fact, on Trumps very first day in office, he sent his spokesperson, Sean Spicer out in an ill-fitting suit to purposely lie to the press. When a president and his staff lie to the press, they’re lying to the American people. Spicer, on Trump’s orders, lied about something petty, insignificant, ridiculous and easily proven to be a lie. He claimed and argued that Trump had the largest inauguration attendance in presidential history. Sean Spicer never recovered and to this day, when you think of him you probably have an image of Melissa McCarthy’s SNL impersonation.
Sean Spicer will never be taken seriously ever again and will forever be seen as a ridiculous human being. Working for Donald Trump has destroyed the credibility of several people in his administration…like all of them. Even his physician has become a laughingstock (Trump could live to be 200). When you lie for a ridiculous human being, you become a ridiculous human being.
Spicer’s replacement, Sarah Huckabee Sanders is a ridiculous human being.
Among the gems in the Mueller Report are the lies Huckabee Sanders admitted to Mueller’s team that she had told as press secretary.
On May 10, 2017, when a reporter pushed back on Sanders’ claim that “The rank and file of the FBI had lost confidence in their director (James Comey),” and quoted an FBI special agent who said “the vast majority of the bureau is in favor of Director Comey,” she said “Look, we’ve heard from countless members of the FBI that say very different things.”
Shocking no one, that was a lie. She just made it up. She told Mueller’s team it was a “slip of the tongue.” I thought a slip of the tongue was when you say something that’s in your brain, but you didn’t want to say, like a secret racist dropping an N-bomb, which Trump will surely do at some point soon. But apparently, in Sander’s case, your tongue slips and bullshit comes out. Usually, when you say something was a “slip of the tongue,” that defense doesn’t help you at all.
After the Mueller Report was released, Sanders went on Good Morning America and lied to cover for her lie. She claimed she made the statement in the heat of the moment, and that it was not “a scripted talking point.” Then, she started spinning. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t a robot like the Democrat Party that went out for two and a half years and repeated time and time again that there was definitely Russian collusion between the president and his campaign.” Her deflection was supposed to somehow put heat on Democrats for her lie. This is Trumpian logic. Democratic Party robots are much more dangerous than lying press secretaries.
If Sanders ever conducts another press briefing (they’ve phased them out), reporters need to grill her about her lie. Any other administration would have fired her for lying. This administration sends her out to lie.
White House correspondent for National Urban Radio, Apil Ryan said Sanders needs to resign. Ryan is the reporter who Trump asked if she could set up a meeting between him and the Congressional Black Caucus, forgetting that’s not a reporter’s job and assuming that all black people know each other. Surprisingly, he didn’t have a “slip of the tongue that day.”
During a panel discussion on CNN about Sander’s lie, Ryan said, “She outright lied and the people, the American people, can’t trust her. They can’t trust what’s said from the president’s mouthpiece, spokesperson, from the people’s house. Therefore, she should be let go. She should be fired. End of story.” With the Trump administration, it’s not the end of story, though it should be.
Ryan summed up with, “When there is a lack of credibility there, you have to start and start lopping the heads off. It’s ‘Fire Me Thursday’ or ‘Fire Me Good Friday.’ She needs to go.” But that’s the thing. To get rid of the liars in this White House, you would have to lop the head off and Trump is the big orange head.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders has as much credibility as Tokyo Rose, Hanoi Hannah, Seoul City Sue, and Baghdad Bob.
I doubt Huckasans will resign or be fired, but she won’t be press secretary forever. Since her career options will be limited in the United States (how many times can her dad run for president?), maybe she can find work outside the country.
The “Pink Lady” who delivers highly emotional propaganda disguised as news for North Korea’s state-run media (imagine the only channel being Fox News) is really old. She has to permanently retire at some point (she retires but keeps coming back). Perhaps Sanders can put on a pink Joseon and sing the praises for a different Dear Leader. And, she won’t have to worry about nosy reporters asking her tough questions after saying stupid like, “Trump is orange because of good genes.” And if they do, she can just feed them to dogs or have them shot with anti-aircraft guns.
Spokesgoons need love too.
https://claytoonz.com/2019/04/20/huckasans-bff/
Those who work as spokespersons in politics refer to what they do as spinning. Technically, it’s propaganda but it can be done where you never lie. The real art of spinning is to not tell the truths that hurt your message. You tell the truths that help your agenda and leave out those that don’t. When those truths are pointed out to you, you find a way to deflect or use your truths to counter those. The best spin doctors never lie. With the exception of the Nixon administration, you will have a hard time finding evidence of a White House spokesperson knowingly telling a lie. Yes, that includes the George W. Bush administration.
That has changed with the Trump administration. With these spinners, it’s hard to find examples of them telling the truth. In fact, on Trumps very first day in office, he sent his spokesperson, Sean Spicer out in an ill-fitting suit to purposely lie to the press. When a president and his staff lie to the press, they’re lying to the American people. Spicer, on Trump’s orders, lied about something petty, insignificant, ridiculous and easily proven to be a lie. He claimed and argued that Trump had the largest inauguration attendance in presidential history. Sean Spicer never recovered and to this day, when you think of him you probably have an image of Melissa McCarthy’s SNL impersonation.
Sean Spicer will never be taken seriously ever again and will forever be seen as a ridiculous human being. Working for Donald Trump has destroyed the credibility of several people in his administration…like all of them. Even his physician has become a laughingstock (Trump could live to be 200). When you lie for a ridiculous human being, you become a ridiculous human being.
Spicer’s replacement, Sarah Huckabee Sanders is a ridiculous human being.
Among the gems in the Mueller Report are the lies Huckabee Sanders admitted to Mueller’s team that she had told as press secretary.
On May 10, 2017, when a reporter pushed back on Sanders’ claim that “The rank and file of the FBI had lost confidence in their director (James Comey),” and quoted an FBI special agent who said “the vast majority of the bureau is in favor of Director Comey,” she said “Look, we’ve heard from countless members of the FBI that say very different things.”
Shocking no one, that was a lie. She just made it up. She told Mueller’s team it was a “slip of the tongue.” I thought a slip of the tongue was when you say something that’s in your brain, but you didn’t want to say, like a secret racist dropping an N-bomb, which Trump will surely do at some point soon. But apparently, in Sander’s case, your tongue slips and bullshit comes out. Usually, when you say something was a “slip of the tongue,” that defense doesn’t help you at all.
After the Mueller Report was released, Sanders went on Good Morning America and lied to cover for her lie. She claimed she made the statement in the heat of the moment, and that it was not “a scripted talking point.” Then, she started spinning. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t a robot like the Democrat Party that went out for two and a half years and repeated time and time again that there was definitely Russian collusion between the president and his campaign.” Her deflection was supposed to somehow put heat on Democrats for her lie. This is Trumpian logic. Democratic Party robots are much more dangerous than lying press secretaries.
If Sanders ever conducts another press briefing (they’ve phased them out), reporters need to grill her about her lie. Any other administration would have fired her for lying. This administration sends her out to lie.
White House correspondent for National Urban Radio, Apil Ryan said Sanders needs to resign. Ryan is the reporter who Trump asked if she could set up a meeting between him and the Congressional Black Caucus, forgetting that’s not a reporter’s job and assuming that all black people know each other. Surprisingly, he didn’t have a “slip of the tongue that day.”
During a panel discussion on CNN about Sander’s lie, Ryan said, “She outright lied and the people, the American people, can’t trust her. They can’t trust what’s said from the president’s mouthpiece, spokesperson, from the people’s house. Therefore, she should be let go. She should be fired. End of story.” With the Trump administration, it’s not the end of story, though it should be.
Ryan summed up with, “When there is a lack of credibility there, you have to start and start lopping the heads off. It’s ‘Fire Me Thursday’ or ‘Fire Me Good Friday.’ She needs to go.” But that’s the thing. To get rid of the liars in this White House, you would have to lop the head off and Trump is the big orange head.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders has as much credibility as Tokyo Rose, Hanoi Hannah, Seoul City Sue, and Baghdad Bob.
I doubt Huckasans will resign or be fired, but she won’t be press secretary forever. Since her career options will be limited in the United States (how many times can her dad run for president?), maybe she can find work outside the country.
The “Pink Lady” who delivers highly emotional propaganda disguised as news for North Korea’s state-run media (imagine the only channel being Fox News) is really old. She has to permanently retire at some point (she retires but keeps coming back). Perhaps Sanders can put on a pink Joseon and sing the praises for a different Dear Leader. And, she won’t have to worry about nosy reporters asking her tough questions after saying stupid like, “Trump is orange because of good genes.” And if they do, she can just feed them to dogs or have them shot with anti-aircraft guns.
Spokesgoons need love too.
