And here it is: The Mueller Report

This post should get you started.

Click the graphic above for the redacted report at the DOJ, or here for a searchable version.

And now, bits and pieces from the Twitterverse:





Is influencing the investigation not obstruction of justice?

MORE MUELLER: "The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the President’s corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law.”

MUELLER credit Comey's version of the "loyalty" pledge dinner. "[S]ubstantial evidence corroborates Comey’s account of the dinner.”

In the section on Trump directing McGahn to fire Mueller, Mueller seems to indicate that the president met all three prongs of obstruction: Taking an obstructive act, intent and nexus to an official proceeding. (p. 88-89 Vol 2)

It's not explained why Mueller made no finding here

And history will be a sad footnote for him.  Unless he cleans up this omission in Congressional testimony.

In the appendix, MUELLER lists *twelve* fully redacted ongoing matters that his investigation spawned that he referred to other prosecutors.

I certainly hope some of them are addressing the Trump crime family.

IN SUM:-Mueller set out not to make a decision on obstruction because he couldn't formally charge and Trump would have no legal recourse to clear his name.

-But he demonstrated multiple episodes in which Trump met the criteria for obstruction. Said Congress is ultimate arbiter.

This section of the report makes clear that concluding the president obstructed justice was never on the table for Mueller, no matter what the facts might have proven in court:

Renato means: Barr lied.

It seems what Mueller is saying is that Trump did indeed obstruct justice, which is a crime, but current rulings and precedents make it impossible for him to charge a sitting president with a crime, so to be fair (to fucking Trump!), he will not make the charge.

I totally disagree with him about leaving Trump no recourse to clear his name if there are charges without a trial.  Trump has Twitter.  A charge would be levied one time.  Trump tweets would go on daily.



To put it mildly.







I think we can see why the investigators on Mueller's team were so unhappy with Barr's memos.

In response to that request, McGahn decided to quit because he did not want to participate in events that he described as akin to the Saturday Night Massacre. He called his lawyer, drove to the White House, packed up his office, prepared to submit a resignation letter with his 2/3

chief of staff, told Preibus that the President had asked him to “do crazy shit,” and informed Preibus and Bannon that he was leaving.” (page 300) 3/3 

Other Hill observations:

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort told his former business partner Richard Gates that it would be stupid to plead guilty because President Trump's counsel was "going to take care of us," according to special counsel Robert Mueller's report.

"Manafort told Gates it was stupid to plead, saying that he had been in touch with the President's personal counsel and repeating that they should 'sit tight' and 'we'll be taken care of.' "

[...]

Gates asked Manfaort during the exchange last year whether pardons were discussed and Manafort told him that the word was not directly used, according to the report released Thursday.

  The Hill

Mobsters are careful in that way.

[Blackwater founder Erik] Prince in 2016 was approached by Barbara Ledeen, an aide to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), and agreed to fund the hiring of a tech expert to verify if the emails were from Clinton's server, which was the subject of a 2016 FBI investigation.

"Ledeen claimed to have obtained a trove of emails (from what she described as the 'dark web') that purported to be the deleted Clinton emails. Ledeen wanted to authenticate the emails and solicited contributions to fund that effort. Erik Prince provided funding to hire a tech advisor to ascertain the authenticity of the emails," reads a section of the Mueller report, which was released Thursday.

[...]

Prince, who advised the Trump campaign throughout 2016, admitted last month to have also been involved in a key meeting at Trump Tower during the campaign. At that meeting, businessman George Nader told top members of the campaign that the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia were interested in supporting President Trump's bid for the White House.

  The Hill

Mueller's report states that "with regard to Cohen's false statements to Congress, while there is evidence ... that the President knew Cohen provided false testimony to Congress about the Trump Tower Moscow project, the evidence available to us does not establish that the President directed or aided Cohen's false testimony."

  The Hill

And he must have been okay with Cohen giving false testimony, because he didn't correct it.

President Trump told special counsel Robert Mueller's investigators on more than 30 occasions that he did not recall, remember or have independent memories of key events throughout the Russia investigation, leading Mueller's team to deem his written responses to questions “inadequate.”

[...]

Trump in the past has boasted about his memory, saying in October 2017 that he has “one of the great memories of all time.”

[...]

The Hill counted 37 instances when Trump said he did not remember events or matters about which he was asked. Mueller also wrote in his report that he found other answers to be “incomplete or imprecise.”

  The Hill

But they didn't subpoena or depose him.

Mueller said he considered issuing a subpoena for Trump to sit for an interview but ultimately decided against it because it would have resulted in a lengthy legal battle.

“We determined that the substantial quantity of information we had obtained from other sources allowed us to draw relevant factual conclusions on intent and credibility,” the special counsel wrote.

[...]

Mueller made it clear he was unhappy with the written question-and-answer, saying Trump’s answers “'demonstrate the inadequacy of the written format, as we have had no opportunity to ask follow-up questions that would ensure complete answers and potentially refresh your client's recollection.'”

And yet.

Mueller’s report, released Thursday, says investigators believed that the offer of political “dirt” on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton could be a violation of a ban on campaign contributions from a foreign government.

That federal statute also applies to “'an express or implied promise to make a [foreign-source] contribution,'" and that the promise of damaging information meant to help Trump could be considered a “'thing of value'” under the ban, Mueller wrote.

And the presence at the meeting of officials like former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, who's now a senior White House adviser, signals that the campaign was hoping to benefit from that information, according to Mueller’s report.

[...]

British publicist Rob Goldstone had reached out to Donald Trump Jr., the president's eldest son, to set up the meeting during the 2016 campaign.

[...]

“Trump Jr. appears to have accepted that offer and to have arranged a meeting to receive those materials,” Mueller wrote in his report. “Documentary evidence in the form of email chains supports the inference that Kushner and Manafort were aware of that purpose and attended the June 9 meeting anticipating the receipt of helpful information to the Campaign from Russian sources.”

However, the special counsel’s office “did not obtain admissible evidence” that could show to legal standards that the campaign officials knew that the action was illegal, according to the report.

Mueller's team also believed it would probably have difficulty proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the value of the promised political dirt would exceed “the threshold for a criminal violation.”

“The investigation has not developed evidence that the participants in the meeting were familiar with the foreign-contribution ban” or the federal law applying to the meeting, and “does not have strong evidence of surreptitious behavior or efforts at concealment at the time of the June 9 meeting,” the report states.

  The Hill

Whatever happened to "ignorance of the law is no defense"?

Mueller concluded in his report that they investigators found "no documentary evidence" that Trump had prior knowledge of the June 2016 meeting.

No documentary evidence. What kind of evidence did they find?

Trump was initially fearful of Mueller’s appointment in 2017 and said it could end his presidency.

“Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I’m f---ed,” Trump said when he was informed by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions of Mueller’s appointment.

“Everyone tells me if you get one of these independent counsels it ruins your presidency. It takes years and years and I won’t be able to do anything. This is the worst thing that ever happened to me.”

[...]

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders admitted she misled the press when she said in May 2017 that she spoke with “countless” FBI agents who had lost faith in former FBI Director James Comey shortly before his firing.

[...]

Sanders later doubled down on the claim when asked how many people she had spoken with, saying “we've heard from countless members of the FBI” who were disappointed in Comey.

Sanders told investigators that her misstatements were a "slip of the tongue” and that the claims were unfounded.

  The Hill

Apparently two slips of the tongue. The lying sow.





She did, Preet.

Former White House counsel Don McGahn refused repeated requests from Trump to ask the Justice Department to fire Mueller and refused subsequent requests to deny media reports about the conversations.

[...]

“Each time he was approached, McGahn responded that he would not refute the press accounts because they were accurate in reporting on the President’s efforts to have the Special Counsel removed,” Mueller’s report states. “McGahn refused and insisted his memory of the President’s direction to remove the Special Counsel was accurate.”

And he was fired for his troubles.

Gen. Michael Flynn, who ultimately became the White House national security adviser, contacted multiple people to obtain 30,000 emails former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton deleted.

Flynn recalled that Trump repeatedly asked individuals affiliated with his campaign to find the documents and that other associates were already searching for them before he began his own hunt.

He even asked Russia on national TV.

[AG Jeff] Sessions, burdened by the pressure of his tense relationship with Trump, carried a resignation letter with him every time he visited the White House for months as he continued to face public and private criticism over his recusal.

That would explain why the resignation letter he did submit had no date on it.

“Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities,” Mueller wrote.

The report noted that Russian officials made several outreaches to individuals associated with the Trump campaign including “business connections, offers of assistance to the Campaign, invitations for candidate Trump and Putin to meet in person, invitations for Campaign officials and representatives of the Russian government to meet, and policy positions seeking improved U.S.-Russian relations.”

But the special counsel found that no action by any campaign official rose to the level of conspiracy as defined by federal law.

John Dean, the former White House counsel for President Nixon, said Thursday that special counsel Robert Mueller's report was "more damning" than the Watergate report.

“I looked on my shelf for the Senate Watergate Committee report, I looked at the Iran Contra report. I also looked at the Ken Starr report,” Dean said on CNN’s “The Lead.”

“In 400 words, this report from the special counsel is more damning than all those reports about a president, this is really a devastating report.”

  The Hill

Notes from Politico articles:

The Senate GOP found itself ensnared in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report Thursday, with new revelations about Sen. Richard Burr's communications with the White House and details about a GOP aide’s quest to obtain Hillary Clinton‘s emails.

[...]

Senate Intelligence Chairman Burr (R-N.C.) [...] apparently supplied the White House counsel's office with information about FBI investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election, according to the report. The report says that on March 9, 2017, then-FBI Director James Comey briefed congressional leaders and intelligence committee heads on the ongoing investigation into Russian interference. That briefing included "an identification of the principal U.S. subjects of the investigation."

Burr then corresponded with the White House a week later about the Russia probes, and the White House counsel's office, led by Don McGahn, "appears to have received information about the status of the FBI investigation," the special counsel report said.

[...]

The Senate Intelligence Committee's ranking member, Mark Warner (D-Va.), did not respond to a request for comment but Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the panel, made an indirect reference to Burr in a statement on Thursday.

"Given evidence from the Mueller report, the committee must take steps to ensure its investigations do not leak to the executive branch," he said.

  Politico

Did Wyden suggest how to do that?

On March 16, 2017, the White House counsel's office was briefed by Burr on "4-5 targets" of the Russia probe, according to notes taken by McGahn's chief of staff, Annie Donaldson.

Those targets were identified as former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn, Trump campaign Chairman Paul Manafort, campaign aide Carter Page and "Greek Guy" George Papadopoulos, who was charged with lying to the FBI, according to Donaldson's notes.

Enough for now.

UPDATE:  Amazon is offering the report as an audiobook free of charge: