Discussion: Comey Calls Mueller’s Obstruction Punt ‘Really Confusing’

I’ll leave my opinion of Comey aside from what he did on Oct, 2016…

But the answer to the confusion any observer would feel is that Trump’s hand-picked A.G. buried the Mueller Report.

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just can’t tell from the letter why didn’t he decide these questions
when the entire rationale for a special counsel is to make sure the
politicals aren’t making the key charging decisions.

Because in the end Mueller thinks that this kind of issues are really supposed to be decided by politicians? There seems to be multitude of financial crimes he has committed (and were at least mostly outside the scope of this investigation), but the remedy for obstructing justice by abusing the otherwise legal powers the office of POTUS has, is impeachment. Mueller isn’t supposed to give recommendation on that, but the republican enthusiasm to publish the report gives a the hint of the likely content.

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Anyone definitively weighing in on the Mueller report as exculpatory without having seen it and basing their views solely on the Barr summary letter is either a shill or an idiot, and if the latter for multiple reasons, not least of which are that one, Barr is an obvious fixer who should not be trusted whatsoever, and two, you don’t base your views on a hundreds or thousands of pages long report produced by a nearly 2 year probe (longer if you include the work done prior to Mueller’s hiring that he rolled into his probe) on a 4 page summary put out by said fixer. Comey’s not doing this, of course, but basically every Trumpie is, which was to be expected and precisely why Barr’s summary was structured as it was.

An aside, and this is a bit of an obsession with me, but shame on Glenn Greenwald for being among these. He may not be a “Trumpie” in the true and full sense of the word, but he was among those who breathlessly claimed that the Barr summery proved that there was no collusion and all that. And he’s a lawyer and journalist ferchrisakes. That’s facially professional malpractice. WTF happened to him? Seriously, it’s one of the more bizarre things to happen since Trump fake “won”. How’d they get to him? Or is it payback for what Obama did to him, David Miranda, Edward Snowden et al? Is that how they got to him? He’s basically a shill now.

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First, I’d like to give Jeet a pat on the back for filling in for Josh so ably.

Second, I’d like to use his piece today in my response to this Comey bafflement story. Jeet says

while we should still push for the release of the Mueller Report, we should also realize we’re entering a post-Mueller world. It’s a war of attrition and there are other fronts to attend to.

I agree with this, in broad terms, but as we attend to other fronts we have to stop and think for a moment about what it would mean if we “moved on” and treated the Mueller report, and more importantly its misrepresentation and nondisclosure by Barr, as a minor matter. It would mean that the President, by firing Comey and installing Barr, has successfully halted and buried the gravest investigation into presidential criminality and abuse of power that anyone can remember. Watergate and Iran-Contra are chickenfeed compared to Trump-Russia and Trump-FBI. And if Barr succeeds in not disclosing the report and the so-called derogatory information it contains, it will mean the end of poiltical and criminal accountability for the president. We will essentially have a president who is above the rule of law. So it’s a huge call to say, in effect, let’s move on.

It’s also naive–and I’m not looking at Jeet here at all–to think that you can merrily carry on with policy arguments about healthcare, climate change etc in the belief that the 2020 elections will be like every other. If in addition to escaping criminal liability by politicizing the DOJ, Trump buries the Mueller report and escapes congressional oversight and public scrutiny–another unthinkable departure from all previous norms–what greater encouragement could he receive for fucking with the 2020 elections? He will understand that he can basically do anything he want.

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As for that, my view has long been that while Comey actually wrote and sent that letter, he was forced to by rogue pro-Trump hacks in the NYPD, FBI & SDNY, who were about to leak the “newly discovered” Clinton emails on Weiner’s laptop. One way or another that was going to come out whether from Comey or others. I don’t think he intended to throw the election so much as he was a weak and foolish FBI director who was in way over his head and didn’t know what was going on in his agency.

And yes, obviously, Barr is trying to bury the actual report, or frame it in such a way that if and when it does come out, it won’t matter anymore. Anyone who doesn’t get that is an idiot whose opinion isn’t fit to wrap a dead fish with (and yes that was directed at the establishment media).

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The most important passage I will probably read today.

I don’t know much about Jeet Heer, but what he wrote incensed me. We must get that Report. The brazen manner in which Barr took out Mueller is breathtaking.

If we allow Trump and Barr to get people to say “Post Mueller” or “let’s move on” we will have been defeated far far FAR more soundly than on Nov. 2016

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It’s not all that confusing to me. I think that Mueller, the great war hero, is a political coward and is far too willing to give powerful men a break. And if he actually didn’t mean for Barr to make the call on obstruction then he should speak up now. Is he incapable of speaking in public, even when the future of the country is at stake? Why should we have to wait for the possible (partial) release of his report to know what he intended in it—as if he is some dead author and all we have is his text?

I hope to be proven wrong on this but I’m beginning to conclude that Mueller has no more integrity than any other Republican. It seems that Comey is the best of them, and God knows he is a flawed character.

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Before Comey was fired, he was a political pariah. He was widely viewed as the guy who caused Hillary’s loss.
Trump firing him worked out great for him. The book he had in the works received a lot of publicity and he was viewed as the liberals hope in damaging Trump in an obstruction case. Some even thought his testimony would bring Trump down.
He really had nothing significantly damaging at the end of the day.
It made for great political theater though. I’m sure it helped his book sales somewhat.
Myself, If his book was given to me, I’d throw it the trash.

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So if one is successful in obstructing one’s crime, one can’t be charged for the obstruction.

Why wouldn’t a criminal obstruct?

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I am not going to argue with you on that. But what I will say is that what Barr did was multi-tasking.

  • He protected Trump

  • He buried the Report

  • He slandered (the by-the-book) Mueller

There are no words to describe Barr’s treason. And that fat Panda Bear did it with the help of Presenters on Cable “News” spreading Barr’s lies.

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you are the reason we are here comey

see if I got this republican long con right

Repube FBI director twice interferes with Dem candidate’s run for president, the last one being a coup de gras and finishing the job, getting his party’s leader elected, not once did same repube director mention russian interference or coordination with repube campaign, for the election’s integrity right? but comey is supposedly a good guy

repube deputy ag put lifelong repube in charge of investigation into conspiracy, except for career criminals and minor players, all others walk, but supposedly mueller is of the highest integrity so his conclusions are gold

repubes all over claim bias against repubes by all repubes involved the entire time, and besides, the losing side were the conspirators

yet they all walked, and got the presidency, pretty convenient, if you are a repube

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Jeet has been the best substitute Josh, ever!

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I mean, yes, but we should be having those fights anyway. Anger over Trump’s malfeasance will get Dems some percentage, but short of a win. Dems have to simultaneously keep the heat on Trump through the House, without it being their single issue. Healthcare especially will drive the nail in the coffin for Trump 2020 if Dems play it in line with 2018 and Trump keeps on with his unforced errors like the DOJ did this week.

I think we carry on with policy arguments, but there’s nothing merry about it. Until Jan 2021.

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While Jeet Heer, even as quoted by @nemo, says:

while we should still push for the release of the Mueller Report

So perhaps it’s a matter of emphasis?

In any case, for now I wouldn’t just assume that “the Report” tells “Everything.” Remember the billions of pixels spent telling us how every last figure in Trump’s circle was going to jail. Some people even wrote entire articles about the obvious and large culpability of Hope Hicks and the dire fate in store for her. Remember all the tales of valor and nicknames? Those who indulged may still not feel embarrassed, but one hopes they do not go there again.

We may or may not see a magic bullet report. Keep expectations low; be pleasantly surprised when they are exceeded.

(In fact, it’s not a bad rule for many things in life!)

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If the FBI really had an active investigation into Trump and Russia, firing Comey should not have ended that investigation.
I’ve read a bit about the FBI and CIA and that’s not how investigations work as I understand it. Their investigation would generally continue even if the head of the FBI was fired.
If not Barr, it would be Whitaker or some other hack in the Justice department… I’m afraid that the Mueller report is not going to damage Trump all that much. My nightmare is at the end of the day when it’s released, Trump will remain unscathed and he’ll demonize the Democrats for their witch hunt.

Yes. Irony is dead. Hypocrisy is dead.

Mueller’s apparent decision to punt the question of obstruction to Congress is consistent with what happened in the Clinton/Nixon impeachment matters. It is a legally defensible approach that is consistent with precedent. I do agree with folks like Preet Bharara that it does look like an abdication of responsibility by Mueller. I do not get why he couldn’t have done what the Israeli investigators did which was to make a recommendation to the public prosecutor on Netanyahu and then have that confirmed, but that’s an academic matter.

The real issue here is the clear and ongoing obstruction of justice by AG Barr. He has no role or right to weigh in here. He’s a handpicked political appointee of the subject of an investigation. This was a criminal investigation of the sitting POTUS. The only people who can opine and prove a formal recommendation is the Special Prosecutor, a prosecutor appointed by Congress or a Grand Juries appointed by such prosecutors. For a sitting President, our present laws say that only Congress has the right to weigh in and decide guilt or innocence for the purposes of impeachment.

I urge all folks to call the House Judiciary Committee and your MoCs and demand that subpoenas be issued for the full Mueller Report. It would also be worthwhile to mention that Barr is obstructing justice and is acting illegally to prevent Congress from fulfilling its constitutional role.

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I think Martha Stewart would take issue with Barr’s obstruction definition since she went to jail for obstruction even though the original crime was dismissed.

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Irony, maybe. But hypocrisy?!

I don’t think anyone has enough information to make a judgment like that.

My experience has been that when things don’t seem to make sense, and when many lawyers are scratching their heads saying “this doesn’t make sense,” it usually means you lack critical information and things are not as they seem. And when you encounter those “this doesn’t make sense” moments, it’s important not to get locked up on a hypothesis that you treat like a theory because it will lead you down blind alleys looking for confirmation and make you resistant to the truth when it’s finally in your face.

This is a thing I learned the hard way and only by repeatedly having to have older, wiser lawyers slap my pet theory out of my head after the truth revealed itself. In the absence of sufficient facts, it’s useful to have hypotheses. It’s a bad idea to treat them like theories.

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