“… Trump stated on more than 30 occasions that he did not “recall” or “remember”…”
Dementia or lying, take your pick, me, I’m going with lying.
Trump: I have “one of the great memories of all-time”.
Trump when responding under oath: I do not recall.
Mueller’s team negotiated with Trump lawyers for months to try to land an in-person interview with the President on an agreed upon set of topics.
So Trump’s lawyers also obstructed the investigation. Good to know.
Barr: “The White House fully cooperated…"
vs.
Mueller: “The President would not be interviewed voluntarily…”
Barr just told a big, fat, public lie.
They all do, they all don’t care, unless they are under oath then they will try to use less direct lies.
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team was not pleased with the written interview that President Trump gave in response to their questions, but elected not to subpoena him to avoid drawing out the investigation.
WTF? It’s only the rule of law that’s at stake. With a side order of national security. They’ve carved their niche in history.
I know Mueller was working under a lot of pressure and with an openly hostile president and, at the time, an openly hostile, GOP controlled house and senate. I appreciate that.
But Jesus, Bob!
Funny, Melania considers Donnie inadequate, too, and also opts not to…
More like lawyering… That has Sekulow written all over it…
Republicans stick together.
Trump could have stood in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shot somebody, and Mueller® would say he couldn’t decide if Trump did it or not.
“If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not shoot somebody, we would so state.”
Your move, Nancy.
Don Junior broke the law but we’re not sure he was aware of the law so we let him go, and Donald Trump’s take-home written testimony was inconclusive but oh you know, actually bringing him in for questioning would take so long, so we let that slide also.
Imagine any of this in real life rather than the Republican Boy’s Club of Washington.
Looks like Burr was a backchannel to Trump. Devin Nunes’ smarter brother.
ETA
In Mueller’s defense, if he’s reading his remit closely (which everyone seems to agree he was) it ultimately didn’t matter because he was never going to recommend charging him with OOJ. In light of that, why go through the process and potentially end up with a shit opinion from a stacked SCOTUS?
“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, we are often inferred from circumstantial evidence and assessed without direct testimony from the subject of the investigation.”
Rick Hasen over at Slate covers this, e.g., but I would wish to highlight not calling Don Jr. for questioning since he didn’t want to voluntarily do so. Shoddy and would not be surprised if it was done to prevent retaliation of some sort.
I wish I could believe that these revelations would set up a fire storm of indignation and protest, but they probably won’t. Interest rates are still pretty low.
Just heard a former FBI investigator explain why Mueller deciding not to subpoena Trump to testify in person will turn out to be the most significant mistake of this investigation. She said that all future Presidents will cite this instance as a reason why they do not have to testify - virtually destroying the ability of our justice system to hold prominent individuals accountable. It was a powerful and sad statement.
Though it would be interesting to read Kavanaugh’s opinion, I theek that it would have been worth it to at least try.
see my comment above. . . . not insisting that Trump testify has huge implications.