We only know what Barr told us…Trump’s handpicked AG.
Where is Archibold Cox when you need him? Cox single handedly defended the US against Nixon’s cover up.
The scuttle bud is that Mueller was intending to subpoena Trump Jr., Kushner, and Ivanka 4 weeks ago and was meeting with Barr to discuss them. At that meeting Barr opposed the subpoenas and instead directed Mueller to shut it down and write his report based on what he had already discovered.
Mueller was NOT finished…Barr shut him down prematurely - PERIOD! Mueller never would have left the Roger Stone case before completing that prosecution as one example of proof that Barr did the dirty deed for Trump.
Barr will be forced to resign and may end up in prison himself…he failed to read the Nixon papers!
Mueller won’t make public statements. He will wait until called before the Congress, and most likely it will be a closed-door session because of the sensitivity of some of the material. He will tell the truth. It will filter out.
Let Mueller testify under oath later. Barr will have to concoct his version of events knowing Mueller is following in behind him, under oath. Could possibly be a motivator to be truthful in what he puts on record, fearing Mueller would dispute his version, or even lay out facts proving Barr lied.
He won’t need to be a reluctant witness. He will testify where called to testify. He will tell the truth. It will initially happen in a closed-door session, I wager. If Barr has overstepped, or if Mueller intended for others with the ability to indict the president (i.e. the House Judiciary Committee) to make that decision about whether the evidence rises to the level of criminal activity, it will come out.
I’m afraid I’m going to have to offer the gloomy take here.
What we’ve learned, in substance, is that there are robust grand jury proceedings in relation to matters that have no bearing on conspiracy with Russians involving Trump and his campaign (ie Trump Jr, Kushner). Those investigations have been concluded and involve no undisclosed indictments or further indictments Mueller has recommended (per Barr). So presumably what’s left is the timeless business of letting the bosses walk while going after (at best) toxic underlings like Corsi and Page and some foreign corporate/state entity that nobody gives a crap about. It’s the oldest impunity structure in the book.
Oh and Mueller is not going to sink Barr when he gives evidence to Congress. Not a chance in hell. Barr is no fool. He will have dealt with his old personal buddy Mueller in ostensible accordance with the DOJ rules, and Mueller will not question Barr’s motives.
I think that Barr and others are hoping the longer the Mueller report is never seen by congress, his summary letter will morph into the report. You can already see this happening, the article stating “Mueller said…”
It is a dangerous progression.
Consider that both Jaworski and Starr had written up detailed arguments to press for indicting a sitting President, despite the DoJ guidance to the contrary. Indeed, we now know that Jaworski was fully prepared to do exactly that before Nixon resigned.
It increasingly looks like to me, that Mueller was only focused on the question of Russian interference…that question of Trump campaign involvement was secondary. He issued indictments against Russians, rolled up a few people like Manafort for refusing to cooperate on that question, and then closed shop. He answered the question…yes, they interfered.
This perspective is backed up by his not pushing harder for an interview with Trump, and instead just accepting a written response from Trump’s lawyers. Trump was never his target. Did he trip over a whole lot of crap that is incriminating to Trump and his campaign? Almost certainly…but it was ancillary to the only question he was considering.
If one is only looking fro the quid in a quid pro quo, one will never discover conspiracy.
I don’t believe Mueller’s mandate was so broad. The gist of it was any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of Donald Trump… with the important predicate that the subject of the investigation was Russian interference with the 2016 Presidential election.
Based on what we know from Barr’s letter, this was construed to address two specific lines of inquiry: Russian influence operations and computer hacking / data theft. To me, that’s not ‘narrowly focused’, but rather the plain reading of Mueller’s mandate.
Another clause in the SC’s authorization letter allowed investigation into any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation. We don’t know if or what evidence Mueller may have found involving subjects like kompromat, financial crimes by Trump or maybe a quid pro quo with the Russians of sanctions relief for a development deal. Maybe the trail of evidence was never clear enough for Mueller to pick up those threads. Maybe he found something and referred it to one of the USA’s offices. Hewing back to the SC’s mandate: it was election interference, not kompromat or financial crimes, so we can’t be surprised that Mueller didn’t run with something that followed one of those trails.
Barr looks like a guy who likes to have and eat cake…
He gets to write his letter which gets boffo press and that Trump gets to wave at the gullible media, and then gets to say he can’t release anything because it’s still ongoing. (So about that letter, then?)
