Discussion: WH Lawyer Told Barr That Mueller Should've Reached Obstruction Decision

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“Yet the one thing the SCO was obligated to do is the very thing the SCO — intentionally and unapologetically — refused to do.”

“Yeah, I know! Fuckin’ right?! Mueller should have hung Trump by his balls with the information gathered during the investigation, but nooooooooo, he takes the easy path. Well, that’s all done now and since he didn’t do HIS job I guess we just have to move on. Being the White House Counsel is hard enough without having to do the job of the Special Investigator and the Attorney General! So, about that emoluments bullshit…”

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The Flood letter reeks of a choreographed response, designed to provide back-up for Barr’s intervention.

Flood’s letter is entirely disingenuous – he says that Mueller failed to do the job he was supposed to - “explaining the prosecution or declination decisions reached by the special counsel”

Mueller, however, described at length his decision not to prosecute Trump – primarily because to do so would violate DoJ policy.

So Emmet Flood just goes down as another once-respected lawyer destroyed by Trump.

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I watched it multiple times. Savored it each time too.

Maybe I’ll go watch it again…

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Looks like Mazie made him squirm; keep squirming, low-life Barr. Someone in the WH doesn’t like you, otherwise why is there so much leakage?

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A month ago, his reply would have been “as I made clear in my report, such speculation would be inappropriate under the circumstances”

But thanks to Barr’s nonsense, I think we’ll hear considerably more from Mueller.

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Let’s hope so.

Repeatedly, in many venues.

And then his team can also spread the word.

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This is a fascinating letter. I agree that Mueller should have reached a decision on obstruction, irrespective of the OLC opinion. Doing so would have had added a great deal of clarity to the situation. What’s fascinating about this affair is how so many people continue to pass the buck. No one (other than Barr) has been willing to make a “binary decision.” I’ve no brief for Barr. I think he has disgraced himself. That said, he (and apparently he alone) has been willing to take an unequivocal stand and face the music. I think the Democrats should have launched a formal impeachment investigation on the Monday following the release of the report. Had they done so, they would have seized the narrative and would still be controlling the discourse. Time has always been Trump’s friend. Going after Barr is a waste of time and an egregious misallocation of resources. Instead, the Dems need to focus on Trump and Trump alone. They need to adhere a single set of talking points that are easily digestible. The points should be the 10 most egregious acts depicted in the Mueller report juxtaposed against Trump’s stream of “I don’t recall” responses to the SCO’s question.

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Indeed and I watched it three times yesterday. Cory Booker nearly burst out laughing when he realized Kamala Harris fileted the A.G… It was a thing of beauty. She deserves ten billion tons of respect for being well prepared, and concise with her questions and skillful in the way she dealt with Barr. Amy Klobuchar was not bad either -particularly when she dove into the question of whether POTUS behaves in a manner consistent with the oath of office.

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You’re assuming that there will be a post Trump Presidency?

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Despite their victory claims, the obstruction question seriously interferes with their parade plans.

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I’m guessing he doesn’t mind otherwise he wouldn’t have taken this job in the first place. He had to know this was going to happen, just like Barr.

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Sounds to me as if Mueller did exactly the right thing. The Republicans did not get a cake walk out of this.

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Au contraire, they understand completely. But they know their base don’t understand, and that’s the only audience they care about.

None of them worry about looking like fools; they only worry about firing by tweet. Which is what would happen if they told the truth.

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  1. he wasn’t going to do that for obvious reasons.

  2. doing so isn’t a guarantee that it would have stirred the speaker to start up proceedings.

  3. the overreach front would have been born.

  4. the WH would have ammo

  5. all roads still lead to two important paths: Mitch n the voters.

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Mueller refused to make a call on obstruction because he wasn’t able to satisfy the legal standard, but he doesn’t think the legal standard is the only or most important standard when it’s the POTUS.

The standard for conviction in a criminal trial is “beyond a reasonable doubt,” often quantified as “98%.” The standard for an indictment is “a preponderance of the evidence,” or “51%.” Given the now-famous OLC opinion, to indict the POTUS, Mueller probably needed to reach 110%: incontrovertible proof on multiple counts.

Mueller wasn’t able to uncover enough evidence to reach the 98% standard. Instead, he probably made it to 85%. A big part of the reason he couldn’t get further is that many of Trump’s confederates stonewalled the investigation by claiming to have forgotten everything. It’s not credible when every person who attends a meeting claims to have forgotten the entire thing: they’re all lying, which is evidence of consciousness of guilt, which is strongly suggestive of a crime.

So, experienced prosecutor that he is, Mueller looks at the missing 15% of evidence and recognizes that it’s missing because Trump is a regular mob boss, and he and his confederates have been following regular mob SOP: do all the crimes, but avoid making any explicit statements, giving any overt orders, etc. The 15% that’s missing is not proof of innocence, it’s the hallmark of organized crime.

Barr and Trump, and now Flood, want to force Mueller to apply the regular justice system rules, which require rounding 85% down to 0% and a clean bill of health. Regardless of what he can prove, Mueller is probably certain that Trump is guilty of many serious crimes, and that Trump & co are desperate for Mueller to play ball and follow through with the standard “rounding error.” Mueller doesn’t want to see Trump get away using the same cheap tactic that vanilla gangsters rely on every day.

This is why Mueller refused to make a “traditional prosecutorial decision.” He can’t satisfy the legal standard, but he knows the POTUS can be tried by a political process that is not bound by those stringent rules – and rightly so. Everything Barr has done since he took office has been an effort to rush us into that rounding error. Trump has acted on the presumption that the rounding error would carry the day, the way it does in run-of-the-mill criminal cases. Now Flood is in on it, too.

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They will continue to do so, however, until he speaks.

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True. Pushed to its procedural end Trump would be tried by a jury of 100. And only need 34 of them to vote to acquit. 34 would be an exceedingly easy number of jurors to corral.

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FOAD you little toad. You refuse to do YOUR job and blame Mueller for not letting you off the hook. The party of ‘personal responsibility’ rides again.

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But if he were a doormat . . .

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