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BY BRIAN BEUTLER & CROOKED MEDIA Monday, March 25, 2019 |
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| —Michael Avenatti, before getting arrested for extorting Nike |
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| LOW BARR |
| Special Counsel Robert Mueller ended his investigation without charging any of President Trump’s associates for conspiring with Russia to subvert the 2016 election, and the Justice Department won’t charge the President with obstruction of justice. But Trump’s predictable claims of vindication are premature and dishonest, and should not be interpreted to reflect Mueller’s full report, which Trump is doing nothing to release.
The only information we have about what’s in the report comes from a four-page summary written by William Barr, Trump’s hand-picked attorney general. At first glance, Barr’s letter gives the impression that Trump’s “no collusion, no obstruction” mantra has been vindicated, but a closer reading reveals a more complicated picture.
On the question of collusion, Barr notes Mueller found no evidence that anyone associated with the Trump campaign participated in Russian disinformation and hacking operations designed to help Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton. But he’s silent on what Mueller’s report says about sanctions relief, Trump Tower Moscow, and other issues the Trump campaign and Russian agents discussed during the election, while the election attack was ongoing. He included nothing about whether Mueller considered charging certain Americans for engaging in a conspiracy of their own for encouraging the attack with promises of policy spoils, and only notes in passing that Trump associates received “multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the campaign.” They could have committed treason and they didn’t most of the time! So brave!
On the question of obstruction, Barr simply asserts that he’s concluded Trump shouldn’t be charged. But Mueller didn’t conclude that! To the contrary, he wrote “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,” and details obstructive conduct “most of which have been the subject of public reporting.” In other words, there are things Trump did to obstruct the investigation that we still don’t know. Because DOJ rules prohibit prosecutors from indicting sitting presidents, Mueller reportedly intended for Congress to make a final determination about whether Trump broke the law. But Barr inserted himself before Congress had a chance.
We won’t know what Mueller truly found until his report becomes public, or he testifies about its contents. Trump, who happily ordered DOJ to release sensitive material when he was trying to derail the Mueller investigation, has taken no steps to make sure the supposedly exonerating report becomes public. Barr, who will testify on Capitol Hill no later than April 9, still insists that DOJ will seek to withhold portions of the report and underlying investigative materials. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked a vote on a resolution calling for the Mueller report to be made public. Democrats need to do everything in their power to make sure it’s released, and we should all interpret the reflexive lack of transparency as an indication that the report is more damning than Barr and Trump have let on.
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| President Trump signed a proclamation recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights—an action that further erodes whatever’s left of U.S. credibility as a potential broker of Middle East peace, but might help Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu keep his job. Netanyahu was on hand at the White House for the signing, and was slated to address this week’s AIPAC’s summit, but returned home on short notice after a rocket launched from the Gaza strip struck a home in central Israel. |
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| Stormy Daniels’s former lawyer Michael Avenatti has been arrested for trying to extort $20 million from Nike, and faces separate federal charges for embezzling clients’ money and defrauding a bank with fake tax returns. Basta luego, dude! You've been...Avenaughty boy! (Editor's Note: We live in hell.)
The FBI is prepared to brief top congressional leaders about the counterintelligence findings of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, including whether Trump is or was compromised by foreign powers, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has told her members she will view any DOJ request to brief the report in a classified setting as an effort to shield it from public release, and will reject it. Tl;dr: Pelosi was like get outta here with that weak shit.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has scheduled a vote on the Green New Deal resolution for Tuesday. Most Democrats intend to vote “present.”
The father of a victim of the Sandy Hook massacre has taken his own life, as have two survivors of the Parkland massacre. Mass shootings cause death and injury in real time, but they also leave survivors and family members traumatized.
Charlottesville High School’s black student union organized a walkout, and issued a list of demands aimed at fighting racism, after the district closed its schools last week in response to a credible threat of white nationalist terrorism.
A metric fuckton of people marched in London to protest Brexit. Seriously check out all these people!
Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) won’t seek re-election in 2020. Udall is famous for being the only Democratic Senator not running for President.
Yale University has rescinded its admission of a student whose parents bribed her way into the school. This is the first reported instance of a college embroiled in the nationwide school-admission scandal taking action against a student who benefitted from bribery and fraud. |
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| President Trump is obsessed with cutting off as much federal aid to Puerto Rico as possible, and had to be forced to agree to reauthorize its food-stamp spending, which Congress allowed to lapse temporarily earlier this month. According to the Washington Post, “Trump has...privately signaled he will not approve any additional help for Puerto Rico beyond the food-stamp money, setting up a congressional showdown with Democrats who have pushed for more expansive help for the island. A senior administration official with direct knowledge of the meeting described Trump’s stance: ‘He doesn’t want another single dollar going to the island.’”
Shorter Republicans: Taxation without representation is good for minorities and Democrats.
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| “I’m kind of new to this game, frankly, so I’m going to be on a steep learning curve myself about how the Fed operates, how the Federal Reserve makes its decisions.” -notorious Republican hack Stephen Moore, President Trump's Federal Reserve Board nominee and (if he fails to be confirmed) probably Trump’s next Supreme Court nominee |
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