BY BRIAN BEUTLER, PRIYANKA ARIBINDI

& CROOKED MEDIA

Tuesday, April 9, 2019

—Attorney General/transparency hero Bill Barr on the possibility the Mueller report might leak

DOES ⬛️⬛️⬛️ EXONERATE

Get ready to read a version of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report that has been selectively redacted to conceal Mueller’s most damning findings, or, worse, selectively edited to make the report read as exculpatory, even though we know Mueller explicitly did “not exonerate” President Trump.

At a House hearing to review the Justice Department’s budget Tuesday, Attorney General William Barr promised to publish a redacted version of the report within a week but made clear that his promise to be as transparent as possible with the report, which he made during his confirmation hearing earlier this year, was a lie.

• Barr confirmed that he does not intend to share an unredacted version of the report with House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, who has insisted upon seeing the full report, and has been authorized to subpoena it in full.

• Tellingly, though Barr is empowered to ask the court to release evidence and testimony from Mueller’s grand jury proceedings, which are typically secret by law, he reluctantly admitted his "intention is not to ask" for an exception.

• Barr refused to say whether DOJ has provided the Mueller report to the White House, or whether the White House will have influence over what he ends up redacting.

• On the other hand, Barr does intend to review the origins of the Russia investigation, which have already been reviewed to death, but will fan the conspiracy theory that the deep state launched it to destroy Trump’s candidacy or presidency. It’s crazy what those illuminati libs come up at their pedophile pizza parties!

This is not the testimony of someone who is likely to produce a version of the report that has been redacted in good faith and accurately conveys the thrust of Mueller’s findings. It’s the testimony of someone who intends to transmit a whitewashed or misleadingly-edited version of the report, then fight House Democrats in court to try to keep them from ever getting to look under the redactions.

Barr’s made clear repeatedly that he doesn’t intend to play nice with Nadler, which means we can probably expect a lengthy court fight before we finally learn what Barr’s trying to hide, assuming Nadler pulls the trigger on his subpoena power, which he’s so far been reluctant to do. In advertising his intention to steamroll Congress, Barr said it would be “unfortunate” if the full report were to leak, but at this point that’s probably our best hope for learning what Mueller uncovered in a reasonable timeframe.

Little known fact: The IRS has the information required to automatically prepare tax returns for most Americans, but thanks to a provision in the maddeningly-entitled “Taxpayer First Act,” it may never be allowed to do that.

The bill, which passed the House overwhelmingly today over progressive objections, would permanently ban the IRS from creating free software Americans could use to file their taxes online—a response to relentless lobbying from tax-preparation companies like TurboTax and H&R Block which profit and thrive on the complexity of the tax code, and their lack of competition from the government. Of all the evil bad guys in 2019, bet you didn’t think you’d be furious at TurboTax!

Democrats say other provisions in the bill, including protections against private debt collectors and millions of dollars in assistance for low-income taxpayers, were too good to pass up, which would be a good excuse if Democrats didn’t control the House and couldn’t just pass the bill with all the bad shit stripped out of it.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin admitted that White House lawyers communicated with the Treasury Department about how to deal with House Democrats’ request for President Trump’s tax returns, which flies in the face of a law requiring the department to transmit the returns, whether the president likes it or not. And from the looks of this very nervous IRS commissioner, the fix is in. Very illegal, very uncool.

Later in the same hearing Mnuchin nearly cried because he was about to miss his “important meeting” if mean Maxine Waters didn’t let him go home early. Truly, truly embarrassing.  

Speaking of coverups! Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has banned 16 Saudis involved in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi from entering the U.S., but hough the list includes one of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s closest aides, MBS himself didn’t make the cut, which is weird given that he dispatched the team that committed the murder. On the other hand good managers will always let their employees claim credit for their accomplishments. Boosts morale!

The European Union will consider two proposals this week to delay Brexit, which would require the United Kingdom’s parliament to either pass a Brexit agreement before April 12 (not likely), or accept a long-term extension for either 9 or 12 months with strict conditions to avoid disrupting the E.U. any further with this ongoing nervous breakdown. Has anyone called this a Brextension yet? If not, we call dibs.

Embattled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party illegally hired 1,200 “polling station observers” to intimidate Israeli-Arabs voting, as he faces his toughest-ever bid for re-election in Tuesday’s parliamentary election, which remains too close to call. If he loses, tomorrow’s subject line will be BiBi Goes ByeBye and you can’t stop us.

Lori Loughlin and her husband have been indicted along with 16 other parents on new charges of money laundering, stemming from their involvement in the Varsity Blues college admissions scandal, for funneling bribes through “charities” and for-profit organizations, and transferring funds from outside the country into the U.S. for a fraudulent scheme. Both charges come with maximum sentences of up to 20 years in prison. Everywhere you look, everywhere you are, there’s a charge, there’s a charge…

Ahead of Canada’s elections this fall, the country's political parties, candidates, and staff have all been targeted by at least one foreign, state-sponsored hacking operation. The problem didn’t begin and end in 2016, and the subversion of western democracy in this way is one of the most important stories of our time.

Who’s bankrolling Devin Nunes’s frivolous lawsuits against news organizations and online critics, and shouldn’t the House Ethics Committee be looking into it? This isn’t a news item, just a question we are screaming into the void in the hope that someone in Congress hears and goes, “hey wait a minute, I can do that!”

Taylor Swift has donated $113,000 to the Tennessee Equality Project, an advocacy group dedicated to fighting against bills that target the LGBT community. When reached for comment, Emily Favreau said “I fucking told you she was a good person. I fucking told you!"

In the midst of a House Judiciary Committee hearing on white nationalism, where the GOP’s star witness Candace Owens insisted that Democrats fabricated the rise of white supremacy and white nationalism as “an election strategy,” actual white nationalists forced YouTube to disable comments on its livestream of the hearing by flooding them with racist vitriol and fundraising pitches. We’re here to call her on her self-own.

As of today, Oklahoma City’s city council is majority millennial, and has its first openly gay councilman (h/t Amanda Litman and Run For Something).

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