The paperback version of Old Man and the Sea is 128 pages. The paperback version of The Great Gatsby is 180 pages. The paperback version of Catcher in the Rye is 240 pages. The Mueller Report is reportedly over 300 pages. Yet, our Cliffs Notes of the Mueller Report are only four-pages long.
The still-secret report on Russian interference in the 2016 election submitted by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, last week was more than 300 pages long, according to the Justice Department, a length that raises new questions about Attorney General William P. Barr’s four-page summary.
As Steve M. of No More Mister Nice Blog points out, the public isn’t buying this whitewash. Public opinion surveys by Reuters/Ipsos, Politico/Morning Consult, and CNN have unanimously found that a plurality still believe Trump colluded with the Russians and obstructed justice. Huge majorities want to see the full report. And, according to CNN, “nearly 6 in 10 Americans want to see Congress continue to pursue hearings into the findings of Mueller’s report.”
It sounds to me like there is a lot of information in the report about both obstruction (which Mueller specifically said does not exonerate the president) and Russia’s interference in the election, which Congress needs in order to legislate. It’s as if someone tried to explain three of the most iconic American novels by telling us nothing more about them than sharks ate Santiago’s marlin, Jay Gatsby died in his pool, and Holden Caulfield took his sister to the zoo.
By contrast, the Watergate “road map” sent to Congress by the grand jury investigating President Richard Nixon and his associates was only 62 pages. Sent to lawmakers in 1974, the court report was not unsealed by a federal judge and made public until last year.
Mr. Mueller probably collected and generated hundreds of thousands if not millions of pages of paper in his investigation. Congress has made clear it would eventually like access to all of them…
The key point with the Watergate “road map” document is that it was turned over to Congress. The road map contained “97 documents supporting…53 statements of information,” and the reason that the public did not see the document until 2018 is because the supporting evidence was all produced by a grand jury. There is no sufficient reason why Congress cannot see the grand jury evidence from Mueller’s investigation, and see it promptly after it has been scrubbed for any sensitive information that could put sources or methods at risk.
William Barr is like the guy who doesn’t want you to read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s great book because it’s crap. Just trust him, the hero is a bootlegging crook who doesn’t get the girl and, in his opinion, it’s just fine if Meyer Wolfsheim doesn’t gets punished for fixing the 1919 World Series.
Like the Dude’s rug – really ties the room together. Excellent work.
Barr is doing, and will continue to do, exactly what he took the job to do: delay and lie (not to put too fine a point on it), in short, whatever it takes to keep that report from the public and deceive them about its damning contents. In this, he is and will be completely supported by Repugnican politicians.
Can Mueller be called before the House to testify about the contents of his report?
Good question. If he is permitted to talk about this and he is unhappy with the four pages, why doesn’t he just talk? You almost have to assume he thinks Barr’s report is adequate,
No, I don’t think he’s happy, but he’s a straight-arrow kind of guy and Barr is his boss. On the other hand, if called by the House, I think he would be quite happy.
I surely hope you are correct. The problem I have is the Barr letter says Mueller was unable to make a determination. It is possible he intended to let congress decide on those issues. The fact we have no idea what those issues are is infuriating. So Trump and team are able to take a victory lap. And it plays nicely with his base. I want to hear from Mueller but as I understand that may have to wait until he is no longer working for,the DOJ.
No you don’t have to assume that. I do assume that if the Mueller report was as exculpatory as Trump is pretending, he would have declassified the whole thing and published it in gold leaf binding.
There’s a reason Devin Nunes thinks the whole report should be burned, and it isn’t because it declares “total exoneration”.
If you want to know what Mueller thinks, (1) publicly release the report and (2) have him testify to Congress. I’m not prepared to simply take Barr’s word for it.
Maybe, but that doesn’t mean he’ll be free to answer all questions.
In answer to my previous question, Mueller’s grand jury has been turned over to the DC U.S. Attorney’s office and is “continuing robustly”.
I still don’t know if they can write their own report.
Does that suggest that Mueller shut it down prematurely or Barr did it for him?
Since Mueller requested, in January 2019, that the grand jury be continued for 6 months, I’d say it was transferred to the DC office to keep it from being shut down. No clue as to whether it was Mueller’s or Barr’s (or both) decision to submit the report now.
I believe Judge Howell would be the one to discharge the jury, but I’m just guessing.
As I understand it, the only outstanding case the grand jury is deliberating is the mysterious, foreign government-owned company that continues to resist Mueller’s subpoena. I’m not sure what can be done to compel them to comply unless they have US assets that could be seized and I hardly expect Trump to do that. (Maybe there are other cases before the grand jury, not sure.
I believe Andrew Miller’s case is also still outstanding.
“While this novel does not conclude that Tom Buchanan is responsible for Gatsby’s death, it also does not exonerate him.”
You can add Daisy into that, too. She was driving the car, after all. Nick is implicated: he knows the truth, but declines to tell Tom.
Strategically, it is of utmost importance to Trump’s administration that as little info as possible is made available about his dealings in the world.
All of them.
The whole world.
He is quite obviously a thief, a liar and a compulsive-fucker-of-others-just-to-get-his-jollies.
Therefore, tactically this limited hangout/limited stonewall of Barr’s makes perfect sense…as do Trump’s hidden tax returns.
There are, however, several kickers in this idea.
It has been fairly well proven that whistleblowers abound in this government. There are purely partisan-driven whistleblowers and there are also morality-driven ones. Ever since the Pentagon Papers were leaked by the heroic Daniel Ellsberg in 1971, things that various administrations and other government bureaus wanted to be kept secret have been repeatedly leaked. The leaks have only increased as the digital age has progressed. It used to be that one needed some kind of first-hand information to get to these secrets…like Ellsberg…but as hackers have improved and multiplied, it is now merely a question of when various secret files will be accessed.
Not if.
In retaliation, the government…of all political persuasions…has made examples of several leakers. Serious examples!!! It has also used its captive media to denigrate both the validity and the objectives of those leakers.
Result?
Whenever various limited hangouts are breached…and they will be breached, despite the dangers of doing so…a great many U.S. citizens wll buy into the counterstories cooked up by the secret-keepers.
Etc., etc., etc…
Thus when buried info on Trump does show up, it won’t be as dangerous to him as it might be if it showed up in a court of law or a government-sponsored report.
Which brings us to…
Mr. Mueller.
As far as I can see, there are only three possible interpretations of his continued, Sphinx-like silence.
#1-He really is an honorable, impartial investigator who ran his investigation as well as it could be run and didn’t come up with any hard, incontrovertible evidence against Trump.
#2-He’s a Deep State hack who was propped up to stonewall as long as possible and then drop the “no evidence” bomb at the most opportune time for all concerned…Dems, RatPubs and dedicated Trumpists.
Or…most likely, in my view…
#3-He’s a long-time, Deep State pro who realized that…with a sitting president who was the primary target of the probe, a slanted Supreme Court and a divided Congress…the best way to pin Trump (or at the very least keep the pressure on him until he could be beaten in 2020) would be to hand over evidence and further investigatory responsibilities to more localized prosecutors who would be further away from possible interference from the Federal Government.
I will readily admit that #3 is quite possibly wishful thinking.
But…as the song has it…wishes sometimes do come true!!!
Meanwhile, here we jolly well are, aren’t we.
Waiting for the octopus to drop yet another fucking shoe.
God help us.
Later…
AG
No, I think No. 3 is right.
I hope you’re right.
AG
I sincerely hope # 3 is right. Also, the entire unredacted report must be given to Congress and if Barr doesn’t do that, then, by God, the courts must!
And if the courts don’t, the hackers must!!!
I got yer “Freedom of Information Act!!!”
Right here!!!
AG
I do believe Arthur is on the money with number three. SDNY is Mueller, Chertoff, and even Giuliani’s old stomping ground for beating La Cosa Nostra with RICO and friends.
What, no spoiler alert?
If the summary is accurate then with appropriste redactions theres no reason not to show Congress the report in some fashion. My guess is theyre going to try to run out the clock to the election.
And if the summary was inaccurate, they will move heaven and earth to keep the damning parts of the report hidden.
That won’t work. The report will be leaked if the delay goes on too long. For sure.
I’m not so sure. Modern e-forensics have made leaking anything a highly risky undertaking. Look at poor Reality Winner, ratted out by laser printer tracking dots and internal audits – 63 freakin’ months in the slammer for whistle blowing. The Intercept totally blew that one.
For me, the real story there was the leaked info on Russian voting machine hacking (and why the hell was that classified?) but the press went with the spy drama instead.
Run out the clock? The general election is 18 months away. If we’re still talking about releasing the Mueller report in 18 months it will be a bad sign for Trump.
What they have emphatically been trying to establish a narrative that Trump has been cleared of all wrongdoing, one the press has been unsurprisingly willing to jump on given the number of “Democrats must stop investigating Trump” columns that have been printed in the last week.
If that narrative doesn’t take hold with the public, then the news is going to get progressively worse for Trump as people keep asking “If the report proves Trump’s innocence, why can’t we see it?”
NO COLLUSION NO OBSTRUCTION doesn’t take 300 pages.
Yep. We got a report that looks like a 4th grade students book report.
It was interesting listening to Chuck Rosenberg talking about Barr’s actions on MSNBC last night. Chuck has, I think, been one of the more knowledgeable commentators they have on, and he is clearly loath to assign any untoward motive to Barr’s actions. He portrays Barr as an “institutionalist” that wants to preserve the integrity of the Justice dept. At this point, I find that totally unavailable. But I guess in a sense he might be right- Barr is a big supporter of the institution, as a long as it is promoting Republicans and their policies. Just like John Roberts, Barr knows all the right pretend words to say to make it appear that he’s fair and just following precedent, while making sure the outcome that Republicans want prevails.
I think the odds are pretty good that by the time Barr releases the “Mueller Report”, it will be that in name only- it will have become an incoherent hash of redactions, omissions, executive privilege assertions, and probably edits. Well, except for the “no collusion” part. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he changes the header & footer on every page to “no collusion”. And, of course, once the report is finally “released”, they will do another victory lap or two.
I heard that interview too. You say “he is clearly loath to assign any untoward motive to Barr’s actions … ” Sure, not in any direct way. But I was impressed by what a cool customer Rosenberg is and how carefully he chooses his words. You have to listen just as carefully …
I’ve long been an admiring observer of Rosenberg, and agree with your assessment.
But, I repeat myself, the entire unredacted report must be given to Congress. If Barr won’t, and he likely won’t, the the Courts must. This is too important.
P.S. I know I’m ranting on a dead thread, but it does make me feel better.
Well, I totally agree with you about the need to make the report public.
Playing hardcore like this without releasing the full Mueller Report is some of thee worst political strategy I’ve seen in awhile. Going into 2020 with this massive albatross around their necks, and thinking that that forty percent of the voting population ,favorable to the Trump Entity will see them through. As we creep closer to Nov. 2020 there is a looming recession with warning signs all over the place. Economists refer to it as a “mild correction” that won’t last long. Well, it will last long enough in summer 2019 to un-employ enough of that forty percent Trump base and chisel that goose stepping voting block further.
Albatross is right. I’m not sure they really thought this through. (Do they ever?) — It’s going to be worse for them in the end, because this will emerge as part of the obstruction of J.
Not if the details in the report are damning.
Here is the key line from Barr’s letter
Which every newspaper in the country summed up as some variation of “Mueller Finds No collusion!”.
But the quote in Barr’s report is clearly a sentence fragment, (note the “[T]he”). If the sentence begins with words like Despite numerous contacts between the campaign and foreign nationals … it would completely change the interpretation of Mueller’s findings.
And there are significant differences in meaning between each of the following sentences:
* The Trump Campaign did not conspire or coordinate with Russians.
* The Trump Campaign did not conspire or coordinate with the Russian government.
* The Trump Campaign did not conspire or coordinate with the Russian government in its election interference activities.
* The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.
Republicans are trying to sell the first line.
Remember how jazzed Linus was about that ice hockey half time Zamboni ice smoothing machine? I get jazzed by this Department of Justice indictment against the Internet Research Association out of St. Petersburg, Russia. Oh, they’re not the Russian Government by any means even if the list includes former KGB and Russian military intel types. They’re kind of like the Erik Princes in an era of non-state actors with plausible deniability..not. https://www.justice.gov/file/1035477/download