Meanwhile, In Washington

at

This afternoon.

Special counsel Robert Mueller considered 10 “episodes” involving actions by President Trump that might have been been connected to obstruction of justice, Attorney General Bill Barr said  — but the Justice Department concluded they do not amount to a breach of the law.

Barr said he is satisfied Trump had “non-corrupt motives” and that is what prompted him to decide not to prosecute the president.

Because investigators did not find a conspiracy between Trump’s campaign and the Russian interference in the 2016 election, that suggested Trump wasn’t trying to cover anything up, Barr said. And notwithstanding his frequent public outrage about the matter, Trump cooperated with Mueller’s inquiry, Barr said.

Watch Live: Attorney General Barr Briefs Reporters About The Mueller Report (NPR)

Read full report here

Meanwhile

Meanwhile

Update:

Statement tonight from Trump 2020 Campaign Manager Brad Pascale, who served as Trump’s Digital Media Manager in the 2016 Campaign.

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126 thoughts on “Meanwhile, In Washington

  1. realPolithicks

    “Barr said he is satisfied Trump had “non-corrupt motives”

    Did he, that was his completely unbiased opinion was it….hmmmmm.

    1. Junkface

      Its the most prominent example of attorney general bias I’ve ever seen! Very corrupt. Crazy times for USA. I’d say there will be more court cases and testimonies down the road. Everyone will be exhausted stateside, but that’s what its like living with Trumps deranged mind. He’s actually getting worse, when is his next physical?

      1. Nigel

        Any other news cycle, any other administration, Barr, obviously and unashamendly a Trump partisan, unequivocally accepting Mueller’s finding that Russia interfered with the US election in Trump’s favour would be a big deal.

        1. Nigel

          Sorry ‘what he says are Mueller’s finding’ since we haven’t heard from anyone else who’s read the report, unredacted or otherwise.

      1. SOQ

        He will be 77 by then, assuming he is still alive.

        It is somewhat perplexing to me as to why people, wealthy people, keep working even when there is no reason too. I suppose that even with all the normal (partner, children etc) it is all they really have. Quite sad really.

        1. McVitty

          yeah, quite sad to want to lead your country…Varadkar, Macron and Trudeau demonstrate that it you manage realise peak ambitions in your 30’s, it’s not necessarily a good thing.

  2. Nigel

    Just… good luck to anyone who’s trying to be in any way objectively skeptical, without declaring Trump definitively guilty or innocent of of any kind of wrong-doing or dodgy behaviour, about this.

    1. jusayinlike

      Nigel, were the DNC servers examined by any state body in the Russian interference probe?

      1. Nigel

        I refer you to page 38 of the redacted report. if you have a problem with the findings of this report which you claim exonerates Trump and is ‘game over for your tinfoil saturated (really? Aren’t you an engineer? You think tinfoil saturates?) conspiracy’, feel free to elucidate.

        1. jusayinlike

          I’ll ask again, were the DNC servers examined by any state body during the Russian interference probe?

          1. jusayinlike

            I’ll ask a third time, were the DNC servers examined by any state body during the Russian interference probe?

          2. jusayinlike

            For the fourth time, were the DNC servers examined by any state body during the Russian interference probe?

          3. f_lawless

            ah Nigel come on now outa that! I thought I’d been clear enough on my views about the Mueller investigation – it’ was all part of the same contrived narrative set into motion to (a) obfuscate away from corruption at the top of the Democratic party which Wikileaks exposed and (b) ramp up fear about the threat of an external bogeyman (Russia) .for geopolitical ends and to justify record military spending.
            Just because 2.5 years down the line the investigation hasn’t been able to present any evidence, credible or otherwise, that Trump conspired with the Russians, it doesn’t mean that I didn’t expect the report to be laden with misinformation – which it clearly is IMO .

          4. Nigel

            You’re still expecting me to believe that a Republican AG appointed a Repblican prosecutor to launch an investigation against a Republican president to protect the Democrats?

            Ah, I see the report is both laden with misinformation AND fails to prove Trump was conspiring with Russia because if you’re dealing out the misinformation of course you wouldn;t bother going all the way. Here we go.

          5. deluded

            Out the gate, the Democrats should have been promoting the same centrist policies as Bernie and AOC and let Mueller (a Republican) do his job.
            Damn hard to prove collusion either way when the people you are trying to sway Just Don’t Care (or have any inkling of the world ;)

          6. f_lawless

            no I don’t expect you to believe that because you’re so locked in tribal partisan thinking.. ;) .I think the investigation was set in motion through pressure from elements within the intelligence state working as part of the “permanent state” or “deep state”..

            – what ever you want to call it; an inevitable behind- the-scenes evolution of a political power structure which is aligned to elite vested interests when there’s so much power and money at stake in the richest, most powerful nation in the world –

            ..partly to try to deflect from the threat that the content of DNC leaks now posed , in the wake of Clinton’s defeat, to the integrity of the (sham) two party system (a system which is also compromised at the top levels on both sides by the same “deep state” power structure) , partly to ramp up the perceived threat of Russia, and partly to keep Trump on the back foot and in line with their foreign policy objectives.

            Regarding the Mueller report, the only major take aways I can see at this point is that no credible evidence has been presented either to show Trump conspired with Russians to win the election or to show that Russia hacked the DNC servers. There’s no contradiction in that viewpoint

          7. Nigel

            Frilly, the youngest won a hamper full of more eggs than I think I’ve ever seen in one place in my life outside of a supermarket, so no.

          8. f_lawless

            ..not really, one way it could shown to be false would be for the evidence to be released that led Mueller to conclude that Russia hacked the DNC servers – evidence to discredit the forensic examination of the metadata attached to the DNC email files which was done by ex NSA and CIA staffers, including ex NSA Technical Director William Binney, whose conclusion based on the this evidence is that the DNC emails were not hacked but downloaded locally to a portable device.
            https://consortiumnews.com/2019/03/13/vips-muellers-forensics-free-findings/
            That’s a not an unreasonable thing to want to see, and which surely should be released wouldn’t you say?

          9. Nigel

            Right so. Trump is exonerated but all your pet theories contradicted in the report remain intact.

          10. jusayinlike

            No collusion, no interference..

            Just an inept democrat party who are against their own voters.

          11. deluded

            That last link, it says the servers weren’t hacked.
            Some of the e-mails were phished I remember, maybe some files were yoinked but hacked?
            It sounds like some noble hearts wanted to expose the machinations.
            (Apparently the GOP machinations are fine)
            However no-one seems to be talking about un-minuted meetings between Trumps and Russians.

          12. jusayinlike

            All those unminuted meetings were thrashed out, Don jnr and Kushner were interviewed by congress for a collective 15 hours, all that was checked and double checked and nothing was found.

            No collusion, no interference.

            Simple, just an inept democrat party whose main adversary seems to be their own voters.

          13. Nigel

            But jusaynlike the report, which exonerates Trump and destroys tinfoil soaked conspiracies and pwns the libs, explicitly says there was a massive amount of Russian interference targetd to suport Trump, with some possible co-ordination by Manafort, and which the Trump campaign was aware of and wanted to take advantage of and that Wikileaks was probably co-ordinating with the Trump campaign to release info damaging to Clinton and lying about Seth Rich. All right there in the report which exonerates Trump and destroys tinfoil soaked conspiracies and pwns the libs, jusayinlike. I think we can all agree that this was very much the reverse ferret Bodger promised me last year.

          14. Nigel

            You’re posting youtube links that I’m not looking at in every comment. Wouldn’t want to mess up my algorithm and get radicalised.

          15. jusayinlike

            The absolute state of the democrats, and you think your “algorithm” is straight and true…

            like I said, inept democrats heralding Trump’s next term..

          16. deluded

            It’s like trying to decipher daubings from a dirty protest.
            It’s the filth that matters, the subversion of norms and the undermining of what is perceived to be a grand lie or global conspiracy.
            Stupid lies and local conspiracies are acceptable.

          17. Nigel

            Who peed in your conrnflakes, anyway, jusayinlike? Barr’s letter had you chanting like a MAGAhat at a Trump rally, but now you don’t seem so triumphant and vindicated any more I don’t get it. Were you, perhaps, hoping for more from the Report? Maybe it’s in the redacted bits?

          18. Clampers Outside

            Ah Nigel… at 11.48 you go on a conspiracy run, all of which hinges on you yourself saying… “with some possible”.
            The river of info is running faster and you’re grasping grass on the bank to hold onto a tenuous position…. it’s car crash tv stuff :)

          19. Nigel

            ‘Possible co-ordination by Manafort’ is an accurate reflection of what is in the report, as is everything else. It is literally in the report.

  3. George

    Still no report just more interpretation from a hand-picked Trump supporting Attorney General.

  4. fez

    I just think that it’s bizarre that the president of the US has time to make memes, or has someone employed to make memes

    1. realPolithicks

      He does them while he watches fox news and eats big macs and kfc, which is how he spends most of his day.

  5. Speedy Gonzalez

    So a team of high-powered lawyers and investigators spent two years and 25 million dollars to find diddly-squat.
    The Democrats and their camp followers in the media,notably CNN,MSNBC and the New York Times have been left with egg on their fake news faces.
    Trump is nailed down for a second term – especially as leading Democrat contender Crazy Bernie Sanders just revealed he’s a socialist-preaching millionaire.

    1. Junkface

      His entire campaign team was arrested and his long serving lawyer/fixer flipped. Hardly diddly-squat!

      1. Speedy Gonzalez

        The investigation was over Russian collusion.
        Mueller didn’t find a shred of evidence that any took place.
        Instead of accepting this and concentrating on finding a credible candidate to take on Trump the Democrats will continue to whine like sore losers,Hillary-style,and hand Trump a second term.
        The Democrats are clueless.

      1. jusayinlike

        No actually, Bill Clinton put that one to bed, it’s game over for your tinfoil saturated conspiracy..

  6. f_lawless

    I have a question -what realistic circumstances would need to come to pass where one would conclude: “actually, I’m satisfied that the intelligence agencies have no evidence that Trump conspired with Russians. I’m changing my mind on this”?

    If you can’t imagine that eventuality and you find yourself aligning with new reasons to dismiss everything as it unfolds, then the danger is you’re moving into “unfalsifiable hypothesis” territory, which, as this post puts it, “is a way to leave the realm of rational discourse”.
    https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/178/Unfalsifiability

    1. Nigel

      Tough question, I’m still wrestling with all the proof you’ve presented about the investigation being set up to distract from the leak of DNC e-mails, speaking of rational discourse and fallacious logic.

      But it’s an odd question. Trunp’s style is that of a mob boss. Indirect, autocratic, deceitful, fostering suspicion and confusion, creating ambiguity and deniability. To suggest it’s unreasonable, or fallacious, to remain suspicious in the face of that kind of calculated behaviour, is itself unreasonable. However suspicion is not proof, and proof is what matters. I don’t think it’s likely they’ll find evidence of direct conspiracy by Trump himself, not even in the redacted bits if they ever become known, and I can’t say I’m honestly surprised by how this is playing out, from the screams of EXONERATED by both Trump supporters and the weirdoes claim to be on the left but hate everybody on the left who isn’t them, to the reality that the unredacted bits of the report are pretty damning for Trump, even as he retains the protections of the office and Republicans and now his personal appointees. That anyone could honestly come away from this thinking that conspiracy has not been proved therefore Trump is clearly an innocent and in no sense getting away with anything strikes me as… improbable.

      Hey, does this mean you accept the finding that the Russians interfered with the election? That they went so far as to organises physical pro-Trump rallies?

  7. Nigel

    To summarise the report roughly:
    Russia interfered with the election, in Trump’s favour.
    Trump and his campaign knew about this and wanted to benefit from it.
    To that end, there were contacts between Trump’s campaign staff and Russian operatives.
    Trump and his campaign lied about the contacts.
    Trump fired the head of the FBI in an effort to stop the investigation.
    Trump tried a couple of times to get Mueller fired or to have the investigation taken over but horrified administration officials refused to do it or avoided doing it.
    However there is no conclusive proof that an actual conspiracy was entered into.
    But witnesses pleaded the Fifth, lied, ommitted details, destroyed evidence or simply could not be reached.

    Two things we’re expected to take away from this:
    1. Trump has been completely exonerated.
    2. The investigation was completely baseless and a total witch-hunt.

    And that’s the REDACTED version.

    1. Speedy Gonzalez

      Such a shame the real truth is hidden away on an obscure Irish website and has not been uncovered by thousands of highly-paid journalists the world over.
      But you can always rely on Nigel to have his finger on the pulse.
      Of a cadaver.

      1. Nigel

        Link to the report is right there, fella. Show me where I’m wrong.
        (Seriously, I can’t quite believe people are talking about this exonerating Trump, when it takes him and his campaign right up to the slippery crumbling edge of the conspiracy precipice and then the lights go out and there’s an avalanche of obstruction. I feel like I must be missing something really obvious, but what? SHOW ME!)

          1. Speedy Gonzalez

            Trump Derangement Syndrome.
            It’s a terrible affliction.
            There are many things to criticise Trump about but collusion ain’t one of them.
            Instead the Democrats and their friends in the media ( not a single pro-Trump talking head on CNN for the entire day ) scurry around on the back foot clutching at straws in the hope of not being made to look like complete idiots.
            Instead they should be extending all their efforts in the comparatively short time they have let to come up a credible POTUS alternative.
            Because at the moment Trump is winning the economic and political arguments all the way to a second term.

          2. Nigel

            Don’t be silly. This just confirrms for everyone how awful Trump is. Come the election, it’ll be health care, gun control, the Green New Deal, voter supression and gerrymandering, the same sorts of things that won them the House.

          3. Bodger

            Nigel, come the election there may not be a Democrat party to speak of. As jusayinlike is trying to say, the Russians didn’t hack the DNC. The servers were checked not by the FBI but by Crowdstrike (a private security firm with Democrat connections). They were the sole source that the Russians hacked the servers. No second opinion. Cyber experts have shown the files were transferred and that it wasn’t a hack. The murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich (a Bernie supporter disgusted at his party’s rigging of the primaries) was Wikileaks’ source. Did you not wonder why Assange was arrested last week (after seven years) on an indictment over a year old (with weak evidence to boot)?
            The decision to spy on Trump’s campaign by the Obama administration – predicated on the determination Of Russian hacking by Crowdstrike and the Steele dossier (discredited even by Steele) – will now be investigated. The fallout from that will be fairly hairy and will I think dominate next year’s election

          4. Nigel

            I’m sorry Bodger most of your points there are directly contradicted by the report which completely exonerates Trump. It states that the DNC was hacked by the GRU and Seth Rich was not the source, It also says that Trump’s campaign appeared to have forewarning of the release of the e-mails. Didn’t Barr, whose characerisation of the report you relied on for vindication, roll back on his assertion that Obama ‘spied’ on Trump? Oh dear, oh dear.

          5. f_lawless

            @Bodger regarding the DNC servers I think it was William Binney who made the point that the fact the FBI broke their own protocol and outsourced the examination of the DNC servers to a third party ensured that there could never be a criminal trial to establish the truth as the chain of custody of the servers was now broken. Go figure, as they say

          6. realPolithicks

            You’re making a lot of claims there Bodger, can you post a few links to credible websites to back them up.

          7. Nigel

            Careful guys. This report exonerates Trump and pwns the libs and you’re questioning its findings? People might begin to think you’ve being trying to score points and play gotcha rather than acting in good faith.

          8. jusayinlike

            They’re your beloved “libs”, do as you please with them.. all I asked was that you name them?

          9. Nigel

            Y’know, now that you mention it, I can’t think of any libs who were pwned by the report. Isn’t that odd? Almsot as if… nah… that’s crazy…

          10. Nigel

            This has been fun and taken my mind of my gammy leg, but one other thought does occur to me. Without pre-empting any findings too much, given the way the collective differing expectations of the Mueller Report have played out, how likely is it that really close in-depth examinations into the Dossier and criminal or security investigations of people around Trump will ultimately play out much differently? Trump and his base (and Bodger and jusayinlike and f_lawless) want a whole bunch of people crucified, but Dems control oversight in Congress, how likely is it that thay’ll let anyone be nailed up without digging into details, and how likely is it really that the results of that kind of digging will loook less like Mueller and more like Qanon?

    2. london_irish

      To highlight just how damaging this is, just imagine an alternate reality where Clinton won the election and she was accused of collusion, and was investigated.
      Therefore:
      Russia interfered with the election, in Clinton’s favour.
      Clinton and her campaign knew about this and wanted to benefit from it.
      To that end, there were contacts between Clinton’s campaign staff and Russian operatives.
      Clinton and her campaign lied about the contacts.
      Clinton fired the head of the FBI in an effort to stop the investigation.
      Clinton tried a couple of times to get Mueller fired or to have the investigation taken over but horrified administration officials refused to do it or avoided doing it.
      However there is no conclusive proof that an actual conspiracy was entered into.
      But witnesses pleaded the Fifth, lied, omitted details, destroyed evidence or simply could not be reached.

      Now, imagine the reaction in the US to this alternate report. Fox News would go into meltdown. Even CNN would be horrified. Ordinary people would be horrified.

      That’s how screwed up this actually is. Its beyond Nixon.

    3. rotide

      Nail on the head Nigel.

      I’m not sure how you have the energy to be dealing with these craziness, but fair play

        1. rotide

          I usually just ignore your dribbling, but I’m insanely curious to know what conspiracy you think I’m peddling

          1. italia'90

            Do you still believe that Russia was behind the Salisbury/Novihoax/deadliest nerve agent use in UK history?
            You remember your contribution to the Skripal affair on here don’t you?

            I seem to remember yourself and Nigel peddling that BS without any facts on the ground being thoroughly and objecively being interrogated…

            The forthcoming Steele Dossier investigation is going to leave a lot of egg on a lot of faces. Try to remember what positions you took, won’t you?

          2. Nigel

            If it puts egg in people’s faces the same way the Mueller Report has exonerated Trump I for one await it with interest.

          3. rotide

            “Do you still believe that Russia was behind the Salisbury/Novihoax/deadliest nerve agent use in UK history?”

            Of course I do. Mainly because it was.

          4. italia'90

            So you must have in your possession a great big file of factual evidence or you have documentary evidence that the rest of the world hasn’t seen yet?

            If you wouldn’t mind, and if it’s not too much trouble for ye, would you mind sharing it with the rest of us?

            And if you still have a few spare minutes, would you send all your evidence to a couple of others that are very interested in seeing what you have?
            Namely the German and French governments.

            “The German government informed a parliamentary oversight committee during a closed hearing that it still has not received any evidence suggesting that Russia might be behind the incident that took place in early March,” German TV station RBB reports.

            It’s been over a year and they still haven’t received the promised new evidence from Bojo or his government.
            Thanks a mil old bean.

    4. Nigel

      An addendeum to this and the total exoneration of Trump. It’s weird and sublte and very legalese but it turns out Mueller set the terms of the report in such a way as to actually preclude himself from making conclusions about whether Trump had or had not commited any criminal acts, out of deference to DOJ policy about not indicting a sitting president. Instead he turns all of this over to Congress as the appropriate venue for any further actions.
      So two things.
      1. I kinda feel sorry for anibody taken in by the clever and cunning lies of the guy who says wind turbines give you cancer and the guy who helped cover up Iran-Contra.
      2. EXONERATION!

      1. Curated by Vanessa for Frilly Keane

        That’s a kinda
        what we GAA people call anyway Nidgie
        Getting the excuses in early

        But quite frankly
        At this point
        I couldn’t give’ah
        Not the slightest bit

        Because Trump is getting his second term
        And far more handier this time ’round

        Elections and Opinions
        Even public service
        are no longer about wanting a career in professional politics
        Or about a personal sense of civic duty
        Or an inherited obligation

        It’s about Money

        All these newly discovered Alt Right artists did not wake up from some form of miraculous enlightenment

        They are simply following up on a business opportunity

        And those that are amassing to service the opposite side of that market
        Or customer profile if you like

        Are doing exactly the same
        Remain Brexit?

        Look at Norn Iron
        Now descended into lawlessness

        Because of opposite yet competing sides
        For Money and Position
        If they wanted to be Politicans working for the benefit of their constituents
        They’d have ‘bin back at work 12 months ago

        You and Bodger Nidge
        Are still scrapping around over the same falling out

        Yet the original dispute (s)
        Has moved on
        Evolved
        And finally reached its real truth without ye

        And ye didn’t even notice

    1. Nigel

      https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/pee-tape-trump-mueller-report-823755/

      ‘According to the report, on October 30th, 2016, Trump’s private attorney and fixer Michael Cohen received a text from a Russian businessman involved in the Trump Tower Moscow deal, in progress for more than a year. “Stopped flow of tapes from Russia but not sure if there’s anything else. Just so you know….” Giorgi Rtskhiladze wrote to Cohen. Cohen told investigators he spoke to Trump about the issue after receiving the texts from Rtskhiladze. Rtskhiladze later admitted he had been told the tapes were fake, but he did not communicate that to Cohen, the report says.’

      1. Nigel

        I mean I’d be pi$$ed too if a conglomerate of Russian real estate tycoons was claiming to have compromising tapes about me as I was running for president and I didn’t know if they were real or not, but it does seem newsworthy…

        1. Bui Bui

          So it was a fake news story about an imaginary recording of something that may or may not be real…?

          Or it did happen, but it wasn’t recorded?

        2. f_lawless

          Don’t encourage him. It’s not healthy. Give him time in the hope that he’ll move on and start to focus on some real world events that matter.
          ..Hey did you hear Trump vetoed a congressional resolution to end US support for the Saudi led war in Yemen -that place were millions are experiencing starvation due to famine?

  8. Bui Bui

    Did you hear Trump’s admin defeated ISIS, brought NK in from the cold, reorganized World Trade, cut taxes for most Americans and protected free speech on College Campus?

    But hey, let’s bitch about a war nobody knows anything about and assume the US are the bad guys cos you know… “Orange-Man-Bad-Stuff”

    1. f_lawless

      only from hopelessly misinformed people such as yourself..

      “But hey, let’s bitch about a war nobody knows anything about and assume the US are the bad guys cos you know… “Orange-Man-Bad-Stuff” ”
      That’s like something a child might write. …are you..a child? If so, sorry no offence meant

      1. Bui Bui

        How about Prison Reform (a bipartisan deal that has started to empty America’s jail system) and a jobs market so buoyant that even convicted felons can get jobs?

        Is all this to be ignored? Labeled as misinformed? Dismissed as childish?

  9. deluded

    “…The President then asked, “What about these notes? Why do you take notes? Lawyers don’t take notes. I never had a lawyer who took notes.” McGahn responded that he keeps notes because he is a “real lawyer” …”

    Is it worth noting that Obama requested a record and analysis of drone strikes, but now these attacks have increased the oversight has been removed:
    https://www.rte.ie/amp/1038443/

    1. jusayinlike

      Is that your excuse for Obama’s shocking war record and obvious love affair with drone strikes..

      1. deluded

        What I’ve noticed is nobody here ever excused Obama, and only a handful defended Hillary.
        Yet it’s all you obsess about whenever anyone discusses the Drumpf and co.
        Why is that?

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