Attorney General Barr in his letter wrote: “The report further explains that a primary consideration for the Special Counsel’s investigation was whether any Americans – including individuals associated with the Trump campaign – joined the Russian conspiracies to influence the election, which would be a federal crime. The Special Counsel’s investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The report states: “[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
Attorney General Barr also wrote that Mueller: “ultimately determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment. The Special Counsel therefore did not draw a conclusion – one way or the other – as to whether the examined conduct constituted obstruction. Instead, for each of the relevant actions investigated, the report sets out evidence on both sides of the question and leaves unresolved what the Special Counsel views as “difficult issues” of law and fact concerning whether the President’s actions and intent could be viewed as obstruction. The Special Counsel states that “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”
It seems to me that Barr is stating Mueller found that there was obstruction of justice by Trump but that he passed on determining whether it amounted to a crime. We must keep in mind that Barr got the job after writing to Trump and unsolicited memo stating a president could not obstruct justice. Obviously we must see what made Mueller reach that conclusion that Trump did.
Mueller’s report as summarized reminded me of Comey’s report on the FBI investigation of Hillary where his conclusions seemed to run afoul of the facts in front of him. Is that something of a disease that affects FBI directors? It’s sort of strange a prosecutor directed to come to a conclusion punts. That must be a federal way of handling matters.
The real thing that bothers me is now that we know Trump committed some obstruction how did that obstruction of justice affect Mueller’s search for Russian coordination – “an agreement tacit or expressed between Trump’s campaign and the Russian government on election interference.”
Suppose Trump’s lawyers dealt with Manafort’s lawyers and suggested it would be best that Manafort not tell Mueller about Trump’s directions to him concerning contacting Russian officials. Mueller knowing this could find it amounts to obstruction but he can’t prove it because of lawyer/client privilege.
Is Mueller saying he could not establish contact between Trump and Russia but for the obstruction of justice he might have been able to do it?
More simply put. Sonny, Spike and Sue are together in a room. Sonny accuses Sue of two-timing him and stabs her. He picks up her body and dumps it by the Old Mill stream. He tells Spike he will murder his wife and children if Spike tells what happened. Obviously Sonny is obstructing justice.
The police investigate after finding Sue’s body dressed in gingham. Spike says he knows nothing. Sonny lawyer’s up. Police conclude “[T]he investigation did not establish that” Sonny had anything to do with Sue’s murder. That doesn’t mean Sonny didn’t murder her. We know he did.
But we also know Sonny obstructed justice by threatening Spike. Without the obstruction the police might have found otherwise. So is it with Trump. His obstruction stopped Mueller from finding that Trump conspired with Putin to fix the election. How anyone thinks Trump was exonerated escapes me?
Grammar nit (again): it is “may have beaten,” not “may have beat.” In this case the past participle of beat is required.
Talk about a beating .
He Beat the Rap ….. Is a colloquiallism our former Suffolk County ADA is familiar with and perhaps his stern master Bill Delahunt may have dinned it into a wincing Matty’s ear more than our doughty investigator liked, but that is nit ( sic ) the point . Really it is a matter of experience . I dig John’s holding Matt to a standard which he falls short of due , again , to laxity more than aught else . But here the grammarian is silencing and shaming a poetry that Matt has an ear to hear and a hand to write .
Experience
* Norfolk County ADA
Matt .. We didn’t see each other
Arthur Tierney says Hello
Talk about irascible
John:
Arthur’s a good guy. Glad to see he still has the edge.
IT’S FUNNY, it is truly comical:: The corrupt, biased Muellar Team (all liberal DEMS, three of whom, at least, actually contributed to Hillary’s Hillarious Hitlerian Propagandist Campaign) found no collusion and insufficient evidence to either indict nor exonerate for obstruction. (It’s not the GOVERNMENT’S JOB TO “EXONERATE” AMERICAN CITIZENS”: INDICT OR SHUT UP!) The evidence was either too nebulous or too thin TO PROCEED. BUT MATT now proclaims OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE is proven.
All that is proven is liberal democrats inability to accept the facts. It’s is both comical and sad at the same time. A tragi-comedy!
Stop beating a dead horse!
SECONDLY: Obstruction of Justice is a catchall charge to get innocent people for doing such innocent things as writing a letter a judge or telling someone to tell the truth or telephoning a lawyer’s office or condemning a prosecutor’s false prosecution. Most often it is levelled by FED PROSECUTORS at people attempting to obstruct an INJUSTICE.
Bill:
The Barr summary says that the Mueller report found obstruction of justice. Did you read it. It said Mueller did not exonerate Trump of obstruction. As for the “corrupt biased Mueller Team” if they were as you describe they certainly could have found that the obstruction implicated him. They left it up to others to do that. So much for bias and corruption.
You still seem to suggest in your second part that John Connolly writing to a federal judge under Boston Police stationary a letter full of lies that required the judge to hold hearings to determine if the matters contained in the letter were true was not obstruction. There could be no clearer case of obstruction than that. How do you justify him falsely implicating others in criminal conduct and disguising his authorship of the letter. You do agree that he sent it. You do agree it contained lies. You do agree a judge held hearings over several days to determine if the facts in his letter were true. You think it is all right that Connolly lied to the FBI when it asked whether he had contact with the defense team and he lied? How is the prosecution of those criminal acts and injustice.
“The Barr summary says that the Mueller report found obstruction of justice.”
No it does not! I read the letter, several times. You are apparently reading it through the lens of someone who wants to find that it found obstruction.
Please quote the exact part of the letter that says that Mueller found obstruction of justice.
John:
“Special Counsel investigated as potentially raising obstruction-of-justice concerns. After making a “thorough factual investigation” into these matters, the Special Counsel . . . determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment.”
Do you think that was because he found no obstruction-of-justice? If that was the case then he would have made the easy judgment saying there was none. So we know he found some.
To go on:
“The Special Counsel therefore did not draw a conclusion one way or the other . . . and leaves unresolved what the Special Counsel views as “difficult issues” of law and fact concerning whether the President’s actions and intent could be viewed as obstruction.”
In other words, there were actions when viewed one way would amount to obstruction-of-justice.
“[W]hile this report does not conclude the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”
I think the meaning is clear. Actions by the president could be construed as amounting to obstruction of justice.
Here’s a couple of strange things. First, Barr who wrote the memo that got him the job saying that a president could not commit obstruction of justice decided on the facts presented by Mueller there was no obstruction. But he comes into it with the mindset that there cannot be any obstruction so his opinion is in my opinion worthless. As for Rosenstein agreeing with him, we have seen that Rosenstein agreed to write a fake letter relative to the Comey firing because the prior AG Sessions told him to do it. Not so much of a stand up guy.
But, the most curious thing is the Special Counsel was appointed to make decisions and his decisions were not supposed to be made by the people on the president’s team such as AG Barr. You may have seen that few. If any, understand why he did not do the job he was supposed to have done.
Bottom line, there are facts that could lead to the conclusion the president committed obstruction. Hope this answers your question.
MATT, AND THE PRO-HILLARY FACTION OF LIBERAL DEMS ON THIS SITE: You lost. Accept it. Trump’s acquitted. Accept it. HAPPY NO CONCLUSION DAY.
I REMEMBER AFTER TRUMP WAS ELECTED, MATT, KHALID, AND OTHER LIBERAL DEMS PREDICTED (1) NUCLEAR WAR WITHIN THREE MONTHS (2) CONCENTRATION CAMPS IN AMERICA WITHIN THREE MONTHS AND (3) TRUMP WOULD BE IMPEACHED WITHIN 2 MONTHS.
FACE THE FACTS: YOU LOST, OUR SIDE (CONSERVATIVES, MODERATES, INDEPENDENTS, RABBLE IN ARMS, LES MISERABLES, DEPLORABLES, WALMART SHOPPERS) WON.
Bill:
Mueller found Russia interfered with the 2016 election on behalf of Trump. I suggest your memory is imperfect. Nuclear war? Concentration camps in America? You should when you make comments like that refer back to the language that supports them. My blog is totally searchable so do your best but don’t manufacture things.
The battle is far from over. Pyrrhic victories often occur. Why not wait until we see the report before declaring victory. Barr got the job because he said Trump could not obstruct justice. Let’s see what Mueller said.
Matt:
Your cautionary — Why Don’t We Wait Until We See The Report– belated appeal to journalistic ethics and integrity has been duly noted .
Ya Think
All I really want to know is what did Trump send as a token of condolence to the family of Nicky Scarfo. He ran Atlantic City so there is no question as to his allowance of gaming rights to anyone that built a casino in town. I’m not saying that Trump is involved in the criminal workings of the mob. I just want to know who’s ring he kissed.
Honest:
I assume Trump and Scarfo got their money up front so no further gift was necessary.
Matt :
Barr’s report essentially concludes that there can be no Obstruction of Justice where there is … No underlying crime .
Give it up .
Comey , Strozk. Rosey, Brennan et al attempted to engineer a Coup .
They failed .
Watch what happens when you try , unsuccessfully , to murder the King
John:
Agree about the king; not about the need for an underlying crime.
Matt:
You’re like that player on the opposing team we love to hector, but basically want to play for us .
Let’s form an — Armageddon My Political Swerve On — mutually assured destruction club .
I agree, John.
Great minds think alike, Bill . Well done
Matt :
I like you and find you nearly as irascible as me. Nearly . I can be harsh when it comes to murder. Yes, murder is serious business. There is a moral ambiguity inherent in our Institutional bias towards sending people off to Wars , that, unlike the –Hitler is a genuine fiend and it’s a Good, Noble, and Just Conflict — are instead of very dubious moral origin . These are wars where principally young men are cynically sent off to lose limbs and lives , not to Save Democracy, but to Make $$$ for the scions of people like Joe Biden . Joe’s son recently secured a One Billion dollar exclusive deal , not with any Chinese business people , but with the Chinese Government. This is post Daddy Joe China trip . His son’s firm was a dinghy in an sea of ocean liners, but somehow he got the gig. Thus, Joe gets the Graft … ” Honest Joe Biden ” style . It is morally disgusting .
So, I want to know what a murder is truly about . Are there moral justifications or not . I find murderous Jimmy to be no more or less morally tainted than the fat cat shmoozy charmers like Joe Biden whose sumptuary laws do not exclude gorging on pain, horror, bleeding limbs , ruined lives and death in all its profitable returns to the Joe Bidens of the World .
I do not consider you as lacking physical courage, Matt . Your reputation precedes you . But, Moral Courage is different .
Bulger murder was to Silence people .
Fear Not .
No one is saying Mueller is a good guy. Even his partisan team could not find Russian Collusion after a three year witch hunt. There never was a crime or a basis for the investigation. Is Wyshak a good guy because he never indicted Bill Bulger? Absolutely not. Still a very bad person for what he did to Connolly, Rico, the Probation Officers and the Bulger family. Wyshak and Mueller are corrupt. John is right. A statement of non exoneration is meaningless. A sop to the crazies. You either have the goods and bring charges or you don’t and stay quiet. 2. In some prosecutors minds everyone is guilty. It is only because of obstruction that they can’t prove it. What cards do the Dems have now? Not many. No false prosecutions. No capacity to prosecute at all. They have been emasculated. They are now the subjects of investigations. 3. Hillary invented the Russian Collusion hoax. All 500 witnesses who incurred legal expenses should sue her for those costs and mental distress. 4. The new contenders for the 2020 Democrat presidential nomination are Att. Avenatti, Jussi Smollet and Rufus Jones. Probably an upgrade from the current field.
NC:
1. You forget that Mueller did find what he was suppose to look for which is that Russia did interfered in the American election on behalf of Trump. Not only did he but he indicted many Russians for doing it. There were many crimes committed.
2. Obstruction does prevent crimes from being proven, that is the purpose of the statute making it a crime. The cards the Democrats have now are the same ones they have always had which is we have a corrupt president who has aligned himself with dictators to the detriment of our country and abandoned our allies in favor of those dictators.
3. Hillary lost the last election. Let her rest in peace.
4. The new contenders you mention are an upgrade over what we now have.
The saddest part of all of this is that OK the SCO couldn’t prove collusion, but what he did prove was a whole of attempts at collusion, and the MAGA heads don’t see anything wrong with that.
About the Barr letter……It states the SCO didn’t establish a direct coordination between the Trump campaign as it related to hacking of the DNC and the Internet Research Agency’s social media disinformation campaigns.
The Barr letter provided no answer on whether a quid pro quo existed between the Russian govt. and the Trump campaign as it related to the development of Trump Tower in exchange for changes to US foreign policy and the lifting of sanctions. Let’s not forget Trump lied about this for almost 2 years until Giuliani spilled his guts on national TV.
The Barr letter also didn’t provide the level of evidence Mueller reached in his investigation. Clearly he at least had enough evidence to rise to the level of Probable Cause, otherwise the 500 search warrants Barr references would not have been issued. Until the full report is released, there could be a range from no actual evidence up to clear and convincing evidence, but not evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.
We know from the public record that there is more than a mere scintilla of evidence, based upon Don Jr’s own emails he released to the NY Times after he initially lied about the Trump Tower meeting, as well as loads of other things I don’t have time to list here.
Let’s not forget that the SCO turned up other crimes, such as Michael Cohen’s hush money payments to Stormy Daniels, directed by “Individual One,” (then spun off to SDNY). Even if there is no direct conspiracy btwn Russia/Trump…the Trump obstruction could have been an attempt to cover up what he knew the SCO would find Re: financial crimes related to the campaign and Trump Org that is now being looked at by other investigative bodies.
Also, the SCO said Trump was not exonerated, while Trump then goes on to tweet “total exoneration.”
What a terrible time it is to be an American.
Dave:
What Mueller found that no one seems to doubt is that Russia interfered on behalf of Trump in the 2016 election. He could not establish that anyone on Trump’s team coordinated with it. Therefore we have to assume that without Trump or his buddies knowing it Russia was off on a trip of its own to help Trump.
The question is assuming that profound ignorance when did they become aware of it. I suggest it was at a minimum shorty after Trump’s election when the Obama administration briefed Trump and his associates on it. What did Trump do after knowing about it? He refused to accept it. Isn’t that strange? He’d later tell us in Helsinki that he believed Putin over the Americans.
What has to be now reconciled is whether Trump now believes the Russian interfered on his behalf – does he believe Mueller with respect to that? Whether he does or not then at a minimum he knows he is president in part, and we are unable to tell how much the Russian assistance aided him, thanks to Russia’s interference. It is terrible when people do not grasp that even if there were no collusion Trump still sides with Russia over the American intelligence agencies.
I agree….in addition, people don’t seem to care that despite Mueller’s findings of no criminal conspiracy with the Russian government, the Trump campaign tried realllly hard to conspire with Russian govt. cut- outs like Felix Sater, Josef Misfud, etc.
I want to know what happened in the Seychelles w/ Betso Davos’ brother, the mercenary kingpin Erik Prince.
I want to know what Kushner is saying to the Saudi Murderer via the encrypted messaging system Whats App.
I want to know what government business Ivanka and Jared are conducting on their private email servers that now all of the sudden the GOP doesn’t care about.
Trump world is disgusting, hypocritical, and pathological.
Dave:
Isn’t one of the most outrageous things Jarat Kushner looking to set up a back channel to communicate with the Kremlin in the Russian embassy in the United States? How that in itself is not treasonous escapes me.
Excellent comment, NC. I agree on every point. Brilliant insights. Well said. Succinct, on point, with a sense of ironic humor. GOOD SHOW! As was said in the Bridge over the River Kwai!
The Bridge “On” The River Kwai.
Abe :
Bill and NC have never been seen on the same bridge together; either over or on the River Kwai .
Great Minds Think Alike .
“It seems to me that Barr is stating Mueller found that there was obstruction of justice by Trump but that he passed on determining whether it amounted to a crime.”
It seems to me that Mueller did not find that there was obstruction of justice by Trump but that he passed on saying so to appease his progressive supporters.
So there you go! I’d like to know WHY it seems to you….
John:
Your conclusion that Mueller did not find obstruction runs counter to what Barr said:
Barr’s report says that Mueller found there was obstruction of justice – “The Special Counsel states that “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” If there were no obstruction of justice Trump would have been exonerated.
I honestly don’t know where you are getting that, that “Barr’s report says that Mueller found there was obstruction of justice.” The part of the letter (not a ‘report’) that you quote does not logically support your assertion. You are asserting that if Mueller’s report doesn’t exonerate him, then he’s guilty. This is logically incorrect.
What the letter does say on this matter, as a matter of summary and conclusion, is that “the evidence developed during the Special Counsel’s investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.” So, insufficient proof that he did, therefore we may conclude that he did not. This is in keeping with the bedrock principle of our legal system, ‘innocent until proven guilty.’ Where’s the proof? There is none; or rather, more literally, it is insufficient.
Your bias leads you astray.
John:
As I wrote to you in the prior post, what you quote is a determination by AG Barr who even before he received Mueller’s report had written a president could not be found to have obstructed justice. That is how he got the job. I’m not interested in his opinion. I want to see what Mueller has set out.
Reply, obstruction of justice is a crime. If you found I did something that fell short of a crime, you, as prosecutor, found nothing. Muellar should have kept his mouth shut and stilled his pen about what crimes “may have occurred” or how many millions of crimes he failed to “exonerate” Trump’s people on. IT IS NOT HIS BUSINESS TO “EXONERATE” . . . .WHO THE HELL DOES HE THINK HE IS, THE KING, THE EMPEROR, THE POPE?
Try kissing His ring.