Mueller: This Should Not Be The End

 

Mueller has concluded that there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. After two years of concerted attacks by a biased press and a corrupt bureaucracy, the collusion fantasy has been laid to rest.

Now let’s talk about collusion.

In 2016, and for the first time in U.S. history, a sitting administration used the power of federal law enforcement to spy on the opposition party during a presidential election. It justified that spying by citing a fraudulent document (the Steele Dossier), paid for by its own party’s candidate, as the basis for the warrant. The spying was overseen by fiercely partisan officials in the Department of Justice openly contemptuous of the opposition candidate. Other administration officials tried hundreds of times, without explanation or plausible justification, to gain access to confidential information collected during the spying.

If the administration’s party’s candidate had won the election, it seems certain that none of this would ever have come to light, an administration and Department of Justice shot through with corruption would have welcomed its successor, and its misconduct would have been buried forever.

That didn’t happen. Now the lingering corruption of the Obama era must be exposed and removed.

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  1. Ian M Inactive
    Ian M
    @IanMullican

    Right on!

    • #1
  2. Gumby Mark (R-Meth Lab of Demo… Coolidge
    Gumby Mark (R-Meth Lab of Demo…
    @GumbyMark

    Lindsay Graham gave a press conference this morning which you can watch here (the interesting part starts at 3:40).  He announced he’s going to hold hearings looking at the issues “swept under the rug”; abuse in seeking the FISA warrants; the conduct of the counterintelligence investigation by the FBI and DOJ; why (contra to normal practice) the Trump campaign was never given any warning about supposed Russian infiltration; why Comey took over the Clinton email investigation and why Lynch supposedly recused herself.

    He also stated he’s asking AG Barr to appoint Special Counsel with prosecutorial authority to look at the same issues.

    Graham stated he believes much of the material in the unverified Steele dossier actually came from the Kremlin.

    He did not take the bait when was questioned about Mueller punting on obstruction, stating he is not going to relook at that aspect.

    Senator Graham has positioned himself in an interesting way, reiterating he supported the Mueller investigation and that Sessions made the right decision in recusing himself, but now that Trump has been cleared (he called it “a great day for the President”) it was time to look at those who promoted all of this “bizarre” action.

     

     

    • #2
  3. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    Only fools will keep harping on obstruction.

    • #3
  4. Sweezle Inactive
    Sweezle
    @Sweezle

    Senator Graham was 100% right. The origin of this witch hunt needs to be investigated. The lack of journalistic curiosity is astounding. Still.

     

    • #4
  5. Gumby Mark (R-Meth Lab of Demo… Coolidge
    Gumby Mark (R-Meth Lab of Demo…
    @GumbyMark

    Sweezle (View Comment):

    Senator Graham was 100% right. The origin of this witch hunt needs to be investigated. The lack of journalistic curiosity is astounding. Still.

    And I’m glad he’s going after both the Clinton email “investigation” and the Trump collusion story since they are intimately linked.

    • #5
  6. Sweezle Inactive
    Sweezle
    @Sweezle

    Gumby Mark (R-Meth Lab of Demo… (View Comment):

    Sweezle (View Comment):

    Senator Graham was 100% right. The origin of this witch hunt needs to be investigated. The lack of journalistic curiosity is astounding. Still.

    And I’m glad he’s going after both the Clinton email “investigation” and the Trump collusion story since they are intimately linked.

    But will he be successful? Will be ever have an honest investigation of FISA abuse? Or see McCabe, Comey, Ohr, Strozk etc. or Obama’s crowd be investigated and charged? Or even honest investigations by MSM journalists? 

    Meanwhile, we are left to clean up this mess in our communities and families. And it will be painfully slow.

     

    • #6
  7. Hang On Member
    Hang On
    @HangOn

    The thing is they will double down and create bigger lies. So be ready for the onslaught. 

     

    • #7
  8. Mark Camp Member
    Mark Camp
    @MarkCamp

    The odds against filing a Yahtzee post are long.  If there are five key points addressed in the post (just as there are five dice), and each one has six different possible opinions (corresponding to the six sides of each individual die), and all of the opinions have to be correct, it’s easy to see why they are so uncommon.

    This was a Yahtzee.

     

    • #8
  9. Gumby Mark (R-Meth Lab of Demo… Coolidge
    Gumby Mark (R-Meth Lab of Demo…
    @GumbyMark

    I forgot to mention Graham also warned the Democrats not to make the same political mistake the GOP did in impeaching Clinton.

    • #9
  10. GLDIII Temporarily Essential Reagan
    GLDIII Temporarily Essential
    @GLDIII

    Henry Racette:

    If the administration’s party’s candidate had won the election, it seems certain that none of this would ever have come to light: an administration and Department of Justice shot through with corruption would have welcomed its successor, and its misconduct would have been buried forever.

     

    When a tree in the forest falls, and nobody was around, did it in fact make a sound?

    • #10
  11. Gary Robbins Member
    Gary Robbins
    @GaryRobbins

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    Only fools will keep harping on obstruction.

    Let’s see what the Mueller report says.

    • #11
  12. Fake John/Jane Galt Coolidge
    Fake John/Jane Galt
    @FakeJohnJaneGalt

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    Only fools will keep harping on obstruction.

    Let’s see what the Mueller report says.

    Lets see what Mueller leaks.  Stuff found, not in the report but can be used to damage Trump, GOP or whoever is not Democrat.

     

    • #12
  13. James Lileks Contributor
    James Lileks
    @jameslileks

    I remember a term from the days after the USSR fell, and a bunch of gouty old Politburo types staged a pathetic attempt to bring back Red Glory; the news described them as Coup Plotters, which became one word – cooplotters. 

    If this gets investigated, I have an inkling of a semblance of a tincture of a feeling that this was no  brilliantly executed maneuver. The cooplotters started something . . . and it got away from them, because they weren’t as smart as they thought they were. They felt reassured when the MSM ran with it, and they figured they were insulated, but it probably wasn’t enough, and there were more than a few moments of quiet panic at 10 PM  in the backyard over an illicit cigarette (quit years ago, but this is just for now) while the dog did his business. Stub out the smoke. It’ll be okay. We’re good. In their minds they’d already internalized the Dossier as a justification – even if it wasn’t true, it was truthy, and Trump was a threat to democracy, or something. Right side of history, and all that.

    I would like an investigation, if only to know why Nellie Ohr got a ham radio license. 

    • #13
  14. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    I would like an investigation, if only to know why Nellie Ohr got a ham radio license.

    You esk, I tell. One day I am saying Nellie you should get reddio license and she is saying why and I am saying is good hobby but sometimes maybe people wonder if you are spy, but I am telling them you are not spy. So Comrade Lileks reddio is nothing so let dog lie since dog is maybe sleeping. 

    • #14
  15. PHenry Inactive
    PHenry
    @PHenry

    Obstruction of justice when there was no underlying crime is a process crime.  That is Muller’s legacy- process crimes.  He does not need evidence of crimes to start an investigation.   Once he starts investigating, the crimes begin. ( And not just in the Russia probe, he has been there before. It’s his MO.)

       It is just a hair short of ‘show me the man I’ll show you the crime’.  Show me the man and I will induce the crime. 

    It is a seeping wound on our justice system that has to be addressed.  

    • #15
  16. Henry Racette Member
    Henry Racette
    @HenryRacette

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    I remember a term from the days after the USSR fell, and a bunch of gouty old Politburo types staged a pathetic attempt to bring back Red Glory; the news described them as Coup Plotters, which became one word – cooplotters.

    If this gets investigated, I have an inkling of a semblance of a tincture of a feeling that this was no brilliantly executed maneuver. The cooplotters started something . . . and it got away from them, because they weren’t as smart as they thought they were. They felt reassured when the MSM ran with it, and they figured they were insulated, but it probably wasn’t enough, and there were more than a few moments of quiet panic at 10 PM in the backyard over an illicit cigarette (quit years ago, but this is just for now) while the dog did his business. Stub out the smoke. It’ll be okay. We’re good. In their minds they’d already internalized the Dossier as a justification – even if it wasn’t true, it was truthy, and Trump was a threat to democracy, or something. Right side of history, and all that.

    I would like an investigation, if only to know why Nellie Ohr got a ham radio license.

    I think proper conspiracies are about as rare — not quite, but almost — as hens’ teeth. There simply aren’t enough evil masterminds.

    • #16
  17. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    Only fools will keep harping on obstruction.

    Let’s see what the Mueller report says.

    LOL 

    • #17
  18. Misthiocracy secretly Member
    Misthiocracy secretly
    @Misthiocracy

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    I remember a term from the days after the USSR fell, and a bunch of gouty old Politburo types staged a pathetic attempt to bring back Red Glory; the news described them as Coup Plotters, which became one word – cooplotters.

    If this gets investigated, I have an inkling of a semblance of a tincture of a feeling that this was no brilliantly executed maneuver. The cooplotters started something . . . and it got away from them, because they weren’t as smart as they thought they were. They felt reassured when the MSM ran with it, and they figured they were insulated, but it probably wasn’t enough, and there were more than a few moments of quiet panic at 10 PM in the backyard over an illicit cigarette (quit years ago, but this is just for now) while the dog did his business. Stub out the smoke. It’ll be okay. We’re good. In their minds they’d already internalized the Dossier as a justification – even if it wasn’t true, it was truthy, and Trump was a threat to democracy, or something. Right side of history, and all that.

    I would like an investigation, if only to know why Nellie Ohr got a ham radio license.

    I think proper conspiracies are about as rare — not quite, but almost — as hens’ teeth. There simply aren’t enough evil masterminds.

    Successful conspiracies are about as rare as hens’ teeth.  Botched conspiracies are rather more common.

    • #18
  19. Freesmith Member
    Freesmith
    @

    Henry Racette:

    Mueller has concluded that there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. After two years of concerted attacks by a biased press and a corrupt bureaucracy, the collusion fantasy has been laid to rest.

    Now let’s talk about collusion.

    In 2016, and for the first time in U.S. history, a sitting administration used the power of federal law enforcement to spy on the opposition party during a presidential election. It justified that spying by citing a fraudulent document (the Steele Dossier), paid for by its own party’s candidate, as the basis for the warrant. The spying was overseen by fiercely partisan officials in the Department of Justice openly contemptuous of the opposition candidate. Other administration officials tried hundreds of times, without explanation or plausible justification, to gain access to confidential information collected during the spying.

    If the administration’s party’s candidate had won the election, it seems certain that none of this would ever have come to light, an administration and Department of Justice shot through with corruption would have welcomed its successor, and its misconduct would have been buried forever.

    That didn’t happen. Now the lingering corruption of the Obama era must be exposed and removed.

    Yeah, sure.

    Like the malefactors of the disaster of the Iraq War, who are working in the current administration like John Bolton, writing for liberal magazines like David Frum, pontificating in the media like Bill Kristol or serving as governmental overseers like Robert Mueller.

    Or like malefactors of the 2008 Financial Meltdown such as Barney Frank, Henry Paulson and Angelo Mozilo.

    Who’s going to lead this takedown of the mainstream media, all of official Washington (including the Justice and Intelligence agencies), the managerial “deep state” and half of conservative opinion-makers?

    Jussie Smollett?

    Let me know first when you can keep men out of women’s bathrooms. If you can figure out how to do that, then maybe you’ll be ready for bigger stuff.

    • #19
  20. Henry Racette Member
    Henry Racette
    @HenryRacette

    Freesmith (View Comment):

    Henry Racette:

    Mueller has concluded that there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. After two years of concerted attacks by a biased press and a corrupt bureaucracy, the collusion fantasy has been laid to rest.

    Now let’s talk about collusion.

    In 2016, and for the first time in U.S. history, a sitting administration used the power of federal law enforcement to spy on the opposition party during a presidential election. It justified that spying by citing a fraudulent document (the Steele Dossier), paid for by its own party’s candidate, as the basis for the warrant. The spying was overseen by fiercely partisan officials in the Department of Justice openly contemptuous of the opposition candidate. Other administration officials tried hundreds of times, without explanation or plausible justification, to gain access to confidential information collected during the spying.

    If the administration’s party’s candidate had won the election, it seems certain that none of this would ever have come to light, an administration and Department of Justice shot through with corruption would have welcomed its successor, and its misconduct would have been buried forever.

    That didn’t happen. Now the lingering corruption of the Obama era must be exposed and removed.

    Yeah, sure.

    Like the malefactors of the disaster of the Iraq War, who are working in the current administration like John Bolton, writing for liberal magazines like David Frum, pontificating in the media like Bill Kristol or serving as governmental overseers like Robert Mueller.

    Or like malefactors of the 2008 Financial Meltdown such as Barney Frank, Henry Paulson and Angelo Mozilo.

    Who’s going to lead this takedown of the mainstream media, all of official Washington (including the Justice and Intelligence agencies), the managerial “deep state” and half of conservative opinion-makers?

    Jussie Smollett?

    Let me know first when you can keep men out of women’s bathrooms. If you can figure out how to do that, then maybe you’ll be ready for bigger stuff.

    Glad to see you’ve got your surrender flag out and ready, ace. 

    • #20
  21. LibertyDefender Member
    LibertyDefender
    @LibertyDefender

    Henry Racette: In 2016, and for the first time in U.S. history, a sitting administration used the power of federal law enforcement to spy on the opposition party during a presidential election.

    That’s a very prominent tip of an enormous iceberg.  The sitting administration also used the entire intelligence community, and it either hoodwinked the judiciary or the judiciary was complicit, in order to spy on the opposition party during a presidential election.

    • #21
  22. LibertyDefender Member
    LibertyDefender
    @LibertyDefender

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    Only fools will keep harping on obstruction.

    Let’s see what the Mueller report says.

    Here’s what Andrew McCarthy says we already know about what the Mueller report says:

    The most telling revelation in Attorney General William Barr’s letter about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s much-anticipated final report is that Mueller has punted on the main question he pursued for nearly two years of investigation: Did President Trump commit an obstruction offense?

    But maybe there’s something in there – probably redacted – that NeverTrumpers can cling to.  Maybe.

    • #22
  23. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Misthiocracy secretly (View Comment):

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    I remember a term from the days after the USSR fell, and a bunch of gouty old Politburo types staged a pathetic attempt to bring back Red Glory; the news described them as Coup Plotters, which became one word – cooplotters.

    If this gets investigated, I have an inkling of a semblance of a tincture of a feeling that this was no brilliantly executed maneuver. The cooplotters started something . . . and it got away from them, because they weren’t as smart as they thought they were. They felt reassured when the MSM ran with it, and they figured they were insulated, but it probably wasn’t enough, and there were more than a few moments of quiet panic at 10 PM in the backyard over an illicit cigarette (quit years ago, but this is just for now) while the dog did his business. Stub out the smoke. It’ll be okay. We’re good. In their minds they’d already internalized the Dossier as a justification – even if it wasn’t true, it was truthy, and Trump was a threat to democracy, or something. Right side of history, and all that.

    I would like an investigation, if only to know why Nellie Ohr got a ham radio license.

    I think proper conspiracies are about as rare — not quite, but almost — as hens’ teeth. There simply aren’t enough evil masterminds.

    Successful conspiracies are about as rare as hens’ teeth. Botched conspiracies are rather more common.

    I was reminded of this exchange from an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation titled, of all things, “Conspiracy.”

    AARON: What do you know of conspiracies, Captain?

    PICARD: Not nearly enough, I suppose.

    AARON: That’s the charming thing about them, isn’t it? When a machination is real, no one knows about it. And when it’s suspected, it’s almost never real.

    SAVAR: Except, of course, in paranoid delusions for those who believe.

    The main point is that we have no idea how prevalent SUCCESSFUL conspiracies might be, because by definition, if they’re successful, they’re not discovered.

    But it seems to me that a lot of people just want to put the “conspiracy” label on anything a government person does, that they don’t like.  Individual incompetence or even malevolence, even if found in multiple people in an agency etc, doesn’t seem like enough of an explanation.  People seems able to understand that sharing the leftist viewpoint in the media causes them to act in certain ways without it being a “conspiracy.”  But somehow if the same thing happens in government, “conspiracy” is the first thing some people jump to.

    • #23
  24. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    Only fools will keep harping on obstruction.

    I was going to do a “fixed it for you” changing “fools” to “Democrats” but that might be a problem excluding the Jonah Goldbergs and others.  Unless it’s the same as some others who turned out to really be “closeted” Democrats.

    • #24
  25. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    LibertyDefender (View Comment):

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    Only fools will keep harping on obstruction.

    Let’s see what the Mueller report says.

    Here’s what Andrew McCarthy says we already know about what the Mueller report says:

    The most telling revelation in Attorney General William Barr’s letter about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s much-anticipated final report is that Mueller has punted on the main question he pursued for nearly two years of investigation: Did President Trump commit an obstruction offense?

    But maybe there’s something in there – probably redacted – that NeverTrumpers can cling to. Maybe.

    Drowning men will cling to anything. 

    • #25
  26. Gary Robbins Member
    Gary Robbins
    @GaryRobbins

    Duplicate.

    • #26
  27. Gary Robbins Member
    Gary Robbins
    @GaryRobbins

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    Only fools will keep harping on obstruction.

    Let’s see what the Mueller report says.

    LOL

    I agree with Charlie Sykes on this:

    “The decision not to charge Trump with obstruction was made not by Mueller, but by Trump’s appointees: Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Mueller’s report lays out the arguments on both sides, but ‘ultimately determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment.’

    “Mueller apparently felt strongly enough about this point that he said, ‘while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.’ [Emphasis added]”

    See https://thebulwark.com/no-collusion-no-exoneration/

    • #27
  28. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    Only fools will keep harping on obstruction.

    I was going to do a “fixed it for you” changing “fools” to “Democrats” but that might be a problem excluding the Jonah Goldbergs and others. Unless it’s the same as some others who turned out to really be “closeted” Democrats.

    And people here at Ricochet, maybe? ;)

     

    • #28
  29. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    Only fools will keep harping on obstruction.

    Let’s see what the Mueller report says.

    LOL

    I agree with Charlie Sykes on this:

    “The decision not to charge Trump with obstruction was made not by Mueller, but by Trump’s appointees: Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Mueller’s report lays out the arguments on both sides, but ‘ultimately determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment.’

    “Mueller apparently felt strongly enough about this point that he said, ‘while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.’ [Emphasis added]”

    See https://thebulwark.com/no-collusion-no-exoneration/

    LOL

    • #29
  30. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    Gary Robbins (View Comment):

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    Only fools will keep harping on obstruction.

    Let’s see what the Mueller report says.

    LOL

    I agree with Charlie Sykes on this:

    “The decision not to charge Trump with obstruction was made not by Mueller, but by Trump’s appointees: Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Mueller’s report lays out the arguments on both sides, but ‘ultimately determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment.’

    “Mueller apparently felt strongly enough about this point that he said, ‘while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.’ [Emphasis added]”

    See https://thebulwark.com/no-collusion-no-exoneration/

    Did he mention that it doesn’t exonerate you, either? Nor does it exonerate John McCain.  

    • #30
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