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Read the Mueller Report
Attorney General Bill Barr released the report of Special Counsel Robert Mueller today. Here it is so you can read it and draw your own conclusions.
Let us know in the comments what you think.
Fox News has also uploaded the report to Scribd, which you can view below. This may take up to a few minutes to load on your device, however.
Mueller Report by Fox News on Scribd
Published in Politics
“Sell” was the wrong word, but that’s not the point. The FBI has two jobs: federal policing, and counter-espionage. If you hear that the Russian government has dug up “dirt” on a presidential candidate, the second of those jobs comes directly into play, because you want to know what dirt it dug up and how. For example, the known cyber-espionage operation that hacked into the DNC and DCCC.
Considering the entire Steele dossier turned out to be a lie – not really! :) Why do I care if the Russians are making up spying activities? I only care about the ones they’re actually conducting.
So you’ve got no problem with the campaign of an American presidential candidate paying an agent to collect disinformation from Russia, disinformation that it incorporates into a dossier and then, without any attempt at verification, is selectively disseminated to favorable media outlets in an event to influence the election, and is given to the FBI and DOJ which then uses it as the basis for obtaining a FISA Warrant to spy on the campaign of the other presidential candidate?
All is permissible when Orange Man Bad.
That’s not what I said. All I said was that this isn’t a matter for the FBI.
None of the media outlets published the information until after the election precisely because it was disinformation. I don’t know what there is to complain about.
This is entirely false. The first FISA warrants into Carter Page were from 2013, long before the Steele dossier. And most of the other investigations into members of the Trump campaign stemmed from their other contacts with Russian officials.
I honestly don’t get the reactions here. It’s not enough that Mueller proved that Trump did not conspire with Russia, we have to also try to prove (based on falsehoods and conspiracy theories) that there was never any reason to look into it? When it’s very obvious that there were good reasons? Why?
I’d advise you to stop spreading fake news and read source documents. Redacted copies of the four Carter Page FISA warrants, the first of which was issued in September 2016, have been publicly available for some time. The Steele Dossier is explicitly mentioned in the warrant application.
Your story is eerily similar to the fake news story we were fed when the origins of the Steele Dossier were made public in 2017 – that GOP operatives initially funded it, including the reach out to the Russians.
Is there anything false in what I’ve said? Is there a conspiracy theory I am advocating? I don’t know the origins of the 2016 investigation; the questions I’ve raised are sensible ones if you are trying to understand what happened.
I would have been okay with a good faith effort to look at Russian attempts to influence the election and what was know, and by whom, and when and involving both campaigns. That is not what the Mueller report is about, and that’s why so many questions are still left hanging.
Instead we’ve had two years of conspiracy mongering triggered by the Steele Dossier, and now that it is confirmed that it cannot be verified you just shrug your shoulders and say “whatever”.
Well if that’s none of the FBI’s business you’ve just undermined the indictments Mueller filed against the Russian entities based upon their efforts to influence the election. Do you agree they should be dismissed?
That’s exactly what Alan Dershowitz says. He says they should have just had a bipartisan commission.
You’re talking only about the warrants that were made public. Furthermore, “mentioned” doesn’t make it the entire and sole basis for the warrant. Even more importantly, the laws regarding FISA warrants require the FBI to establish that additional significant information was obtained since the previous warrant was requested, which means that on at least three occasions something other than the dossier was considered significant enough information. And finally, Carter Page is so insignificant to this whole situation I really don’t get the focus on him.
We have a serious problem here about the way the right keeps trying to push things. It’s not enough to win – we have to go further and attempt to “utterly crush” the other side. Have you ever heard of a basketball team, having sunk a three-pointer at the buzzer to win the game, insisting on going into overtime just so they can win “even more”? Of course not – why would you risk tossing away a hard-fought victory?
But that’s what we’ve been doing this entire time, by spinning wild conspiracy theories and lying and attacking things that don’t need to be attacked. Look at the Mueller report – half of it is dedicated solely to enumerating every single time President Trump or the people around him lied about contacts with Russians! This report would be half the length – and 100% exonerating instead of just 75% – if not for that.
Heck, the report itself wouldn’t even have existed if not for Trump pointlessly and repeatedly changing his story about why he fired Comey, and then lying about having “tapes” of his conversations with him, thus triggering the Special Counsel investigation. Did we not learn the story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf when we were kids? That a liar is not believed even when tells the truth? That’s what happens to people like Papadopoulos, and Page, and Manafort, and, yes, Trump himself.
Trump was cleared. Take the win. Get on with our lives. If you try to Louise Mensch your way through the victory, you’ll very quickly turn it into a defeat – just the way Trump almost did by creating this investigation in the first place.
Wrong again. Allegations contained within the dossier, such as those regarding Carter Page, were published before the election, and were even contained in a letter Harry Reid sent in August 2016 regarding Russian interference. The entire dossier was not published until early January 2017 and under very curious circumstances. After DNI Clapper urged Comey to brief Trump on it, he did so and then a couple of days later news of the briefing was leaked (by guess who) to the media which then published the dossier; the unverified dossier. And then when Trump told Comey he was thinking of asking the FBI to investigate the dossier Comey told him he didn’t think it was a good idea. But of course, there’s nothing to see here. Just move along.
The origins of this multi year farse are exactly what many people are hoping AG Barr, the IG of DOJ, and US Attorney Huber are now beginning to investigate. They have a great head start done by the former Republican Congress, specifically Devin Nunes, but he was impaired by then AG (acting) Rosenstein and others. We shall see what happens next. Other than the absolutely ridiculous dossier, which, when I read it a year or so ago, I was laughing throughout by the absurdity of its “disclosures” and the less than quality composition, and which was produced during the election campaign of 2016, what predicate did the FBI have for investigating Trump or his campaign for espionage? So I say again, Trump was not a target at the time Papa entered the campaign, ergo, if the FBI thought Papa was kinky, then, yes, they should have told Trump their concerns. OTOH, if Trump was a target then, WHY was he a target? I believe he was made a target by the Obama administration and Clinton. And that is the really big story. That is what the origins will tell us.
P.S.
I misspoke when I said “Beginning to investigate”. I should have said “are continuing to investigate”
But it’s not over. Progressives and the Bulwark crowd have already casually dismissed the Steele Dossier and are now moving onto the obstruction fixation which they will not give up on. You can’t dishonestly beat the drums for two years, pervert the FBI and DOJ, and then, when it’s all revealed to be about nothing, just say move on, don’t ask why, don’t hold anyone accountable. Just like you are now taking the view the Carter Page warrants were “insignificant” yet the FBI and DOJ spent considerable resources over a period of a year to obtain the initial warrant and its renewals. But thanks for acknowledging your original statement about the Page warrant was fake news.
And I ask again – what wild conspiracy theory am I spinning?
He was already an FBI asset in multiple ways. The whole thing is just wacky. Screw the Deep State.
Also, the warrant on Carter Page was a special type of warrant (someone help me with this if you know) which allowed the eavesdropping on not just Page’s emails, phone calls, and everything else, but they allowed a double circle of contact eavesdropping on everyone Page communicated with, and everyone those people communicated with. That Page search warrant was a listening device for Trump himself.
Oh no!! Bob Woodward’s joined the conspiracy mongering, says DOJ, FBI reliance on the Steele Dossier needs to be investigated. What a crank!
No. In 2013, the FBI was investigating SVR agents Igor Sporyshev and Victor Podobnyy, who were attempting to recruit contacts, one of which was Carter Page. The investigation led to indictments (link), the indictments led to convictions, and now both Sporyshev and Podobnyy are back in Mother Russia probably enrolled in remedial spy school.
Page is mentioned as cooperating with the FBI in their investigation. Did Page show up in any wiretaps? Maybe, of the Russians, the actual targets. The FBI didn’t charge Page then.
So tell me, if you were the SVR agent-in-charge of communicating with Donald Trump in order to “collude,” would you use as a conduit the guy who assisted in terminating their operation and sending them up? The Russians, unfortunately, are not that stupid.
There is something I have heard named “the three hop” rule. The warrant allows the surveillance of the target, everyone he contacts, everyone they contact, and everyone they contact. And it doesn’t apply to the period after the warrant is approved. It can be used on communication that occured prior to that.
Page also got debriefed by the CIA et. al. every single time he came back from Russia. They wanted his opinions and information, even though he was trying to take a more conciliatory approach than many. Total patriot.
I’m reading the Reid letter right now and I don’t find a single false statement in it, other than the bit about “may include the intent to falsify official election results”. All of Reid’s statements about Trump campaign officials with ties to Russia are true.
Which they wouldn’t be able to do, if Trump had left well enough alone and not tell lies and not push and not try to block the investigation or cast blame on other people. This is entirely his own doing.
And the solution to this is – more of the same? Push further, cast more blame, tell more lies? When that’s what caused this in the first place?
The Trump-Russia investigation was started because of the meeting with Papadopoulos. The special counsel investigation was started because of the firing of Comey and the claim of “tapes”. The general Russia interference investigation was started because of the DNC hack. So yes, the Carter Page warrants were insignificant. If Carter Page had dropped dead of a heart attack in 2015 there would be zero changes to any of what happened in the last four years.
Also, on what do you base your claim that the resources expended were “considerable”, or more than those expended on any average person suspected of being a Russian agent?
That the Russia investigation was a Deep State attempt to take down the Trump campaign – when every step taken by the investigation was, so far as we can tell, completely legitimate based on the information available to the government at the time.
The headline doesn’t match the content of the report in the least. Read the article: it very clearly talks about the CIA relying on it in a report issued in 2017. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the DOJ or the FBI or the Russia investigation.
See what I mean about pushing too far, and lying to attempt to win points?
You’re talking about two entirely different things. The Mueller indictments against Russia are for actions taken by Russians in contravention of federal law. Some guy in a bar in Moscow telling a British idiot what he wants to hear isn’t the same thing.
BTW, I’d appreciate it if you’d stop splitting your responses into three or four comments every time – it makes it very difficult to follow the conversation.
That’s not what I said. I said it contains information sourced from the dossier, specifically Carter Page’s trip to Moscow. I was reading stuff about Page in the press at the time (in retrospect sourced from the dossier) and in my naivete thought it might be true and that he was some kind of influential big-shot.
Since you are relatively new here, I will point out that in early 2017 I commented on Ricochet I was furious with Trump for some of his ill-advised moves. But I’m somewhat more understanding now. He got bad advice when he didn’t fire Comey as of January 20, and when he did finally fire him he got talked out of his first instinct to say he fired him because he wouldn’t say publicly what he was being told privately – he was not under investigation. I do think he did other things that played into the hands of those who were trying to set him up. But there were folks trying to set him up.
Yes, to find out the truth finally.
And that’s why I would like the questions answered that I posed in an earlier comment.
I guess they just had someone from the typing pool put something together to get a warrant to tap the communications of the campaign of a presidential candidate.
Do you realize you are arguing in circles? Carter Page is important until he isn’t. And the Steele Dossier was used in his warrant application in September 2016. Papdopolous is important until he isn’t. Manafort was important until he wasn’t. Trump claims Comey told him three times he wasn’t under investigation – I thought at the time Trump was lying – turns out Comey had told him that while at the same time was leaking everything damaging to the media. Trump tells Comey he’s thinking of asking the FBI to investigate the dossier and Comey goes out of his way to dissuade him from that. Mueller and his team likely know in the fall of 2017 there is no collusion but don’t bother to tell anyone. Why? Glad to see you at least agree the CIA should be investigated.
When all this started after the election, I thought there might be something there regarding Trump. As we’ve gone along the revelations of DOJ and FBI malfeasance, and the Clinton campaign collusion with Russia have been mind boggling to me – I did not think it was possible. I don’t know for certain what happened but I sure want some answers.
Nothing in the PDF says that Page was cooperating with the FBI. On what do you base the claim that he was one of the good guys in that incident?
Heck, if you’re identified as having been targeted for recruitment by a foreign intelligence agency, that pretty well justifies surveillance for the next couple of years, if only just to determine whether or not that agency succeeded! If the FBI hadn’t surveilled Page for the next couple of years that would be seriously dropping the ball.
As my high school math teacher often said to me, you skipped a step.
Byron York points out what should be obvious to anyone:
(The hyperlinks above are to the Washington Examiner columnists page. The title of the excerpted column includes a Code of Conduct-violating eight letter word.)
Listen to Byron York’s podcast interviews of Trump’s lawyer John Dowd. Dowd explains that it was obvious by Thanksgiving 2017 that Mueller had proved no collusion. I think Dowd is being far too generous to Mueller, since it was obvious to anyone who was paying attention by early 2017 that there was no collusion with Russia by Trump or anyone in the Trump campaign. Thus, the report itself wouldn’t have existed if Mueller had been honest enough to admit that well before the end of 2017 he’d answered clearly the only question at the heart of the investigation.
Furthermore, Andy McCarthy has consistently pointed out that the implementing regulations of the Special Counsel statute require that the Special Counsel’s charter indicate a crime to be investigated. The Mueller investigation identified no crime, it was a “counterintelligence investigation” (whatever that means). Thus the Report itself wouldn’t even have existed if Rosenstein had followed the law.
Still furthermore, as Andy McCarthy has also explained, the first Carter Page FISA warrant was issued in October, 2016. It was renewed three times in January, April, and July of 2017. Mueller was appointed May 17, 2017. After two months heading the investigation, Mueller could have/should known that a third renewal of the Carter Page FISA warrant was unnecessary, yet it was renewed.
At its heart, the Trump-Russia probe was about one question:
Did the Trump campaign conspire, coordinate, or collude with Russia to influence the 2016 election?
Mueller concluded that did not happen.
If Reid did in fact get the information in his letter from the dossier, then it’s pretty curious that he managed to only quote parts of the dossier that turned out to be true, and left out the parts that didn’t. He clearly got information from elsewhere.
You can ask for an investigation without positing conspiracy theories. Just like the left should have been doing in the Russia investigation.
You can be sarcastic if you like. But it’s not a binary choice between “wasted lots of money on something stupid” vs. “did it offhandedly”. There’s a vast gulf between using no resources and using considerable resources – a gulf that is, by definition, considerable.
At what point did I say that he was important?
At what point did I say that he wasn’t important?
I barely even mentioned Manafort. You’re not debating in good faith here.
Do you have a basis for this claim?
This can’t possibly be true, because Trump didn’t submit his testimony to the special counsel until a year later.
Didn’t say that. All I said was that the article was on a completely different subject from the one that you (and its headline) claimed it was.
How do you know it was some guy in a bar telling a British idiot? Sounds like a conspiracy theory. Well, in this case the sources were identified in the dossier as including Russian intelligence, and the FBI and DOJ thought enough of the dossier to include it in support of getting the warrants on Carter Page. So are you arguing that the disinformation included in the dossier leaked to the press which reported on it during the campaign, and used to get a FISA warrant was not an action in contravention of federal law but the Mueller indictments were proper? By the way, the Papadopolous discussion with the Australian diplomat was in a bar so I guess that was okay.
Yes, as a matter of fact. Whatever Steele was told, no laws were violated. When somebody hacks into a computer system, or launders money, or works as an unlicensed foreign agent, or lies under oath, a law is violated. This is pretty black and white.
More sarcasm. Please grapple with the actual point I’m making and not with obvious rhetorical flourishes.
He wasn’t indicted. They were surveilling the SVR agents, and they questioned them later.
Nice little police state you’re planning on instituting there.
Even if it’s correct (and Trump’s lawyer clearly has a vested interest in lying about this, so don’t believe it at face value), the Special Counsel’s charter was to investigate all Russian interference in the 2016 election. That’s why the entire first section of the report discusses the IRA, which has nothing whatsoever to do with the Trump campaign.
Hacking the DNC and DCCC computer networks is a crime, isn’t it?
Mueller doesn’t run the FBI, and the whole point of a special counsel is that it remains generally separate from the rest of the organization. Whatever the people following Carter Page around were thinking and doing, Mueller wasn’t involved.
Yes, he did. And good for him – and good for the country. I would not have wanted to discover that the president had betrayed the country, and I’m glad that it’s been firmly established that he didn’t. (Except for certain policy things that I disagree with him on…)
Yes, the congressional testimony of James Comey who testified that he had, in fact, assured Trump on three occasions he was under investigation.
Stop with the crap about conspiracy theories. I would have been happy to have a full investigation in 2017 of all Russian efforts. Too bad it did not happen, and it did not happen because the FBI, DOJ, and Mueller decided to focus on Donald Trump in order to get him out of office or, failing that, hamper his administration. The questions I am raising are because of what we have learned since. I now have many more questions than answers, but one thing I do know is they’ve acted in bad faith and deserve the mistrust they now face. As Peter Strzok admitted way back in May 2017 “there’s no big there there”. They knew.