So many side stories and rivulets to watch over the course of the day. But I note that The Washington Post already seems to be downplaying its scoop that the Report would only be “lightly redacted”. It’s still included in the current versions of their main story. But it appears to have been demoted from the headline and nowhere on the digital front page. Curious to see how that get from Barr’s aides will age over the course of the day. The Post especially seems to have leaned quite far out on the basis of news that almost certainly comes from Barr and his top aides.
We’re maybe 6 or 7 minutes into Bill Barr’s extended summary of the Mueller Report. And it’s basically an extended version of the Barr Letter, Barr making maximal ‘no collusion’ claims. Same highly technical language.
Rush transcript of key part of Barr’s remarks, essentially justifying Trump’s behavior because he thought the investigation wasn’t fair. Read More
In Attorney General William Barr’s prepared remarks, he emphasized that there was “no collusion” four separate times:
As in his earlier letter, Bill Barr made very specific and technical claims as part of trying to exonerate the President. His argument tied to Wikileaks and the hacked emails is one you need to listen very closely to. He gives a blanket exoneration because he argues – plausible in legal terms – that the only way a Trump associate could have committed a crime is if they had already participated in the hacking of the DNC computers. Read More
From an ex-prosecutor reader …
The bizarre Barr defense of Trump on obstruction (he was frustrated) echoes the defense used (unsuccessfully) in the obstruction case against former LA Sheriff Lee Baca. Worth checking out. Interesting parallels. Unfortunately for Baca, he didn’t get to choose his prosecutor.
The Mueller analysis of the obstruction of justice question is far more complex, nuanced, and unfavorable to the president that Attorney General William Barr has portrayed publicly.
So one big finding so far, following up on David’s note below. It’s in the “Introduction to Volume II”, the obstruction part. It’s very specific and detailed. But it’s only two pages. You can read it yourself. It’s pages 213-14 in the PDF, pages 1 and 2 of that volume of the report. The gist though is that the Special Counsel decided not only that they couldn’t indict a sitting President but that it would not be fair even to accuse him of a crime without indicting him. They also say that if they decided he shouldn’t face prosecution (under the normal standards that would apply to a non-President) that they would say so. They did not. The gist is that the whole non-finding of obstruction seems to rest on the DOJ/OLC belief that a sitting President cannot be indicted – quite contrary to Barr’s claim.
We’ve broken out both introductions here.
It’s a given at this point that Bill Barr has been willfully deceptive about the contents of this report. But even taking that as a given this passage is critical in understanding the standards Mueller applied to the “collusion” part of the investigation. Indeed, he says explicitly, contra Barr, that he didn’t use that standard. Read More
The Mueller report dramatically reconfigures the general understanding – based largely on Attorney General William Barr’s public comments to date – of the obstruction of justice question. We fully explain that here.