It is worth noting the essence of the Republican argument is that the President really should not have been investigated since he could not be indicted. And if he must be investigated the public shouldn’t learn anything about what was discovered unless there was an indictment, which of course can’t happen.
This is a remarkable passage. One of the Republican members on the Judiciary Committee just questioned whether the troll farm behind the election interference campaign had any connection with the Russian government.
GOP Rep McClintock accuses Mueller of defaming Russian government by claiming the Russian government was tied to the Russian troll farm which interfered in 2016 election. pic.twitter.com/xPY8kruxfK
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) July 24, 2019
Already I think Adam Schiff is doing a better job at this in his opening statement. Statute laws aren’t really the point. It’s about disloyalty to country and corruption. Trump encouraged and cooperated with a foreign power to help win the election and make money.
This is what this is about. pic.twitter.com/Wb739kdXcM
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) July 24, 2019
I don’t want to get too fan-boyish about Adam Schiff. But his questioning and that of the intelligence committee Democrats so far is a good illustration of zeroing in on what is important in all of this. President Trump and his campaign encouraged Russian assistance in the 2016; they cooperated with it; they profited from it. The President and his campaign manager were both trying to make cash windfalls in Russia while all this was happening. This is what is important. This is a massive betrayal of country. Whether that amounted to a statute crime is secondary.
I’m very interested in this exchange. Mueller responded with a categorical affirmative when asked whether Paul Manafort shared campaign and polling information with Konstantin Kilimnik and Oleg Deripaska because he hoped to get millions of dollars either of new money or debt forgiveness. Here’s the exchange.
I've never seen this stated so definitively, that Manafort shared campaign and polling data with Kilimnik because he hoped to get paid money by Russian or Ukrainian oligarchs. pic.twitter.com/qJ43Kc8blJ
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) July 24, 2019
Among other things, these two hearings illustrate a basic, important point. Obstruction is very important. But the real issue is the collusion, the active encouragement and acceptance of help from a foreign power. In other words, the underlying substance.
Obstruction is important in large part because it blocked getting the full story. The most important point here has never been narrowly statutory crimes. It’s the President’s betrayal of his country to get elected. That’s what matters.
If you watched today’s hearings, you may remember there was one Republican member, Rep. Chris Stewart who held up what he said was a list or binder of 25 examples of leaks from the Mueller Special Counsel’s Office. This left a lot of people baffled since to reporters’ great dismay the SCO was notoriously leak free. Matt Shuham asked Stewart’s office for a copy of the leaks and they were kind enough to oblige. Here’s Matt’s report.
“House Democrats have spent the last two years waiting for someone else to solve the Trump conundrum,” career federal prosecutor Cynthia Alksne writes for Cafe.
What became clear Wednesday is that there is no savior here, no knight in shining armor is going to ride in and save the day. It is now up to them, and to them alone, to determine whether they follow the polls or whether they follow the evidence.
As readers of TPM, I wanted to share with you that today I signed a three year collective bargaining agreement with the TPM union, represented by WGA East.