Despite the fact that virtually no one has yet to see the full Mueller report, President Donald Trump’s aides have taken to the cable circuit to defend and interpret Attorney General William Barr’s summary of the probe.
On Monday night, that role fell to Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow on MSNBC’s “The Beat” with Ari Melber. The MSNBC host grilled Sekulow on Trump allies’ dubious claim that Trump was fully exonerated by special counsel Robert Mueller.
“While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him. So what does non-exonerate mean to you?” Melber asked Sekulow.
“They didn’t make a determination. That’s all it means,” Sekulow said. “They did not find that the President committed a crime.”
Melber then asked if there’s a chance that special counsel Robert Mueller punted the obstruction question because of the Department of Justice policy that a sitting President cannot be indicted, and asked if Congress should have then tackled the obstruction question instead of Barr.
Sekulow pushed back hard, saying that it’s up to Trump’s Justice Department to make a determination.
More light will likely be shed on this issue when the full report is released, and people can determine Mueller’s rationale for not coming to a conclusion on the obstruction question. As it is, Barr only included a partial quote from the report on that issue in his four-page summary.
Melber and Sekulow tussle over the non-exoneration quote in Barr’s summary pic.twitter.com/5nsn8KsplA
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) March 26, 2019
So, I’m no fancy big city lawyer.
But can someone explain to me the practical, real world difference between “exonerated” (but uncharged), “not exonerated” (but uncharged), and “guilty as hell” but uncharged?
And again, where are the Dems doing the circuit pushing back hard against this nonsense 24/7? I’m sure, as more and more of the report comes out, it will show all sorts of slimy, traitorous behavior by the Trump crime family, by why let these scumbags dominate the narrative for days and days, only to then try to play catch-up? Dems should be out there RIGHT NOW saying that all we know right now is that Trump’s hand-picked toady is refusing to pursue charges against him. There is nothing to exonerate Trump. Why is messaging so hard for the Dems?
They’re actually doing pretty well with it-- it’s a steady mantra of “release the report”, sprinkled with a bit of, “if there’s nothing to hide”…
Give it a few days. We’re less than 48 hours since the memo was released, and the networks are only now starting to get over their “no collusion” mantra and actually dig more into the substance of the memo, which clearly raised a lot more red flags than just the decision to not bring charges.
The last two only require putting a boot-licking toady in charge of making the decision.
“More light will likely be shed on this issue when the full report is released”
Go ahead…dare ya…