Question....if Mueller had various evidence supporting collusion between Trump and Russia....

[Tommy_Carcetti]

....but it was just short of whatever threshold he determined was necessary to meet to justify criminal indictments directly on charges related to collusion.....but the fact that that the evidence fell just short was due in part to various holes created by Trump's own various acts of obstruction in the investigation....is Barr's take on the collusion angle of the investigation even an exoneration of Trump there? Or does it actually support the obstruction angle even further, which Barr stated there was no determination by Mueller?

Think back several years to the Casey Anthony case. Young daughter Caylee goes missing, her body is found in the woods several months later, and eventually Casey is charged with her murder. Casey Anthony's behavior up to that point is extremely suspicious--she lies to investigators, tells various stories that make no sense or lead to dead ends, even defrauds her own grandmother. Same goes for Casey's parents, who along with Casey, were the last to see Caylee alive.

The problem is, prosecutors are put into an almost impossible bind because of the chronology of the case. While Casey and her parents stonewalled investigators, Caylee's body decomposed to the point where determining an exact cause of death was near impossible.

So Casey is charged with murder, but prosecutors can literally only put forth assumptions as to how Caylee might have died. Did Casey out and out murder Caylee in cold blood, as the prosecutors eventually claim? Possibly, but Caylee could have also died accidentally as a result of some act of gross negligence from Casey or her parents, and they placed her body in the woods in order to make it look as though she had been abducted and killed.

In the end, even though I'm sure everyone on the jury was convinced Casey knew something about how her daughter died, Casey is acquitted of murder because it is virtually impossible to prove how Caylee died. And that was in good part due to various obstructive acts on behalf of Casey and her parents who stalled investigators to the point it was impossible to prove the case.

So does the Barr Letter's position that Mueller wasn't able to find that the evidence supported indictments relating to acts of collusion by the Trump campaign actually exonorate Trump of collusion, let alone obstruction?

I would argue no. The obstruction may have successfully derailed the collusion case. In other words, it served its purpose.

However, we need to see the actual Mueller Report.

[Girard442]

1. Yup. Obstruction of justice that was obvious but also successful should not be rewarded.

[mr_lebowski]

2. Which is exactly why Barr is freaking WRONG, and why the law says you can

absolutely be charged with Obstruction of Justice ... without being convicted or even indicted of any underlying, separate crime.

Not to mention Trump could've EASILY been obstructing justice because he didn't know for sure nobody in his campaign didn't collude, nor that no OTHER illegal shit he's done in the past might not end up getting discovered in the process.

Barr's 'logic' there is bullshit.

[uponit7771]

3. YOUR GOOD QUESTION .... is the reason why the Mueller report is Nixon Tapes 2.0

[Jarqui]

4. This is precisely why this part of Barr's letter is complete BS

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/24/politics/read-mueller-key-findings-doj/index.html

In making this determination, we noted that the Special Counsel recognized that "the evidence does not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference," and that, while not determinative, the absence of such evidence bears upon the President's intent with respect to obstruction.

Let's augment this passage with a key fact:

The Special Counsel recognized that "the evidence does not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference,"

using the higher criminal standard of "beyond unreasonable doubt"

Let's further augment with another statement:
The Special Counsel would not have been given the task to investigate conspiracy or obstruction if the evidence did not already establish that the President was potentially involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference and obstruction of justice.

Another statement might be made:
The Special Counsel recognized, after collecting all the evidence they did, after all the lying, that although they had not yet attained the criminal standard of "beyond reasonable doubt" when they were asked to shut down, they do feel that a "preponderance of the evidence" shows that the President and his campaign conspired with Russia and may well have attained the standard of "beyond reasonable doubt" for obstruction of justice that the Special Counsel wanted Congress to review - rather than William Barr.

[ScratchCat]

5. Here's the other thing

about underlying crime(and I am glad someone brought this up on MSNBC yesterday): It doesn't matter that they couldn't identify an underlying crime of conspiracy regarding the election interference. The probe uncovered other crimes, and Trump knew that it could/would. Barr is using complete semantics here. Trump was obstructing the probe because of ALL THE CRIMES it could uncover, not just "Russia". Barr is using a ridiculous legal argument that because there was no "Russia Crime", then Trump wasn't obstructing the "Russia Probe" - and because Mueller's narrow focus was "Russia", then he will just ignore the obstruction of justice which had the intent of covering up "Non-Russia crimes". Its complete bullshit, and when we see the report, it will be obvious how he twisted the conclusions to Trumps favor.