Robert Mueller now appears to be the person of integrity most people believed he was,

[pnwmom]

despite being a lifelong Republican.

Barr, on the other hand, was confirmed to be a political hack and a liar.

[FakeNoose]

1. I never doubted it, Mueller deserves our respect and thanks

The man is a hero.

[OnDoutside]

7. Me too, but there were a lot on here giving him a quite disgraceful kicking.

[SunSeeker]

21. But he didn't amputate him, did he?

Mueller punted it to Congress, who he knew does not have the votes to imoeach Trump in the Senate.

[gldstwmn]

33. Yes. By all appearances

he stayed true to his beliefs. I will need a bit of time in hindsight before I can decide if he was actually a hero for not indicting on obstruction with a dozen or so clear cut instances.

[kag]

39. Bingo.

That sums it up for me, too, gldstwmn. Yes, Mueller seems to have done an honest investigation, but I'm still not sure I'm okay with him not indicting. Especially when he clearly knows that Barr, et al. are working so hard to keep his work from coming out even to Congress.

[gldstwmn]

48. Also I think Trump should have been subpoenaed.

Unless his followers see it coming from his own mouth they aren't going to believe it.

[at140]

54. SF 49'ers could use Mueller.

Mueller is a very good punter.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

2. He did alright. A bit small-c conservative, but most were expecting that from him.

Much as we really wanted him to buck the DOJ policy, it was probably a bit of a pipe dream.

Bottom line: He gave us a roadmap.

[stonecutter357]

3. Robert Mueller is a rwnj ....

[pnwmom]

5. Your evidence for that? nt

[tymorial]

9. No he isnt. Eom

[RelativelyJones]

32. Based on what?

[marble falls]

36. Maybe. But you wouldn't know it from the way he's maintained his obvious love of the law ...

and the Constitution. Do we really need knee jerk kangaroo courts instead? I prefer rule of order even in the face of Orange Shitgibbons.

[pazzyanne]

42. Love your take on this!

Thank you for sharing!

[Honeycombe8]

53. I don't know. He looked at the same evidence we have seen...

and concluded there was no crime that rose to the level of charging for "beyond a reasonable doubt." How is it possible that a President would order several times that the special counsel be fired, and that not be obstruction of justice? It is irrelevant that he was unsuccessful. It is irrelevant that his reason may have been to "save his Presidency," isn't it? Or that he only did it because he was stressed & upset?

I would say that most Presidents who try to obstruct justice are stressed & upset. And most that would try to do would do so, at least n part, to save their Presidencies.

So I wonder. Did he just say "I don't want to deal with this. Congress can, if it wants to"? I'm perplexed.

But at least he left the question of obstruction open. I don't think the conspiracy question is open, tho. I need to read the report, I guess, to get a better picture.

[coti]

4. He's a rule follower and a company man, but a man of integrity.

We'll see how he does during his Congressional testimony.

[pnwmom]

6. And being such a rule-follower, he's the antithesis of Trump. n/t

[tymorial]

10. So much this

[tymorial]

8. Indeed and I am glad. God knows I have defended him on here often

Obama kept him as the FBI director even though he was a Bush appointee. He is a decorated marine veteran.

I will not disregard and revile Republicans for party alone. I may have strong disagreement on political matters but I know decent Republicans. I know republicans that I would trust with my life. I find most of their ideological beliefs backwards and flatly wrong but that is just one aspect of their being.

[spooky3]

27. And some of the never Trumpers are witty or insightful. Nt

[tymorial]

55. Indeed. I have little to nothing in common with George Will but he is consistent at least.

[spooky3]

56. Jennifer Rubin's columns are great. Rick wilson is a stitch.

A lot of people here like Nicolle Wallace.

[helpisontheway]

11. Nah..He did not even charge Trump with obstruction when Trump

admitted it on tv.

[pnwmom]

13. He said on page 2 he was relying on the Office of Legal Counsel opinions that a President

can't be indicted.

And then he laid out all the evidence for the House to impeach him. If the Senate convicted him, Trump could still be convicted of crimes AFTER leaving office.

[helpisontheway]

15. Oh okay. Thanks. Nt

[rusty fender]

38. Not good enough

Bet you if the president was a Democrat, Mueller would have cast that nonsensical DOJ ruling aside.

[canetoad]

12. K&R

Never doubted it. It was distressing to see some comments here.

Don't have a link, but recently I read the rules of the SCO investigation. They said quite clearly that the Office of the SC must follow all rules and policies of the Dept. of Justice. As we all know, it's a 'policy' that the President cannot be indicted and I'm not surprised that Mueller followed policy.

[onenote]

14. Agreed. And can we also agree that the dozens of sealed indictments

that Louise Mensch claimed had been entered against Trump and others back in 2017 were a figment of her imagination?

[Johonny]

16. Not really.

He failed to press charges against Don Jr, Hope Hicks etc... because they didn't willfully break the law.

But, the law isn't written that you can break it if you don't know you're breaking it. It's a bullshit argument to hide white collar crime all the time. Mueller has a long record of impossibly high standards for white collar crime.

[pnwmom]

17. That decision is certainly questionable. But I heard one of the analysts say Mueller's decision

about Kushner and Jr. was that he might not succeed in getting a conviction that was "sustainable."

I think that means that Trump would have just pardoned them, which is almost certainly true.

OTOH, it leaves open the possibility of prosecuting them in the future -- if a conviction becomes sustainable; ie. if Trump is out of office. In a year and a half, if Trump is out of office for one reason or another, Kushner and Jr. could still be prosecuted.

And no Democratic President would pardon them.

[Johonny]

20. pretty much

The general opinion of someone that knows Mueller much better than me, was that Mueller isn't corrupt. However, they stressed that this was by the standards of our DOJ. Our DOJ has a history of impossiblely high standards for white collar crime.

However, the argument could be made that such standards don't actually exist in the law. The result of such standards in the end is having Senator Rick Scott. Because any other person that did what he did as a person but not hiding behind being a CEO would go to jail. We're knee deep in a Washington DC filled with White Collar criminals, mostly because people like Muelller rarely press charges against white collar crime. All this leaves me not optimistic anyone that really counts will spend much time in jail for all this. Heck, the people we did catch got nice plea deals for cooperating. But why'd they get those deals if said deals didn't lead to charges against Trump, Don Jr. etc... It's sort of a joke.

Does this mean Mueller is corrupt. No, but there's something wrong with our whole criminal justice system. Pot gets you 20 years, collusion with Russia gets you the White House!

[BigmanPigman]

30. Well said.

[radius777]

46. Agree. Mueller isn't a stooge like Barr, but

both are old white Repubs whose worldview ultimately favors the good ole boys club.

We have PoC rotting in jail, profiled/killed by cops etc on a daily basis for far less than what Trump and his treasonous family have done.

[Kaleva]

18. K&R'd

[Leghorn21]

19. 100%, mom. Mr. Mueller and his 13 - 17 ANGRY CONFLICTED DEMOCRATS have done their job brilliantly

RESPECT

[SHRED]

22. He didn't interview Trump

He should have challenged the "no indictment" rule.
He should have recommended indictment.

[SunSeeker]

24. Exactly. nt

[SunSeeker]

23. Well, Mueller's no crook, but he's no hero either.

I assumed Mueller would get his testimony, like Starr did with President Bill Clinton. Alas, Mueller did not. I can't believe Mueller decided not to subpoena Trump just because he feared it would "delay" the investigation. WTF? Trump was the whole point of the investigation. And punting the decison on obstruction to Congress was a major cowardly fail. Also, despite all the evidence of collusion, Mueller said he still could not determine scienter by Trump. WTF? And if he needed more info to determine Trump's scienter, why didn't he interview him?!! Sorry, I no longer look at Mueller as a brave hero, just a Republican bureaucrat doing the bare minimum.

[SHRED]

25. Yup

Plus he didn't challenge the "no indictment" rule.
Weak.

[pnwmom]

29. The House had already made it clear they weren't going to consider impeachment

till they got Mueller's report. So going through months or years of court delays to get Trump's cooperation -- which he could in the end have evaded by taking the 5th -- was delaying the House in starting impeachment proceedings.

So I think Mueller's judgment was that the House should be impeaching him, and he had enough evidence to give the House now, without Trump's testimony.

Once Mueller has testified to the House, I think the pressure will be on Nancy to begin impeachment, and I'll be among the voices urging her to.

[SunSeeker]

35. You make my point. Mueller KNEW his report was the deciding factor.

Mueller knew the Dems were waiting to see if he found conspiracy and/or obstruction. Yet he punted on both. Mueller said when it came to conspiracy with Russia, he could not determine Trump's "scienter." DUH! You certainly aren't going to get scienter from rog responses written by Trump lawyers! Mueller did ot even TRY to subpoena Trump, let alone litigate the issue. It would not have taken years. All other challenges to Mueller subpoenas, such as the unnamed company owned by a foreign government, went to SCOTUS within weeks. And the threat that Trump would take the 5th is no reason not to demand an interview. He should have forced Trump to take the 5th.

Mueller knew punting obstruction to Congress would mean it could not end in impeachment. With no underlying finding of conspiracy with Russia, no Republicans would be compelled to votefor impeachment. He's not stupid.

[pnwmom]

43. He didn't punt on either. He made Trump's guilt abundantly clear.

I agree that in the end, after whatever delays Trump brought about in refusing to testify (which I think would have been much longer than you do, based on the delays we've seen in the Andrew Miller and Mystery Corp subpoenas), he would simply have taken the 5th. And by then it might be too late for impeachment hearings.

[SunSeeker]

47. Yes, the facts were clear, so he should have clearly stated a finding instead of punting.

And now there will be no impeachment with the current Senate, considering Mueller made no clear call that Trump committed conspiracy and obstruction. So we are worse off. Sure, he gave us damning facts (what hasn't been blacked out by Barr) but they don't get us to impeachment in the Senate without a finding of criminality.

[pnwmom]

51. I think much will depend on Mueller's testimony before the House.

At this point, I trust Nancy to be able to read the report and I think she'll decide it forms the basis of impeachment action.

But all of us, the public, needs to put pressure on our Representatives and Senators.

[SunSeeker]

57. Yes, and I am heartened by Pelosi's statement tonight.

Hopefully Hoyer heard it.

[Meowmee]

58. This

He gave everyone a pass, did not do what needs to be done and that is not integrity, it is a lack of courage.

[Pepsidog]

26. Mueller needs to testify. Watergate style hearings.

[uponit7771]

28. Not yet there's still tons of questions left

[maxsolomon]

31. There's undoubtedly more to come

Feels like Barr forced them to wrap it up.

Mueller's silence is extremely loud.

[marble falls]

34. I remember a few weeks ago there were people here weeing all over themselves slamming Mueller ...

Some folk need to stop setting their hair on fire so much.

[SunSeeker]

37. No one here was "weeing all [sic] themselves." They said Mueller let us down.

Because he did.

[marble falls]

40. Your opinion. There were plenty of over the top declarations of the imminent end of democracy in ...

the US.

Let me fix that sic for ya.

[SunSeeker]

45. How about not insulting DUers who correctly see this as a President allowed to escape the law?

You choose an odd target for your ire.

[pnwmom]

60. There are 12 ongoing investigations in multiple Federal courts

that Mueller spun off from his central investigation.

How do you know that Trump isn't going to be implicated in any of them?

[SunSeeker]

61. Because Mueller said he is following the DOJ policy not to indict a sitting President. nt

[SHRED]

41. Yes he did let us down

He should have challenged the no indictment rule.
That would have been heroic.

[pnwmom]

59. I know some people thought he let us down by being too much of a rule-follower.

But that's exactly what we should have expected. He's the ultimate rule follower -- which makes him the antithesis of DT.

[SunSeeker]

62. There was no rule that precluded him from explicitly stating he found Trump committed obstruction.

He just chose not to because he wouldn't indict Trump due to DOJ policy not to indict sitting Presidents, so thought it would be "unfair" to Trump since "he could not defend himself." As if Trump doesn't have the biggest megaphone on the planet. For fuck's sake, Mueller's job was to determine if crimes were committed, and he chickened out of doing that when it came to the central subject of his investigation. He punted to Congress, knowing full well they don't have the votes for impeachment.

[pnwmom]

63. He simply said that the rule was that a President couldn't be indicted -- which is true.

Then he said here is all the obstruction that he did -- and if I could exonerate him, I would -- but I can't.

You don't have to be a genius to understand that means Trump was guilty.

[SunSeeker]

64. He left the door open to how that would be characterized and the GOP ran with it.

Mitt Romney is reading it as there being a finding of "insufficient evidence" for obstruction charges. And he was one of the few Republicans to express concern over the behavior in the report, so that is the best we're going to get from the right without an explicit statement from Mueller.

[pnwmom]

65. He's not reading it that way, but he is choosing to spin it that way. That's on him. n/t

[SunSeeker]

66. Mueller enabled that spin by not being explicit.

Hopefully he'll correct that when he testifies.

[pnwmom]

67. Hopefully the Democrats make optimal use of their questioning time.

Many of them don't seem to know how to really question a witness, like Klobuchar, Harris, and Ocasio-Cortez.

[SunSeeker]

68. I agree.

I get so frustrated I end up impotently screaming questions at my TV.

[mcar]

44. Yep

Mueller is honorable, Barr sold his soul.

[Kurt V.]

49. K&R

[Bernardo de La Paz]

50. Significant number of DU members are perpetually short-sighted; ready to write anybody off instantly

The perfect is the enemy of the good. The Mueller report is good, maybe even very good for the Resistance.

Persist!

[Eliot Rosewater]

52. I do want to know if he is also using the WRONG definition of criminal conspiracy or is it just

the KGB agent Barr and Barr is LYING about Mueller also using that.

We know BARR lied about most everything else Mueller said.

[Vinca]

69. I would like to know how Junior ended up smelling like a rose.

As far as I know, he was never even interviewed.