Mueller Team Finally Cracks Over William Barr's Letters

[Arkansas Granny]

Eleven days have passed since Attorney General William Barr fired off a surprisingly brief letter outlining what he asserted were the key takeaways from a highly-anticipated report two years in the making. During that time, we’ve learned much more about Barr than we have about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia probe.

We’ve learned, for example, that Barr rushed to exculpate President Donald Trump and his advisers in that four-page missive, which laid out what the attorney general claimed were the Mueller report’s two key criminal inquiries: Conspiracy and obstruction of justice. We’ve learned that, although Mueller felt his report didn’t completely exonerate the president, he didn’t think Trump and his team conspired with Russia to try sabotaging the 2016 presidential campaign. On the other hand, Mueller didn’t decide whether Trump obstructed justice. Barr took that as a signal that he should rule on that one, and he did: No obstruction.

<snip>

The Post went further. It reported that “members of Mueller’s team have complained to close associates that the evidence they gathered on obstruction was alarming and significant” and “much more acute than Barr suggested.”

The Post quotes one anonymous U.S. official as saying that there “was immediate displeasure from the team when they saw how the attorney general had characterized their work.” This section from the Post’s reporting about the Mueller team’s summaries is telling:

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-04-04/mueller-team-has-had-enough-of-william-barr-s-letters

[RKP5637]

1. Pack of lies, as usual, from tRump and company. Guilty as Hell! Lock him up! n/t

[onetexan]

2. They should have come out the day he released his summary

A week or two too late.

[ProfessorPlum]

3. exactly

what the fuck are they waiting for? The cavalry? THEY are the cavalry.

[zentrum]

6. Yes, they should be

....doing a lot better than this mild har-rump.

[Iliyah]

4. Graham and other GOPs . . .

co-conspirators as well for the cover up.

Lock them up!

[Scarsdale]

5. Did Barr have his report

ready even before he received Mueller's report? How does one person peruse 400 pages so fast? Maybe one of tRump's lawyers wrote the summary? It is beyond time for the TRUTH to be exposed.

[Harker]

12. Barr's "conclusions" were prefabricated. So to speak.

I'm pretty sure the full report did not come with CliffsNotes. Yes, that's how it's spelled now.

[onetexan]

15. i've been saying that from the start, he had his infamous coverup note prewritten

and i'm wondering if Mueller is in cahoots with him as well (hoping this isn't the case but i do have my suspicions given the 2 are supposedly "buddies&quot .

[Harker]

18. I hope not, too.

Mueller hasn't struck me as the sort willing to throw away both his past and his future for a traitorous cabal.

Whatever the multifaceted truth is, I hope to live long enough to learn it. It promises to be as bizarre as anything Chuck Palahniuk has come up with to date.

[Canoe52]

7. I'll be so happy when the tRumps go to jail.

[calimary]

19. Can't happen soon enough for me! Throw Barr in, too.

And Kavanaugh and Pence. And ... meh, don’t get me started...

[JohnnyRingo]

9. Barr has reserved his place in the history books.

Depending on whether he's successful in burying the report, and even then he'll be known for building a wall around the Trump family. I doubt that's a legacy many in his position would want.

[Botany]

10. And people on Mueller's team are getting chatty too

The report was prepared “so that the front matter from each section could have been released immediately — or very quickly,” the official said. “It was done in a way that minimum redactions, if any, would have been necessary, and the work would have spoken for itself.”

Mueller’s team assumed the information was going to be made available to the public, the official said, “and so they prepared their summaries to be shared in their own words — and not in the attorney general’s summary of their work, as turned out to be the case.”


https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/limited-information-barr-has-shared-about-russia-investigation-frustrated-some-on-muellers-team/2019/04/03/c98e8a02-567a-11e9-814f-e2f46684196e_story.html?utm_term=.884c6a41b03c

[Honeycombe8]

11. I hope we get the whole report soon. But..if Mueller team thought there was something serious....

going on about obstruction or conspiring or aiding/abetting a hostile foreign power, it was the team's duty to say so. So if they did not indict or recommend indicting, or find that any member of the Trump family was legally guilty of those things, it's their fault for not saying so, isn't it?

It's one thing to say they legally were guilty of this and that, and here's a mountain of evidence supporting that determination, and for Barr to leave that out. It's another for the Special Counsel to say they did not conspire or aid/abet, and oh by the way, here's the evidence we reviewed that led us to that conclusion...and Barr left out the reference to the evidence.

I am surprised that the Special Counsel did not at least recommend something, one way or the other, or definitively conclude something, except that "they're free & clear, unless you guys want to do something on your own and look at the evidence yourselves."

I'm sure Mueller will clear this up with his testimony before Congress. I hope it's soon.

[Dopers_Greed]

13. Unfortunate that Trump's cabal's lies went unchecked for 11 days

[ProfessorPlum]

14. it's literally a case of a lie going around the world while the truth

is still getting its boots on. Did these experienced prosecutors not foresee this?

[Arkansas Granny]

16. Here we go! Trump is weighing in on the subject with a tweet!

Link to tweet

?s=20

Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
The New York Times had no legitimate sources, which would be totally illegal, concerning the Mueller Report. In fact, they probably had no sources at all! They are a Fake News paper who have already been forced to apologize for their incorrect and very bad reporting on me!

18.6K
10:04 AM - Apr 4, 2019

[watoos]

17. This is what we need;

A House committee needs ASAP to invite Mueller and Barr to testify in public. I expect Mueller to accept but if Barr declines that will be telling. Regardless, then Barr needs to be subpoenaed.

Barr and Mueller need to testify at the same hearing. Do it someone.