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The Robert Mueller Investigation


Hugo Stiglitz

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I feel like we’re all getting played by the media again.  There’s no way we’re going to see a Mueller Report today.  At best, we learn the report is turned in to the AG, and that seems like a possibly maybe.  The media is milking this shit for everything it’s worth.  We ain’t seeing anything in the Mueller Report for at least a month. 

I’m still crossing my fingers for indictments though.

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Lol Greenwald towing the Kremlin line as always 
Yeah. Just compiling all the public evidence and lies would and slapping a "Mueller Report" label on it should be a bombshell. It's hard to fathom how Trump campaign could not have knowingly acted in concert with Russia. That is enough to prove conspiracy. What is unanswered is the degrees they had direct communications regarding that cooperation or if there was a clear quid pro quo.
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My definition of collusion is based on feelings.

I don’t feel like passing detailed polling data to Russians is collusion.

I don’t feel like publicly asking russia to hack my opponents emails is collusion.

I don’t feel like meeting with Russians at trump tower to get dirt on my opponent is collusion.

I don’t feel like firing the investigator investigating russia because of the “russia thing” is collusion.

Feels are greater than reals when it comes to collusion.

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3 minutes ago, GW Hayduke said:

My definition of collusion is based on feelings.

I don’t feel like passing detailed polling data to Russians is collusion.

I don’t feel like publicly asking russia to hack my opponents emails is collusion.

I don’t feel like meeting with Russians at trump tower to get dirt on my opponent is collusion.

I don’t feel like firing the investigator investigating russia because of the “russia thing” is collusion.

Feels are greater than reals when it comes to collusion.

For the 900 millionth time, collusion is not a crime, it is an umbrella term encompassing many possible crimes and misdemeanors.

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The Blumenthal interview offers a balanced assessment of where things stand with Mueller - that no one knows his timeline or intentions, and regarding a report, considerations that include Mueller not even generating a report.  Based on Blumenthal's remarks in the above clip, I can see how he could be the source of the anonymous Politico snippet above.  

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5 minutes ago, GRHorn said:

Politico is tied to the Kremlin?  That’s some good shit. 

0-D22-B13-B-2-C67-4-CBA-AF35-516-A7598-B

 

I know you're a troll but Greenwald sought out the line he wanted to push into the media bloodstream. 

He found it in a Politico article, ignored all the other evidence, and echoed it out in his twitter feed. 

There is no Russia-Politico conspiracy that I know of but Greenwald's worldview, bias, tactics, and talking points align perfectly with the Kremlin.  That's probably just a coincidence though. 

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I've been assuming that Trump knows what it says by now because Whitaker told him where it was a few weeks ago.  And, while he's been unhinged on twitter, his team hasn't been spinning negative conclusions ahead of the report, like they would do if they knew Mueller was dropping the hammer.   That suggests that Mueller couldn't link Trump to collusion, unless Mueller has been playing coy with his supervisors. 

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(Trump shoots man on 5th Avenue)

"Wait for the Mueller report"

(Trump sells California to Russia for "favors")

"Wait for the Mueller report"

(Trump nukes Portland, on orders from Putin)

"Wait for the Mueller report"

(Mueller report comes out, and doesn't immediately send Trump to prison)

"Ah ha! See, he's clean! Totally innocent of everything! Stupid libs."

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15 minutes ago, Mojo Hand said:

That suggests that Mueller couldn't link Trump to collusion

Mueller was never going to link Trump to collusion because how would he do that? What would that look like? What would be the criminal charge? You can't indict a sitting president therefore "no crime took place". 

Trump colluded with Russia in broad daylight, I don't know if that's a crime but everyone could see it if they looked. 

I never understood why we needed Mueller to come out and be some minister of truth to tell us what most of us already know. 

People chose to ignore overwhelming evidence pre-Mueller, they will choose to ignore overwhelming evidence post-Mueller. 

/active measures works

ETA:  Trump's biggest Mueller threat is OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE

Edited by Hugo Stiglitz
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12 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

I know you're a troll but Greenwald sought out the line he wanted to push into the media bloodstream. 

He found it in a Politico article, ignored all the other evidence, and echoed it out in his twitter feed. 

There is no Russia-Politico conspiracy that I know of but Greenwald's worldview, bias, tactics, and talking points align perfectly with the Kremlin.  That's probably just a coincidence though. 

It’s not a Politico article. It’s commentary from their daily newsletter, which is pretty influential. It’s also includes a link and summation of the Abc News story I linked. To me, it’s obvious that the talking points are being put out to lower expectations because it’s gonna be underwhelming. But then you talk about the next way you’re gonna get the big bad Trump and fundraise and campaign off that. Rinse, repeat. 

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2 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Mueller was never going to link Trump to collusion because how would he do that? What would that look like? 

It would look like evidence that Trump knew about the Trump Tower meeting, for example.  Perhaps testimony from Rhona Graff that Rob Goldstone informed her about the proposition and that she passed it along to Trump.  Or a million other possible ways to show that Trump was party to the collusion. 

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3 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Mueller was never going to link Trump to collusion because how would he do that? What would that look like? What would be the criminal charge? You can't indict a sitting president therefore "no crime took place". 

Trump colluded with Russia in broad daylight, I don't know if that's a crime but everyone could see it if they looked. 

I never understood why we needed Mueller to come out and be some minister of truth to tell us what most of us already know. 

People chose to ignore overwhelming evidence pre-Mueller, they will choose to ignore overwhelming evidence post-Mueller. 

/active measures works

I feel like your perspective shifts with the wind, but I'll be damned if I'm going to look back over several years and 10s of thousands of posts to prove it.

I don't care about people who ignore evidence that's right in front of their face.  There's nothing I can do about them.  I can't fix stupid, or worse, I can't fix malice.  What I can do is appeal to reason with the majority of US citizens who are able to vote and say "see, it's all right here, it's not mythology, the man is a criminal and a traitor, you need to go vote him out of office along with all the traitors in Congress who support him".

The weapon is the vote.  That's it.  If there comes a day when a majority vote isn't enough, well then we're at war, and there are no rules.  Until that day, ignore the rubes, ignore those who support crooks and traitors, and focus on getting the crooks and traitors out of office.

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Just now, Mojo Hand said:

It would look like evidence that Trump knew about the Trump Tower meeting, for example.  Perhaps testimony from Rhona Graff that Rob Goldstone informed her about the proposition and that she passed it along to Trump.  Or a million other possible ways to show that Trump was party to the collusion. 

Not sure how Mueller could close that door without questioning Don Jr. 

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2 minutes ago, Mojo Hand said:

It would look like evidence that Trump knew about the Trump Tower meeting, for example.  Perhaps testimony from Rhona Graff that Rob Goldstone informed her about the proposition and that she passed it along to Trump.  Or a million other possible ways to show that Trump was party to the collusion. 

^ He worked like a mob boss for years, so it was probably second nature to him to hide conversations (like w Putin). He's also an idoit, so we know he made some mistakes.

It will be very interesting to see the chain of command and connecting the dots of communication between these nitwits.

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14 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Mueller was never going to link Trump to collusion because how would he do that? What would that look like? What would be the criminal charge? You can't indict a sitting president therefore "no crime took place". 

Trump colluded with Russia in broad daylight, I don't know if that's a crime but everyone could see it if they looked. 

I never understood why we needed Mueller to come out and be some minister of truth to tell us what most of us already know. 

People chose to ignore overwhelming evidence pre-Mueller, they will choose to ignore overwhelming evidence post-Mueller. 

/active measures works

 

 

I get that the Special Counsel rules were drafted with discretion and flexibility built in with the underlying idea of taking care not to besmirch the uncharged and relatively innocent (e.g. Monica Lewinsky) in any report.

But I don't think that notion applies when the uncharged party is immune under law or policy.  I have always maintained that, if the facts support it, Mueller would state "there is probable cause to believe the President committed the following offenses  . . . . . Nevertheless no indictment has been brought on these charges because of the policy against indictment of a sitting President under 24. Op. OLC 222."

I suppose it's possible that there is no such language, but I hope it's somehow clarified that it's because theres no evidence, not simply because there are no charges.  The rules specifically contemplate reporting of declination decisions to the AG, so one would have to think the report will itemize those "chargeable but uncharged."

I find it difficult to believe that Mueller doesn't prepare a comprehensive report, whether required to or not.  It seems to be within his discretion to do so.

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Just now, jimmyjazz said:

I feel like your perspective shifts with the wind, but I'll be damned if I'm going to look back over several years and 10s of thousands of posts to prove it.

It does shift because the political environment keeps shifting.  Analysis does not stay static over time.  I'll I can do is look at the behavior and evidence available and make an assessment at that moment.  I have been wrong and miscalculated plenty but I've been proven accurate at times too.   I don't know what is going to happen but I feel like I have a better read on it than most.  

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my belief is that a good many people who are a lot smarter than us here and infinitely more connected with the process of our form of government have considered the situation with the senate sitting there itching to swat anything reasonable into the far ether and have concluded that a cat-and-mouse approach is the only good way to deal with this.  any overt attack directly on the bonehead or his cabal of clowns gives the senate its go-button.  we have to paint the picture for the populace in such subtlety that we never give a broadsides look to the senate.  we aren't likely to start getting the final word on this until a whole bunch of senators are under the refrigerator again.

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4 minutes ago, yaqdum said:

my belief is that a good many people who are a lot smarter than us here and infinitely more connected with the process of our form of government have considered the situation with the senate sitting there itching to swat anything reasonable into the far ether and have concluded that a cat-and-mouse approach is the only good way to deal with this.  any overt attack directly on the bonehead or his cabal of clowns gives the senate its go-button.  we have to paint the picture for the populace in such subtlety that we never give a broadsides look to the senate.  we aren't likely to start getting the final word on this until a whole bunch of senators are under the refrigerator again.

Sorry, but this is wishful thinking/goalpost movement. 

When I think of American politics and the populace, I think of the opposite of subtlety and nuance. 

 

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1 hour ago, GRHorn said:

It’s not a Politico article. It’s commentary from their daily newsletter, which is pretty influential. It’s also includes a link and summation of the Abc News story I linked. To me, it’s obvious that the talking points are being put out to lower expectations because it’s gonna be underwhelming. But then you talk about the next way you’re gonna get the big bad Trump and fundraise and campaign off that. Rinse, repeat. 

It's like you think Mueller is the only game in town.

That's adorable.

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1 hour ago, GRHorn said:

It’s not a Politico article. It’s commentary from their daily newsletter, which is pretty influential. It’s also includes a link and summation of the Abc News story I linked. To me, it’s obvious that the talking points are being put out to lower expectations because it’s gonna be underwhelming. But then you talk about the next way you’re gonna get the big bad Trump and fundraise and campaign off that. Rinse, repeat. 

The source for the ABC News story was almost certainly Sekulow or Giuliani, who are, uh, shall we say, unreliable. But if you want to cling to the word of one of those charlatans, hey, you do you.

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Nice piece in the NYTimes. Link contains tons of document images and tweets. 

It's a nice reminder that we don't know shit.

Spoiler

 

Glimpses of the Mystery That Is the Mueller Investigation

IT BEGAN WITH A TRICKLE — curious developments that mostly raised more questions. There was evidence of election hacking — but could it really have been directed by the Kremlin? Certain Americans on Facebook, pitching for Donald J. Trump and stirring up anger, turned out to be impostors — but who had concocted them? One Trump campaign aide after another surfaced in sketchy reports of meetings with mysterious Russians — but did the encounters add up to anything significant?

Then there was the candidate’s famously twitchy Twitter finger, scathing toward so many public figures but oddly respectful of the Russian president. Was that a signal of dark secrets, or just of a soft spot for a strongman?

 

If Russia or any other country or person has Hillary Clinton's 33,000 illegally deleted emails, perhaps they should share them with the FBI!

 
 
 
 

And so, in 2016, began the F.B.I.’s epic investigation — and the attempt by journalists to track it.

There are a thousand ways for reporters to inquire into the slow unfolding of a scandal, many of them producing mostly frustration. Making call after call to lawyers for those under investigation — and to their friends and frenemies, rivals and business associates. Scrutinizing a so-called dossier that makes shocking claims but offers little evidence sufficiently detailed to allow a true fact-check. Haunting congressional hearings and trailing the witnesses through the hallway mob scene afterward.

But if some F.B.I. inquiries are helpfully leaky for journalists, the special counsel’s investigation has proved hermetically sealed. Even so basic a question of when the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, may deliver his report to the attorney general remains uncertain, the subject of many erroneous predictions.

If an investigation is a jigsaw puzzle, the mosaic of the two-year inquiry by Mr. Mueller remains incomplete, at least for the public and the press. We have seen major parts laid out in staggering detail in the 199 charges he has filed against 34 people and three companies — the only way Mr. Mueller, 74, a former F.B.I. director, has so far chosen to speak.

We know what keywords a particular Russian military intelligence hacker searched for on the web on a particular date. We know that “Putin’s niece,” introduced to a Trump campaign adviser by a suspicious professor, was not Putin’s niece. We know that a Trump Tower in Moscow, a longtime business dream of Mr. Trump, was still being secretly pursued even as the candidate took public stands that might please or offend Russia.

In that sense, the trickle has long since become a flood. The cast of characters has grown, and grown familiar — Flynn, Manafort, Cohen, Papadopoulos; the pattern of lying to investigators and Congress has become routine; the president’s shifting stories have become the norm. News coverage has become background noise, like a sea that periodically surges and retreats.

But for all of that, much of the investigation remains guesswork. We don’t know whether we know 90 percent or 50 percent or 20 percent of the findings. It is possible that Mr. Mueller’s team of aggressive prosecutors has already revealed virtually all of its work in public indictments and courtroom pronouncements. And it is also possible that the lawyers are hoarding shocking new information, disclosures capable of shaking the Trump presidency. We just don’t know.

In a polarized country, with different news outlets offering divergent partisan spins, different factions fill the Mueller vacuum with radically different realities. Many Democrats, persuaded that the president has criminally obstructed justice, await final proof of “collusion” with Russia, the vague standard that has become a measure for Mr. Mueller’s ultimate findings.

Yet many of Mr. Trump’s supporters, drawing their information from other sources, believe the real story is something else entirely: enemies of Mr. Trump misused government agencies to spy on his campaign, then began a bogus investigation to undermine his presidency.

It is an alarming divide, not because the two sides harbor different opinions, but because they believe different sets of facts.

So the capital is on edge, snatching at the latest rumors about when the Mueller report might appear and what it might say. The sphinxlike special counsel keeps his counsel. The journalists troll for fresh scraps of inside information, and hope the end is coming soon.

 

 

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1 minute ago, bolverk said:

Nice piece in the NYTimes. Link contains tons of document images and tweets. 

It's a nice reminder that we don't know shit.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Glimpses of the Mystery That Is the Mueller Investigation

IT BEGAN WITH A TRICKLE — curious developments that mostly raised more questions. There was evidence of election hacking — but could it really have been directed by the Kremlin? Certain Americans on Facebook, pitching for Donald J. Trump and stirring up anger, turned out to be impostors — but who had concocted them? One Trump campaign aide after another surfaced in sketchy reports of meetings with mysterious Russians — but did the encounters add up to anything significant?

Then there was the candidate’s famously twitchy Twitter finger, scathing toward so many public figures but oddly respectful of the Russian president. Was that a signal of dark secrets, or just of a soft spot for a strongman?

 

If Russia or any other country or person has Hillary Clinton's 33,000 illegally deleted emails, perhaps they should share them with the FBI!

 
 
 
 

And so, in 2016, began the F.B.I.’s epic investigation — and the attempt by journalists to track it.

There are a thousand ways for reporters to inquire into the slow unfolding of a scandal, many of them producing mostly frustration. Making call after call to lawyers for those under investigation — and to their friends and frenemies, rivals and business associates. Scrutinizing a so-called dossier that makes shocking claims but offers little evidence sufficiently detailed to allow a true fact-check. Haunting congressional hearings and trailing the witnesses through the hallway mob scene afterward.

But if some F.B.I. inquiries are helpfully leaky for journalists, the special counsel’s investigation has proved hermetically sealed. Even so basic a question of when the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, may deliver his report to the attorney general remains uncertain, the subject of many erroneous predictions.

If an investigation is a jigsaw puzzle, the mosaic of the two-year inquiry by Mr. Mueller remains incomplete, at least for the public and the press. We have seen major parts laid out in staggering detail in the 199 charges he has filed against 34 people and three companies — the only way Mr. Mueller, 74, a former F.B.I. director, has so far chosen to speak.

We know what keywords a particular Russian military intelligence hacker searched for on the web on a particular date. We know that “Putin’s niece,” introduced to a Trump campaign adviser by a suspicious professor, was not Putin’s niece. We know that a Trump Tower in Moscow, a longtime business dream of Mr. Trump, was still being secretly pursued even as the candidate took public stands that might please or offend Russia.

In that sense, the trickle has long since become a flood. The cast of characters has grown, and grown familiar — Flynn, Manafort, Cohen, Papadopoulos; the pattern of lying to investigators and Congress has become routine; the president’s shifting stories have become the norm. News coverage has become background noise, like a sea that periodically surges and retreats.

But for all of that, much of the investigation remains guesswork. We don’t know whether we know 90 percent or 50 percent or 20 percent of the findings. It is possible that Mr. Mueller’s team of aggressive prosecutors has already revealed virtually all of its work in public indictments and courtroom pronouncements. And it is also possible that the lawyers are hoarding shocking new information, disclosures capable of shaking the Trump presidency. We just don’t know.

In a polarized country, with different news outlets offering divergent partisan spins, different factions fill the Mueller vacuum with radically different realities. Many Democrats, persuaded that the president has criminally obstructed justice, await final proof of “collusion” with Russia, the vague standard that has become a measure for Mr. Mueller’s ultimate findings.

Yet many of Mr. Trump’s supporters, drawing their information from other sources, believe the real story is something else entirely: enemies of Mr. Trump misused government agencies to spy on his campaign, then began a bogus investigation to undermine his presidency.

It is an alarming divide, not because the two sides harbor different opinions, but because they believe different sets of facts.

So the capital is on edge, snatching at the latest rumors about when the Mueller report might appear and what it might say. The sphinxlike special counsel keeps his counsel. The journalists troll for fresh scraps of inside information, and hope the end is coming soon.

 

 

There is a lot we don’t know, this is true.  However, just look at how much we do know by scanning Mueller’s homepage.  

Seriously, look at all this shit:

https://www.justice.gov/sco

Any other administration would be over by this point but media and politicians on the right and left seems hell bent on keeping Trump in office.  Can’t imagine why that would be.

/sarcasm 

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I just listened to a little Rush Limbaugh in my car. He stated with certainty that nothing in the dossier is true and that McCain was trying to distribute to as many people in the Beltway as possible.

My recollection from earlier days is that he spins truth and carefully selects facts to support his narrative. Straight up lying seems new. Maybe it's the opiates. 

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^ Same here. I will turn it on for a couple of minutes every now and then. The last time I did, he was ranting about how Mueller's team would never get investigated, as they should in his opinion. They're all trying to destroy Trump. blah blah

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30 minutes ago, RomaVicta said:

I just listened to a little Rush Limbaugh in my car. He stated with certainty that nothing in the dossier is true and that McCain was trying to distribute to as many people in the Beltway as possible.

My recollection from earlier days is that he spins truth and carefully selects facts to support his narrative. Straight up lying seems new. Maybe it's the opiates. 

It's the Trump effect. He's opened up new lows. 

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56 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

The source for the ABC News story was almost certainly Sekulow or Giuliani, who are, uh, shall we say, unreliable. But if you want to cling to the word of one of those charlatans, hey, you do you.

Giuliani unreliable?! He uses Wikipedia, sir.

 

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1 minute ago, triplehorn said:

No one has ginned up more false claims about the Mueller investigation than Rudy.  Yet some here keep lapping it up.

Eh.   Could even be true.  Maybe there's a raftload of indictments coming from the SDNY.  Or from prosecutors in DC, but not the special counsel.  Journalists need to stop reporting this stupid shit, and with the endless, breathless speculation about Mueller.  There's 9 year old, brown American citizens being detained for 2 days at the border, flooding in the midwest, child separations still ongoing, and a metric shit ton of actual news they could report on, other than the 24/7 cheeto show of inanity.

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1 hour ago, wildcat09 said:

The source for the ABC News story was almost certainly Sekulow or Giuliani, who are, uh, shall we say, unreliable. But if you want to cling to the word of one of those charlatans, hey, you do you.

How do you determine that?

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