If you’re not paying much attention, it’s easy to hear, “Hey the Mueller Report came out. They didn’t find anything.”
It’s easy to hear that because it’s what Donald Trump, his Press Secretary, and his GOP lickspittles are all saying.
But that’s not what happened.
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We know, we know, shocker that you can’t trust what this guy is selling, but we’re serious here. All of America deserves to know the actual results of Robert Mueller‘s investigation — including what stones were left unturned.
Unfortunately what we know isn’t everything; but it is FAR more than you might realize!
So here’s what you need to know about what we DO know about the Mueller report so far…
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We Still Don’t Have The Report
You’re going to hear a lot over the next few days that Attorney General William Barr sent Congress a letter with a summary of the Mueller investigation’s findings. But that’s not quite right.
What he did was write a summary of Mueller’s summary of his findings.
What’s the difference?
Well, imagine your football team is playing their biggest rival. This is the difference between a.) watching the whole game, b.) watching the highlight reel later that night, and c.) having your neighbor who roots for the other team tell you who won.
Remember, Barr is the guy Trump put in there specifically for this after FIRING the previous Attorney General for recusing himself. Trump picked him specifically because he’d spoken out against the Mueller probe.
Saving Trump from this is the entire reason Barr is there.
How much do we actually HAVE of the Mueller report? Not even an entire sentence. Barr’s letter just picks a few partial quotes here and there…
“NO EXONERATION”
No, Trump is in no way exonerated.
Obviously the president wants that to be the headline. As he tweeted on Sunday, truly beyond parody:
“No Collusion, No Obstruction, Complete and Total EXONERATION. KEEP AMERICA GREAT!”
But the POTUS isn’t exonerated. Even in Barr’s letter, he specifically quotes the full report as saying, “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”
Seriously, it’s RIGHT THERE. It literally says it “does not exonerate him.”
So as you see a lot of folks celebrating, remember those words.
TO PROSECUTE OR NOT TO PROSECUTE
All we know for certain about the report is who Mueller decided he had enough evidence to prosecute. In other words, for whom he had such a strong enough case he was sure he could prove it beyond a reasonable doubt in court.
Against whom does he have such a case?
Easy. He already indicted them or handed off the cases to other U.S. Attorneys:
- Trump’s National Security Adviser Michael Flynn
- Trump’s foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos
- Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort
- Trump’s deputy campaign manager Rick Gates
- Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen
- Trump’s longest living political adviser Roger Stone
So just those guys. But other than them, everyone on Team Trump is firmly in the column of… NOT EXONERATED, we guess.
RUSSIA, IF YOU’RE LISTENING
So what about all the obvious collusion Trump seems to have committed in plain sight?
Because here’s what we KNOW to be true:
Putin interfered in our election. Trump knew Putin was interfering in our election. Trump won the election. Trump changed the Republican platform to be pro-Russia. Trump has eased sanctions on Putin. Trump has allowed ZERO of the money allocated to fight future Russian interference in our election to be used to do so. Trump has stated publicly he believes Putin over our own intelligence. Trump has attacked the investigation into Russian meddling CONSTANTLY.
Those are FACTS. Not in dispute.
So…
HOW IS THAT NOT COLLUSION?
Well, according to Barr’s letter, Mueller was only looking at a very specific, narrow definition of collusion — whether the Trump campaign helped with the cyber attack.
Considering the Trump literally can’t even send an e-mail, that was always highly unlikely. So why didn’t everything else get investigated?
What we’re being told is confusing as hell.
So let’s simplify!
Imagine this scenario:
A Mayor’s wife is murdered. The cops charge a hitman with the crime. Cops find out $50K was transferred from the Mayor’s bank account to the hitman. The cops say, ‘We’ve found no confirmation the Mayor loaded the hitman’s gun.’
Um… huh?
Do you really need a signed contract between the Mayor and the hitman? Aren’t the acts themselves clear enough?? Apparently not for this investigation…
That’s kinda the situation we’re in right now.
MORE INVESTIGATIONS
Luckily, this is far from over.
Thanks to the 2018 elections, the House of Representatives has finally started doing actual investigations. The Southern District of New York and other prosecutorial offices are still hard at work on this stuff.
And not for NO REASON either.
There are still tons of questions.
If Russia attacked us, why is Trump on their side? Why did so many Trump team members meet with Russians during the election? Why did they lie about it?? If Trump is innocent, why do he and his GOP allies keep blocking attempts to make the report public? He keeps saying it exonerates him, right??
All these questions WILL get answered one day. And a big step toward that will be the full release of the Mueller report.
[Image via MSNBC/YouTube/BBC/WENN.]
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