total dumbfuck post ?

So I think its been enough days that the dust has settled and we know how the liberal/MSM reaction has shaken out. The main threads seem to be that Barr was lying, Trump is guilty of collusion and obstruction, Mueller didn't say what he said and every journalist who reported bogus stories for the past 2 years got vindicated when the Mueller report confirmed Cohen was in Prague, DTJ was indicted, Trump ordered Cohen to lie to congress and so on so forth

Ive read a bunch of reactions and its clear that everyone either read what they wanted to see or didn't bother reading and saw ot anyway. Within a few hours of the report, after I read it, NPR had a "former acting CIA director" on to discuss it. He said the report claimed that Trump was seeking out Russia's aid and conspiring in fact, and the only reason for Mueller to decline to charge is the OLC ruling. I had already read the section of the report that concluded Trumps camp at times invited and at other times shiied away from Russia, and never involved in the hacking operation, and Barr relating how he specifically asked Mueller if he would have charged anything but for the OLC ruling, to which he said no. Pretty sure CIA guy hadnt actually read the report before going on the air.

The report is pretty clear that they found evidence of collusion but not enough to prosecute.
It is also clear that trump repeatedly tried to obstruct and block the investigation.
Honestly it was never going to show trump colluded unless they flipped Kushner.

This post was edited by Plaguefear on Apr 20 2019 04:26pm

How about this: they didnt come up with court-proof evidence for collusion because Trump really did not collude with Russia?!

mind = blown.


The reality is that his campaign was engaged in some shady operations which lay in a judicial grey zone, but still quite a few yards away from actual collusion. This doesnt cast Trump and his campaign in a favorable light, but it shouldnt be overdramatized either. Many campaigns of this scale did shady things, it's just that they normally arent dissected by a meticulous special counsel investigation.

When it comes to obstruction, Trump was really tiptoeing and pushing the boundaries, and he probably was lucky that his staff and cabinet refused to carry out his orders when he wanted them to cross the line. Considering the high bar required to establish obstruction of justice, the things he actually did stopped short of obstruction in the legal sense, albeit just barely. This still gives the Dems political ammunition, and allows the liberal media to save face, also "just barely".



Nonetheless, it should be kept in mind that the investigation into his campaign was launched out of political reasons (discredit him, provide an excuse for Hillary's loss, stymie his presidency) based on very shaky (Russian hackers did not have a huge influence on the election, outright collusion or the piss tape were always outlandish propositions) and legally questionable (Steele dossier) grounds. The mere existence of the Mueller probe was justifiable, but the premise under which it was launched and operated was bullshit and unfounded. That Trump only got into a position of grappling with obstructing a special counsel because of this bullshit does not absolve or exonerate him from the moral or political guilt of his close-to-obstruction behavior, but puts it into context and somewhat reduces his guilt in my book. I will, however, admit that someone less inclined to side with Trump than myself might not find this viewpoint particularly convincing.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Apr 20 2019 04:57pm

In my opinion collusion is likely because it is exactly what trump would do if given the chance.
The issue with proving it is that it was likely only Kushner and trump in the room.
How do you prove or disprove an in person conversation between 2 people happened if neither flips?

The Mueller report only lays out the evidence and legal theories they had about whether they could prosecute 'collusion' or process crimes.
What it doesn't do, is look into motives, or examine the legitimate reasons that might exist for a president to push back, or the indeterminate bounds of a president's powers over a special counsel.
And what evidence it does have, is through the lens of self-serving testimony of individuals either pressured by charges or the fear of them, giving reason to deliver dramatized, exaggerated accounts that might help save their own skins.

Take the entire issue of obstruction of justice. Its a nebulous area of law whether the president could have simply fired Robert Mueller. He has the legal authority to do so as executive, but the law would criminalize it if it was done for the purpose of obstructing the investigation, yet Trump was able to cite exaggerated ostensibly neutral causes like trumped up conflicts of interest. But he didn't. The President could have declared vast amounts of information as protected under executive privilege and instructed his staff not to cooperate with Mueller's probe on any of that. But he didn't. He could have refused to answer the written questions. But he didn't. He could have directed the DoJ to narrow the scope of the probe to only the immediate question of Russian hacking and possible collusion. But he didn't.

So we got a bunch of hypotheticals that would have led to a constitutional crisis where there would be an argument on both sides about the powers of the executive vs mens reas, with the courts and congress asked to weigh in on the question of sovereignty of the executive over his own intentions- a question that SCOTUS would invariably pass the buck onto congress as the only constitutionally prescribed recourse is impeachment.
But instead they stayed hypotheticals. Trump cooperated with the investigation, he explicitly declined to exert executive privilege, he allowed Mueller to probe well outside the bounds of his mandate and still turned up no underlying crime.'


What could Trump have done better? Allow the special counsel to impinge freely on the executive without any pushback and set a precedent for ceding presidential authority that would neuter future presidents? This has been an albatross hanging over the heads of two of the past four presidents, and as a nation we need to cut it the fuck out and get back to governance. But the report as is showed that, *taps bullhorn* trump did not collude with russia, and everything was exactly like I said it was from day 1, and that Trump didn't even delve into the grey area of constitutionally questionable opposition to the probe, let alone provide a provable case of obstruction of justice.

Trump reportedly was close to firing Mueller, either directly or indirectly via Sessions etc., on multiple occasions, out of the corrupt intent of ending an investigation into his own (potential) wrongdoings. Would it have been possible to use conflict of interest or something similar as a excuse to fire Mueller and get away with it; without leaving enough evidence for corrupt intent? Yes. Would Trump have been able to walk this fine line? Hell no. For someone as undisciplined as him, firing Mueller would have meant self-destruction.

I wish I could find the pic w/o the words on it.

Sorry, I meant the Mueller pic.