Ryan Goodman, former Special Counsel for the Department of Defense and co-editor-in-chief of Just Security, wrote Monday that Volume One of the redacted Mueller report “identifies key findings of collusion (not just crimes).”
My research and thoughts all in one place to help readers understand Volume 1 of the #MuellerReport.https://t.co/FlWmRZxzAx
—identifies key findings of collusion (not just crimes)
—examines other Mueller documents and investigative reports to help put these findings in context— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) April 29, 2019
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“The redacted Mueller Report documents a series of activities that show strong evidence of collusion. Or, more precisely, it provides significant evidence that Trump Campaign associates coordinated with, cooperated with, encouraged, or gave support to the Russia/WikiLeaks election interference activities. The Report documents the following actions (each of which is analyzed in detail in Part II),” Goodman writes, before listing those actions.
In his second section of analysis, Goodman lays it out:
1. Trump was receptive to a Campaign national security adviser’s (George Papadopoulos) pursuit of a back channel to Putin
2. Kremlin operatives provided the Campaign a preview of the Russian plan to distribute stolen emails
“There is at least no indication that the Campaign said or did anything to dissuade the Russians. Instead, following the late April 2016 meeting, the Campaign supported Papadopoulos’s efforts to organize a back channel meeting with Russian officials and Campaign officials.”
Goodman explains that one reason the report can’t prove criminal collusion (conspiracy) is many of the people involved, including the president himself, refused to give information, deleted evidence, lied to investigators, and obstructed the investigation.
The Report states, “Even when individuals testified or agreed to be interviewed, they sometimes provided information that was false or incomplete.â€
Goodman goes to pains to point out, and this is a big one, that it is incorrect to conflate the investigation “didn’t establish” something happened with it “did not occur” or “there was no evidence” that it occurred. When there is no evidence, the report lays that out with “did not identify evidence” or “did not uncover evidence.â€
Noting as others have that the Special Counsel’s counterintelligence findings are missing from the Mueller report, Goodnman notes that those findings are where we would find what we refer to as “collusion,” he continues, “though, as Asha Rangappa and I have written, the more analytically precise issues to consider are whether Trump Campaign associates ‘coordinated with, cooperated with, encouraged, or gave support’ to the Russia/WikiLeaks election interference activities. Those are important questions regardless of whether such activities amounted to crimes…”
Basically yes, Americans need to know if the Trump campaign worked with the Russians, even if the evidence wouldn’t hold up in a criminal case.
The redacted Mueller report lays bare that the Trump campaign was willing to take help from Russians. They didn’t report the offers of help. It contains strong evidence of collusion.
The redacted Mueller report does not exonerate the President; in fact, it contains strong evidence that the President of the United States colluded with a hostile foreign power to win the presidency.
That in and of itself, in this writer’s opinion, is not just a reason to impeach him, but why it is imperative Republicans stand with their country to impeach Donald Trump.
There exists no better reason to impeach a president than the evidence that they worked with a hostile foreign country to steal the election that put them into power. It doesn’t matter if the evidence can stand up in court to make a criminal case. It matters that the president of the United States is not working for or compromised by, a foreign country.
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