POLITICUSUSA
Hopefully our now soon-to-be former President, also known as Individual-1 in a court filing against Trump’s former fixer/lawyer Michael Cohen by the Southern District of New York in 2018, will soon enough find himself housed in a prison and clothed in an orange jumpsuit.
Ted Lieu has offered harsh criticism of the Mueller investigation following the publication of a Senate report into Russian interference during the 2020 election.
The Democratic Congressman took to Twitter to highlight what he described as a crime committed by the President. He also gave a scathing review of the Special Counsel’s probe.
Lieu was retweeting MSNBC analyst Matthew Miller, who wrote “Trump solicited, welcomed, and benefited from Russian interference” but investigators didn’t find enough evidence for criminal charges.
“It’s a felony campaign finance violation to solicit a foreign power to help your campaign, especially when the foreign power weighed in on such a massive scale,” Lieu said.
It’s a felony campaign finance violation to solicit a foreign power to help your campaign, especially when the foreign power weighed in on such a massive scale. The Mueller team just didn’t have the guts to go there. https://t.co/J8cSjfidGA
President Donald Trump lashed out at former acting Attorney General Sally Yates in a tweet earlier this morning, accusing her of participating in “the greatest political crime of the Century.”
The president accused Yates of “leaking” a conversation with former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who would later plead guilty to a felony count of “willfully and knowingly” making false statements to the FBI, and agreed to cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference.
“Ask her under oath. Republicans should start playing the Democrats game!” the president wrote.
Sally Yates has zero credibility. She was a part of the greatest political crime of the Century, and ObamaBiden knew EVERYTHING! Sally Yates leaked the General Flynn conversation? Ask her under oath. Republicans should start playing the Democrats game!
Kayleigh McEnany has claimed that the Russia investigation was a waste of the country’s time and that it was based on a hoax. She was responding to an op-ed from Robert Mueller.
The former Special Counsel wrote an article in The Washington Post defending his probe. He also criticized the President for commuting Roger Stone’s sentence.
The White House Press Secretary spoke to Fox News on Wednesday and highlighted “the fact that he had to defend his taxpayer-wasted investigation on taxpayer dollars, millions and millions wasted on a Russia hoax theory that found no collusion.”
“What did Robert Mueller have to do to justify his investigation, a waste of taxpayer dollars, a waste of America’s time?” she asked.
“He had to come up with process crimes which is exactly what was done in the case of Roger Stone.”
Stone was convicted by a jury on seven counts and sentenced to three years in prison. President Trump and his allies have maintained that Stone was railroaded.
“Adam Schiff was actually right,” McEnany went on. “We do have a two-tiered justice system, he was just wrong on the facts.”
“The two-tiered justice system completely discriminates against the Trump administration.”
By contrast, Mueller has pointed out that “the special counsel’s office identified two principal operations directed at our election: hacking and dumping Clinton campaign emails, and an online social media campaign to disparage the Democratic candidate.”
“Stone was prosecuted and convicted because he committed federal crimes. He remains a convicted felon, and rightly so.”
A top prosecutor involved in Robert Mueller’s probe has admitted investigators could have done more during the special counsel’s investigation into Russia.
Andrew Weissmann was head of the criminal fraud division at the Department of Justice. In his new book, Where Law Ends, he will outline the Mueller investigation’s work.
“I am deeply proud of the work we did and of the unprecedented number of people we indicted and convicted — and in record speed,” Weissmann said.
“But the hard truth is that we made mistakes. We could have done more. ”
“Where Law Ends documents the choices we made, good and bad, for all to see and judge and learn from,” Weissmann said.
“This is the story of our investigation into how our democracy was attacked by Russia and how those who condoned and ignored that assault undermined our ability to uncover the truth.”
“My obligation as a prosecutor was to follow the facts where they led, using all available tools and undeterred by the onslaught of the President’s unique powers to undermine our work,” he said.
Weissman’s apparent admission comes as Robert Mueller openly criticized President Donald Trump’s decision to commute Roger Stone’s prison sentence.
“Stone was prosecuted and convicted because he committed federal crimes. He remains a convicted felon, and rightly so,” Mueller wrote.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) will allow Robert Mueller to testify because he thinks he can discredit Mueller and help Trump, but he has made a big mistake.
Senator Lindsey Graham inadvertently gave his critics a soundbite on Thursday while trying to shame Democrats. The South Carolina Republican was defending himself from Democratic criticism.
Former deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein was testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee about Robert Mueller’s investigation. Graham chairs the committee and he was pursuing the GOP position that the probe was improper.
Democrats blasted their Republican colleagues as “political errand boys” who are “bolstering conspiracy theories” about a plot against the 2016 Trump campaign.
Watch the video:
Sen. Lindsey Graham: "You think I am in Trump's pocket." pic.twitter.com/J9lpf1stdB
— The Hill (@thehill) June 4, 2020
Graham referred specifically to a document that was used as part of the investigation into that campaign. Republicans allege that FISA was abused and aimed at Trump.
“It matters to me whether or not the No. 2 guy at the FBI, Comey, knew that the document was no longer reliable and kept using it,” Graham said.
“You all could care less. That really says a lot,” Graham told Democrats.
“I know you don’t agree with what I’m doing. You think I’m in Trump’s pocket. I get all that. It’s not lost on me of what you think and I’m sad because I like you all.”
“But if you expect me to punt, forget it. We’re not going to punt. We’re not going to have a rule of law for Republicans and a rule of law for Democrats.”
Critics have accused Graham of pursuing unfounded allegations of a plot or coup against the Trump campaign.
Follow Darragh Roche on Twitter
Donald Trump went on a tweeting and retweeting spree on Thursday, sharing praise of himself and criticism of his opponents. The President was particularly keen to highlight former deputy AG Rod Rosenstein.
Rosenstein testified before the Senate on Wednesday. Republicans grilled him as part of their continued push to undermine the Russia probe and the conclusions of Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
Trump simply joined the chorus of those using Rosenstein to attack Mueller.
“Mueller should have never been appointed, although he did prove that I must be the most honest man in America!” Trump tweeted.
Mueller should have never been appointed, although he did prove that I must be the most honest man in America! https://t.co/JjrTV2FKEt
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 4, 2020
The President has painted Mueller’s investigation as a conspiracy against him, involving a wide range of officials, Rosenstein among them. Senate Republicans pushed the narrative on Wednesday.
However, the former deputy attorney general defended his decision to appoint Mueller. Then Attorney General Jeff Sessions had recused himself – which led to Rosenstein being in the cross hairs today.
“I was concerned the public would not have confidence in the investigation and that the acting FBI director was not the right person to lead it,”
Rosenstein said.
Donald Trump thinks Covid-19 is a more intelligent adversary than his political opponents. The President appeared to praise the virus’ intellect during a rambling Fox News interview.
Trump spoke to Fox & Friends for around 50 minutes on Friday and covered a wide range of subjects. The hosts asked him about the Department of Justice decision to drop the case against Michael Flynn.
Trump said the move “absolutely” proved
the Russia investigation was a hoax
Democrats are hoping that Mueller’s testimony on Wednesday will show us all the ways you can say there was “collusion” and there was obstruction.
In reality, there was evidence to show that Donald Trump’s campaign conspired with Russia to win the 2016 presidential election. Since then, Donald Trump has done everything imaginable and beyond that to obstruct the facts.
I’ll be watching Robert Mueller’s testimony knowing full well I won’t learn anything that I haven’t read in the report. I just want to watch the Republicans freak out every time Robert Mueller opens his mouth.
However, this is a big deal for the politicians on both sides of the partisan divide, and an even bigger deal for Donald Trump. After all, you don’t corrupt the Department of Justice over trivial things like money laundering. Trump has been doing that with impunity for years, just as Jeffrey Epstein enjoyed decades of tending to his human trafficking business with impunity.
But Trump wasn’t happy with running his criminal enterprise and hosting his cheesy reality show. Donald Trump nursed a grudge against Barack Obama and Putin nursed a grudge against Hillary Clinton – albeit for different reasons. Neither man subscribes to the theory that living well is the best revenge. They wanted to replace Obama and defeat Clinton, again, for very different reasons.
Putin wanted an end to sanctions imposed by the Obama Administration with Clinton’s enthusiastic support. And the road to making that happen involved Donald Trump. Trump wanted to replace Obama, but more importantly, in that scary place that is Trump’s mind, he wanted to monetize the presidential election.
Anyone who read the Mueller report knows it built a solid case for conspiracy between the Trump Campaign and the Russians. Too many Trump people met with too many Russians over too many policy areas of interest to Russia. The only world leader Trump had anything good to say about was Putin. The Republican Party’s mysterious about-face on the Ukraine never did make sense under any theory other than it was on Putin’s wish list.
After Trump finally found his Roy Cohn, the Mueller investigation was shut down quickly. Now, we’re waiting to hear from Mr. Mueller amid two other significant facts.
Jerry Nadler, the Chair of the House Senate Judiciary committee is now on public record saying he believes Trump committed impeachable offenses.
During a Sunday interview on Fox, Jerry Nadler told the audience
“the Mueller report contains very substantial evidence” that President Donald Trump is “guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors” — an impeachable offense.”
“We have to … let Mueller present those facts to the American people, and then see where we go from there, because the administration must be held accountable,”
House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) called out Attorney General Barr and warned Trump that he will be held accountable.
Senate Democratic Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) blasted Mitch McConnell for ignoring Robert Mueller and blocking an election security bill in the Senate.
Robert Mueller announced that he is stepping down as special counsel while destroying Trump's claims of no collusion and no obstruction.
Democrats are in talks with Robert Mueller to get him to testify before the House Judiciary Committee within the next two weeks.
Sen. Maize Hirono (D-HI) said that the investigation is not over, even if Lindsey Graham wants it to be over, as she called for Mueller to testify.
Sen. Hirono said on MSNBC’s All In With Chris Hayes, “Obviously it’s not over. Lindsey wants it to be over, but it’s not. For example, during his testimony, Barr kept characterizing the discussions he had with Mueller. That’s called hearsay. I like to hear from Mueller himself as to the conversation and what concerns he had about the four-pager that Barr put out. Mueller was so concern, and he asked Barr to put out the summaries that his team had put together. Barr refused to do that.”
Video:
Sen. Hirono told Attorney General Barr to his face that he is a liar, and that he needs to resign. Hirono was correct. Graham has buddied up to Trump, and he is trying to kill the investigation for the president. Lindsey Graham wants this to be over in the worst way, but it’s not over, and it is never going to be over until the American people know the facts about the Trump/Russia relationship and how it impacted the 2016 election.
Democrats are not going to allow a potentially criminal president to walk.
For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group.
The Democratic chairman of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee said on Wednesday an agreement had been reached to have Special Counsel Robert Mueller testify to Congress on his probe into Russian election interference and possible attempts by the President Donald Trump to impede the probe.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller complained in a letter to Attorney General William Barr that his four-page summary of Mueller's Russia report "did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance" of the investigation's conclusions.
Back in February 2017 at a Black History Month event, President Donald Trump regaled his audience with his insights about famous African Americans’ contributions throughout U.S. history. He identified Frederick Douglass as “an example of somebody’s who’s done a great job and is getting recognized more and more, I notice.”
Shamefully, he hasn’t received any recognition with regard to the release of the Mueller report. I’ve watched a lot of the media coverage and listened to a lot of talking heads, often the same pundits over and over, and not one network seems to have sought Douglass’s expertise.
Wait—what? He’s dead?
Oh, ok. My bad. I really need to stop listening to Trump, who sure made it sound like the major abolitionist, suffrage campaigner, author, orator, and former slave of mid-19th-century America was alive, kicking, and taking more and more names.
Douglass’s passing aside, though, I wonder if he might nonetheless be able to offer some guidance on reading the Mueller report and help Americans decipher where their interests lie when it comes to assessing the importance of Russian interference in our nation’s 2016 Presidential election.
He did, after all, have some important insights into the power of literacy—and into the efficacy of properly reading the power dynamics impacting one’s life.
And it seems, from multiple reports, that the response of many Americans to the Mueller report is less concern over Russia’s influence in determining who the leader and chief decision-maker in the United States will be, than general disgust with our political leaders.
Is that the best way to read and respond to the report? Maybe Douglass can school us a bit on how to read to decipher our political interests.
Most illuminating in this regard, perhaps, is Douglass’ account in The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass of his learning to read, or perhaps more precisely his learning of the importance of reading when his master forbids his wife to teach him precisely because “it would forever unfit him to be a slave,” to play his role as worker in the class system of slavery. Douglass recounts the moment when his master scolds his wife for teaching him to read and his concomitant “new and special revelation,” of his political interests, as he comes to understand the denial of literacy as part of “the white man’s power to enslave the black man.” He becomes confident that what the master is saying is true and that the result of the slave’s achievement of literacy will in fact be in some measure the undoing of the system of slavery itself.
Douglass represents reading not just as an act of basically assimilating the meaning of words but as an act of discerning, of grasping, one’s political and economic interests. Douglass doesn’t learn to read the same way his master does but rather reads the master’s statements negatively to decipher the reality of his situation and his political and economic interests, such that we see that ways of reading are politicized and differentially conditioned by one’s position in the larger social power structure.
Douglass writes,
“What he most dreaded, that I most desired. What he most loved, I most hated. That which to him was a great evil, to be carefully shunned, was a great good, to be diligently sought.”
In short, the danger in Trump’s language is that, for the surprisingly impressionable national audience, he degrades our democratic processes and safeguards against tyranny by recasting the fundamentals of democracy as instead the coarse and brutish misdeeds of a dictatorial power grab.
Nonetheless, his complete lack of response and sense of urgency with regard to the first part of Barr’s summary detailing the plot and practices of Russian election interference still must worry us, whether or not his lack of response surprises us.