The Mueller Report thread

[Dill]

(05-01-2019, 05:24 PM)michaelsean Wrote: So why is everyone acting like it's a smoking gun?  Technically he didn't have to release anything, and I still never understood how everyone got upset over what he said about it, when the whole thing minus redactions was always going to be released.  

That's part of the problem.  Consider the timing as well.

Mueller laid out the case to be reported, including the reasons he was turning the question of prosecution over to Congress. That is where the conversation about prosecution for obstruction and impeachment should have started. And an AG Serving the Constitution and the American people would have allowed the conversation to start there.

But then Barr held up the report, then intervened in service of Trump. The distorted summary immediately set the floor for a different and false narrative--Trump absolved of collusion and obstruction.  Charges dismissed!

Suddenly Mueller's carefully constructed legal argument becomes the "spin" and attempts to set argument back on proper legal ground are met with charges that "Democrats are moving the goal posts" and "Dems didn't like the results so they want to keep investigating" etc. 

You can see on this thread that people are already dismissing the legal argument and refusing to read the report since Barr has already told them what's what.

Now the legal argument for prosecution of obstruction has to swim upstream.  Here and in the public sphere.

The smoking gun effect of the Mueller letter comes from the exposed lie--Barr said he "didn't know" if Mueller supported his summary of the Report when he had already received Mueller's letter of objection to the summary as incomplete and distortive.