The Mueller Report thread

[Dill]

(07-24-2019, 08:31 PM)6andcounting Wrote: Even though the redacted reported didn't really hide anything meaningful and Mueller would have nothing new during his interview, if neither of those 2 things happened Dems could have hid behind saying there is bad stuff being hidden from the public. It was purely about prolonged negative press on Trump. 

As I understand it, from the Dem's view the Report had not been read or understood by the majority of the public. Trump had been claiming "total exoneration" for months, and before the redacted report was released Barr had publicly stated it provided no basis for a charge of obstruction. That's what was circulating on the news for those who had not read the Report or taken time to understand Mueller's task and constraints; if your news source was Fox, there would be added commentary on how the disappointed Dems had "found nothing" but were "still looking" instead of "moving on."

The Dems' goal with this and hopefully future hearings is to help people understand that

1. the Report established there actually was a multi-pronged attack on the US election led by Russia, that it was intended to help elect Trump, and that amidst that attack, Trump appealed for help from Russia and repeatedly praised the service of Wikileaks, even as numerous members of the Trump administration met with Russian operatives and lied about their contacts afterward. Trump's campaign manager met with a spy and gave him in-house polling data, apparently for use in the Russian troll campaign.

2. Mueller did find that Trump and his team actively obstructed this investigation, intended to help protect the US from future attacks. The report explicitly details that obstruction.

3. Mueller did not recommend prosecution because on his view that was not his job, not because there was no evidence of obstruction. Because the president is the president, the only remedy, the only force which can legally hold the president to rule of law, is Congress responsible to the (hopefully informed) people.

4. With this base established, then public could also understand the need to look into Trump's finances, via his tax returns. His repeated lies about non-dealing with Russia have been exposed, making his word on such matters completely untrustworthy. 

So, yes, "prolonged negative press about Trump," because he broke the law, ordered others to break it, and otherwise significantly failed, and continues to fail, in his duty to protect.

But not everyone buys this. The hearings would hopefully contest the Trump/Fox counter-narrative, that the Report completely cleared Trump of all wrongdoing because there had never been any wrongdoing.

The larger version of this narrative includes other elements as well, some voiced without challenge at the hearing: the Deep State attempted to spy on the Trump campaign, the Steele dossier initiated surveillance and constituted the REAL Russian interference, no evidence the Russian Troll farms were Russian, the Russia "witch hunt" was nothing more than revenge for Hillary. This narrative fuels the current DOJ "investigation" into the investigators currently underway. Hannity wants to see people jailed. JAILED.

None of this matters, though, if enough people don't care or hold firmly to the counter-narrative. This Yougov poll from July 1 indicates the problem for Democrats. 46% of Republicans at that time thought the Report exonerated Trump. Incredibly, that number rises among those who claim to have read parts of the report.  https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/07/01/robert-muellers-report.