lennybird , 5 hours ago (edited 4 hours ago)

Yep it was a cop-out. I will post my copy-pasta on this for anyone’s interest.

In the worst case, it was laziness and passing the buck by Mueller; in the best case it was him trying to dodge Barr from closing the case in the DOJ. Either way the recommended charges brought forward had nothing to do with conspiracy or coordination, but rather perjury and obstruction.

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Edit: My original write-up on Mueller Report:

There are several parts to the Mueller report: obstruction, coordination/collusion, and Russian interference being the main three. When reading the Mueller report in terms of “collusion”, keep in mind that there is the finest of lines with what Trump and Putin did that really let’s him off on technicality than the spirit of the law itself. I’ll dive in more on this below.

Remember how people made fun of SuperPACs coordination loophole? To my understanding, this is basically that. It may not be grounds for legal charges, but it is 10000% an ethics violation worthy of impeachment.

I want to go over some info in the Mueller report, because I’m already seeing a concerted effort by Trump trolls to deny reality, and this not helping when Barr is saying blatant lies revolving around collusion. For many, this will probably be a refresher, but it’s important to keep some of this info fresh. Feel free to add/clarify/correct.

On obstruction, Mueller reported:

Fourth, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgement. The evidence we obtained about the President’s actions and intent presents difficult issues that prevent us from conclusively determining that no criminal conduct occurred. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.

Mueller is essentially saying that there is a smell that reeks of obstruction, there’s evidence of obstruction (12 highlighted instances), and he cannot adequately rule it out; but there are obstacles for him from further investigating. So he shined a light, saw some suspicious things, but not enough to prove anything, and had to turn the light off before adequately clearing the room—so to speak, hence “not exonerating” the President. It’s important to note that Mueller explicitly wrote that Trump was spared from obstruction charges because people in his cabinet refused to follow his orders. It’s widely understood that his report is passing the the buck to Congress, presumably knowing the AG position going back to Whitaker was compromised. Remember that the U.S. Attorney General is the People’s Attorney, not Trump’s personal defense lawyer.

To add to this, the biggest headline of Mueller’s press briefing should be from the 6:05 marker when Mueller states::

It would be unfair to potentially accuse somebody of a crime when there can be no court resolution of the actual charge.

This makes clear that Trump was not charged with a crime strictly because a “sitting president” is essentially above the law, and thus he made no determination in lieu of the inability to follow through with proceedings.

Otherwise, “If we had confidence the President did not commit a crime, we would have said so,” could be construed as saying, “We cannot rule out that trump committed a crime, but the bar to charge was not met” whereas with the latter additional quote, that turns the meaning to, “We would have prosecuted him, had our hands not been tied by the protections of a sitting President.”

Granted, this info was also in the report, but in less laymen terms.

A thousand former Federal Prosectors agree the evidence before Trump warrants indictment. There is enough evidence to charge Trump of crimes, but because of the position he holds he is protected.

Next on Collusion vs Conspiracy vs Coordinated: (I will mark via [#] and bold key follow-up points)

Let’s try to unpack what Mueller’s report means when they write:

In evaluating whether evidence about collective action of multiple individuals constituted a crime, we applied the framework of conspiracy law, not the concept of "collusion.[1] In so doing, the Office recognized that the word “collud[ e ]” was used in communications with the Acting Attorney General confirming certain aspects of the investigation’s scope and that the term has frequently been invoked in public reporting about the investigation. But collusion is not a specific offense or theory of liability found in the United States Code, nor is it a term of art in federal criminal law. For those reasons , [2] the Office’s focus in analyzing questions of joint criminal liability was on conspiracy as defined in federal law. In connection with that analysis, [3] we addressed the factual question whether members of the Trump Campaign “coordinat[ ed]”-a term that appears in the appointment order-with Russian election interference activities. Like collusion, “coordination” does not have a settled definition in federal criminal law.

[4]We understood coordination to require an agreement-tacit or express - between the Trump Campaign and the Russian government on election interference. That requires more than the two parties taking actions that were informed by or responsive to the other’s actions or interests. We applied the term coordination in that sense when stating in the report that the investigation did not establish that the Trump Campaign coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.

[1] - Mueller is noting that Collusion is not a Federal statute and is highlighting its blatant use in the media (as well as from Trump).

[2] - Mueller is noting that the closest match based on the directive of the Special Counsel in the first is Conspiracy, which is a possible Federal crime

[3] - Mueller is highlighting that the initial order to form the Special Counsel emphasized investigating “coordination” between the Russian Government and Donald Trump

[4] - Coordination under the purview of conspiracy required an explicit agreement to coordinate, as opposed to both reading what the others were doing, reacting to in a means to mutually benefit each other. This is the kind of nonsense SuperPACs run under by funneling unlimited amounts of money to support a candidate without direct coordination, but obviously with an implicit intent to (a) further the agendas of the SuperPAC, and (b) advance the campaign of the candidate (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).

Some questions going forward:

• Would/Should Trump Supporters care that both Russia and Trump indirectly coordinated? Especially given Trump said, “Russia, if you’re listening…”? That is, even if there was no legal crime committed, is it not questionable and/or ethical to have this relationship with a foreign power with a poor record? Should it not raise alarm-bells that such a President “trusts” merely the “word” of an adversary in a cold-war mindset over his own intelligence agencies & allies?
• What aspect of “collusion” or related charges may have been handed off in the sealed 12 other investigations?
• Is it lawful and (more importantly) ethical that Trump didn’t get charged with a crime because his attempt failed? In other words I’ve heard it framed, is a person spared charges because the hitman refuses to carry out a murder?
• How can ignorance be a defense for those of the Trump campaign?
• On obstruction, why explicitly could Mueller’s team not “reach that judgement” on obstruction, and what “difficult issues” are you referring to which prevent ruling out the occurrence of any criminal conduct?

And here’s the kicker: Mueller’s report on obstruction is irrelevant to the fact, which Mueller pointed out, that Russia hacked our election system with the expressed intent of supporting Trump. Now put on your critical-thinking cap and ask yourself three questions:

1. Why would Trump trust Putin’s word over the unprecedented joint-report consensus of his own intelligence agencies (CIA, FBI, NSA, and DHS + more), Dutch ally intelligence, and private cybersecurity firms? I mean if those same people came to a conclusion that Al Qaeda was about to launch an attack, wouldn’t you expect the President to trust them?
2. Why would Putin want Trump to win over Hillary Clinton?
3. If (hypothetically) Barack Obama had done exactly the same thing with Angela Merkel or someone from Kenya, would the Right-wing media, conservative base, Tea Party, and Republican officials not be going berserk? Why the double-standard…?

The answers should be quite obvious.