• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Mueller Investigation pt 6

Status
Not open for further replies.
Delphic Oracle said:
Ok, let's explore the alternate reality.

Mueller illegally sends his report to Congress. Then what?
Click to expand...
I never claimed he should have sent the report to congress. That would probably be a case of 'crossing the line' (since it would probably be a violation of the law).

I've always stated that he should have: 1) been more direct in his statements when dealing with Trump and others in the administration (i.e. called him a 'liar' the moment he claimed 'complete exoneration), 2) continued the investigations, exploring areas that hadn't been fully dealt with and bringing in more indictments.

In my opinion, both of those options would be both legal, and fit within the mandate he was given.
 
I suspect that Barr's arrival on the scene hastened the wrapping up of Mueller's work. This could lead/contribute to the perception of the ball having been dropped.

In the end, I believe Mueller did essentially the right thing in not voicing a more definitive repudiation of Trump, given that he was constrained in not accusing crimes. And even in spite of the times we now live in, Mueller would be looking to history as his judge of whether he acted with propriety. Today we would derive satisfaction from a little rebelliousness out of Mueller. But he looks farther afield, preferring that from the viewpoint of his peers decades down the road he be seen as having conducted himself honorably.
 
Last edited:
Lurch said:
I suspect that Barr's arrival on the scene hastened the wrapping up of Mueller's work. This could lead/contribute to the perception of the ball having been dropped.
Click to expand...
True, there was a risk of Barr forcing an end to the investigation.

But if you're Mueller, why help him? Force his hand. Keep working until Barr actually forces you out. Then raise a stink about how your work was ended early. And then, when you testify before congress (which you would expect to happen, even if Barr prevented a report from being released), be willing to spill everything.

In the end, I believe Mueller did essentially the right thing in not voicing a more definitive repudiation of Trump, given that he was constrained in not accusing crimes.
Click to expand...
Saying "Trump lied about being exonerated" would not have been "accusing him of a crime". Holding a press conference right after Barr released his letter to say "Barr is full of crap" would not be "accusing him of a crime". (Mueller did release his own letter that said Barr "inadequately portrayed their conclusions", but such a statement would have been much more relevant if done directly to the media.)

So there were plenty of things that could have been done that avoided "accusing people of crimes".

And even in spite of the times we now live in, Mueller would be looking to history as his judge of whether he acted with propriety. Today we would derive satisfaction from a little rebelliousness out of Mueller. But he looks farther afield, preferring that from the viewpoint of his peers decades down the road he be seen as having conducted himself honorably.
Click to expand...
How relevant will that "honor" be if, thanks to Russian interference, the U.S. is irreparably harmed? That he could have been more forceful in preventing that harm, but because of a false sense of "honor" he decided not to act?
 
The more I read about history, the more that I think the myth that anything gets done through boyscout levels of integrity is BS.

Look at MLK. They didn't make their civil rights gains through pure straightforward saintliness. His posse was happy to make photo ops with dogs and hoses happen, and happy to use photos that were misleading images of those particular moment that they thought told a better and more sympathetic story. That doesn't make MLK or his allies bad people, it made them practical. For emphasis, I'm not talking about civil disobedience. In some ways, breaking the law and taking your penalty is still the boyscout's path.

I've become a fan of the podcast "More Perfect" which details the history of the Supreme court and landmark cases. And I'm beginning to get the impression that in zero of these important cases was either side being a boyscout.

Lincoln practically threw the constitution in the trash. The Framers of the constitution willfully ignored the terms of earlier agreements.

To move the needle requires a practical boldness, and if slavish devotion to both the letter and spirit of the rules ever creates serious change, it's the exception.

Every day, the President and his cronies do something that breaksm the letter, the spirit or the custom of the rules, and they're able to do so without consequences. The law is secondary to chutzpah in a million ways every day. So when we say "Mueller had no choice" I'm not sure I buy into that.

Obvious objections might be:
"The protections that the Presidentand his cronies is using are unique to that office. Mueller is not so protected" To that I'd say, what would be the consequences for Mueller saying out loud in the hearing something like "Mr. Trump and Mr. Barr have misrepresented my report. It does not exhonerate the President and they are in a position to know what they are saying is untrue." What would be the consequence of frank speach like that? Would they throw him in jail? Throw out the report? I'd like to see what that legal process looked like. I don't think it would help the Republicans at the polls.

Would they then be able to claim he's a partisan hack and try to dismiss him? That's the next objection. Trump has been calling Mueller's team "(Ever changing number) angry democrats" for the whole time. His base buy Trump's spin unquestioningly anway and there's no great middle of America really ready to change their minds on the report is there's a tiny opportunity to call Mueller partisan (against his own party?). It's a ridiculous fear.

Broader objections:
"This whole, break the rules for the greater good thing is how you get oppressive dictatorships. We need rule of law!"
That's simply not how the world works. Rule of law when the system is broken can't be restored by deferring to the people who break all the laws.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
...as he was legally required to do.
Click to expand...

1) Why did he not make a point earlier on that he'd be turning all this over to Trump.

2) He was legally required to testify before Congress when they subpoenaed him. He resisted and then when he did testify, it was clear he wasn't saying all he could have, and that includes testifying behind closed doors.

However, I'm satisfied the House is not stopping. I do get annoyed when some of the Democrats appear to go along with the Trump lie that the investigation found nothing.
 
Cavemonster said:
The more I read about history, the more that I think the myth that anything gets done through boyscout levels of integrity is BS.

Look at MLK. They didn't make their civil rights gains through pure straightforward saintliness. His posse was happy to make photo ops with dogs and hoses happen, and happy to use photos that were misleading images of those particular moment that they thought told a better and more sympathetic story. That doesn't make MLK or his allies bad people, it made them practical. For emphasis, I'm not talking about civil disobedience. In some ways, breaking the law and taking your penalty is still the boyscout's path.

I've become a fan of the podcast "More Perfect" which details the history of the Supreme court and landmark cases. And I'm beginning to get the impression that in zero of these important cases was either side being a boyscout.

Lincoln practically threw the constitution in the trash. The Framers of the constitution willfully ignored the terms of earlier agreements.

To move the needle requires a practical boldness, and if slavish devotion to both the letter and spirit of the rules ever creates serious change, it's the exception.

Every day, the President and his cronies do something that breaksm the letter, the spirit or the custom of the rules, and they're able to do so without consequences. The law is secondary to chutzpah in a million ways every day. So when we say "Mueller had no choice" I'm not sure I buy into that.

Obvious objections might be:
"The protections that the Presidentand his cronies is using are unique to that office. Mueller is not so protected" To that I'd say, what would be the consequences for Mueller saying out loud in the hearing something like "Mr. Trump and Mr. Barr have misrepresented my report. It does not exhonerate the President and they are in a position to know what they are saying is untrue." What would be the consequence of frank speach like that? Would they throw him in jail? Throw out the report? I'd like to see what that legal process looked like. I don't think it would help the Republicans at the polls.

Would they then be able to claim he's a partisan hack and try to dismiss him? That's the next objection. Trump has been calling Mueller's team "(Ever changing number) angry democrats" for the whole time. His base buy Trump's spin unquestioningly anway and there's no great middle of America really ready to change their minds on the report is there's a tiny opportunity to call Mueller partisan (against his own party?). It's a ridiculous fear.

Broader objections:
"This whole, break the rules for the greater good thing is how you get oppressive dictatorships. We need rule of law!"
That's simply not how the world works. Rule of law when the system is broken can't be restored by deferring to the people who break all the laws.
Click to expand...

This is a pretty good insight. Abandoning the law to get justice has its own pitfalls, of course, but we don't need to get into that here. Sometimes it's the right thing to do.

So. What laws do you think Mueller should have broken, in the cause of restoring rule of law?
 
Belz... said:
This is just frustration that Mueller didn't have the impact you hoped he would.
Click to expand...

Oooo, you sound just like Trump. "Just" as if the situation is about nothing but Trump. It's about corruption gone wild in the government.

What I wanted, and still do, is for Trump's criminal enterprise to be exposed.

Mueller did not do enough, IMO, to give the Congress the tools we need to prevent a recurrence of Russian bots and trolls.

However, there are Democrats in the House that are pursuing these things. I wish they'd be putting as much emphasis on winning the Senate, hopefully that is still to come.
 
Last edited:
theprestige said:
This is a pretty good insight. Abandoning the law to get justice has its own pitfalls, of course, but we don't need to get into that here. Sometimes it's the right thing to do.

So. What laws do you think Mueller should have broken, in the cause of restoring rule of law?
Click to expand...

I don't think he even needed to break any laws. I gave the example of speaking more frankly about Trump and Barr's dishnoesty regarding the report. I don't believe there to be a law actually banning Muller from doing so, more a spirit of "how it's done" and attempt to appear supernaturally neutral. But if I'm incorrect and there were a law banning him from speaking so, then I would start breaking the law somewhere around there.
 
Last edited:
For what it's worth I think Mueller's reticence on the issue of conspiracy and foreign interference will be judged cowardly, but in his defence he did provide Trump's balls on a plate on obstruction. If there had been the political will to impeach Trump, he provided more than enough evidence to initiate the proceedings, and lacking that political will, no amount of evidence would have sufficed.
 
Segnosaur said:
I'm combining these because they're saying the same thing, and can be addressed in the same way.


I was 'paying attention'. I recognize that, if you look at what Mueller said and 'read between the lines', you would recognize that he accused Trump of perjury, that Trump wasn't exonerated.

The problem is not me. And the problem is not the people "with an ounce of intelligence and/or integrity". Its not us who are the problem.

The problem are the ~40% of people who continue to support Trump, regardless of whatever racist or idiotic comment he makes. Those are the people who will not 'read the report', or if they did, wouldn't understand what exactly they were reading. Those are the people who will hear the comment by Mueller about how 'It doesn't exonerate him' and fail to make the connection that "Trump said it exonerated him, Mueller said it didn't. Trump must be lying". Its those people who need to be presented with simple, direct statements, like "Trump lied about exoneration", and "Barr lied about white house cooperation".

Now, granted, you probably won't affect any of the hardcore members of the Trump cult, and you may not turn any of them from Republicans to Democrats. But if you get Mueller explicitly stating "Trump lied" (or got him going after people closer to Trump), perhaps that might cause a few Trump supporters who were sitting on the fence to decide "I thought Trump was honest, but he's not. Maybe I'll sit out the 2020 election". You won't get that with some report that Trump supporters probably won't read, and you won't get that from the Democrats, because Trump supporters can dismiss their statements as 'partisan politics'.
Click to expand...
I agree. To put it in simpler terms, the press and the Democrats are not getting the message out.

Once again we're screwed because the Democrats don't understand marketing principles.
 
theprestige said:
I also find it hilarious that when he was persecuting Manafort for unrelated crimes, the argument was that he should follow the cases wherever they lead.

Now that it looks like he had nothing but unrelated crimes, the argument is that he turned over all the good stuff to other investigations.
Click to expand...

Not sure why it's hilarious to prosecute Manafort for unrelated crimes. That *is* what can happen when you follow the cases wherever they lead.

For instance: A embezzles money from B. In the course of investigation, it is discovered that B embezzled money from C 10 years earlier, and A doesn't even know C.
 
Segnosaur said:
If a football player makes a spectacular 99 yard run from one end of the field to the other, and drops the ball before he crosses the goal line, you will be frustrated (despite how impressive the run was). So Mueller's failure to finish things is going to be frustrating because in the end, he dropped the ball.
Click to expand...

To continue your football analogy, Mueller only failed to score the touchdown because Barr executed an illegal "horse collar "tackle on the 1 yard line.
 
theprestige said:
You need to re-read what I actually wrote.

It's a relatively (for this audience) complex idea, where several qualifying clauses work together cause me hilarity. You and Paul2 misread the first clause, stalled out there, and called it a day. You can do better.
Click to expand...

I will do better. Here's a question: why did you highlight those the arguments? Are you saying there is some conflict or hypocrisy or change of justification or something else with those two arguments? If so, what is the problem between them? If not, why did you bring it up?
 
smartcooky said:
To continue your football analogy, Mueller only failed to score the touchdown because Barr executed an illegal "horse collar "tackle on the 1 yard line.
Click to expand...

I would say it's more like that big game, with both teams competing for the last spot in the playoffs. The cheerleaders are leading cheers, the hot dog vendor is vending hotdogs like his life depends on it. The coaches both have onions tied to their belts. The star quarterback gets out onto the field. The team huddles up, then breaks. They take their positions, and the quarterback (Mueller) starts calling the plays. Only, instead of diligently uncovering the smoking gun linking Trump to Russian interference in the 2016 election, he comes up with some lackluster handwaving about obstruction. Then he gets sacked and fumbles the ball. The other team picks it up, but instead of running it in for a touchdown, they just run out of bounds instead.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top Bottom