Mueller Investigation pt5

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I do think some Democrats may be overplaying their hand with the Mueller report.

Of course it was ridiculous that Trump initially wanted to redact it, and of course there is no need for weeks of other redactions before congress can see it (the possibly nefarious part of that is the category of redactions under what I think was called "department policy" which might be anything Barr or any of the previous AGs would like to set in place).

But I suspect that most of the report is the sort of dry legalese that can be spun into whatever a non-expert on the specific legal territory (Which is 99.9999999% of people) would like to see there. Just like the publicly available evidence.

There is no set of words that can be in there that can't be spun as either exoneration or a witch hunt. Nothing it can say will move the barometer of public opinion towards truth. It would just be more fodder for spin machines. And Trump's spin machine is better than the democrats.
 
Safe-Keeper said:
Figures they'd hide it all the way at the end of the episode.
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To be fair, I imagine jaws dropped in the control room when the comment about smallpox was made, and they rushed to have Payne make some sort of disclaimer at the end of the show so as to not look like total buffoons.

I think Payne, Cavuto, Smith and Wallace still have enough integrity to care about such things. Other talking heads on Fox News, not so much.
 
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Trump Tweets

No matter what information is given to the crazed Democrats from the No Collusion Mueller Report, it will never be good enough. Behind closed doors the Dems are laughing!
 
Cavemonster said:
I do think some Democrats may be overplaying their hand with the Mueller report.

Of course it was ridiculous that Trump initially wanted to redact it, and of course there is no need for weeks of other redactions before congress can see it (the possibly nefarious part of that is the category of redactions under what I think was called "department policy" which might be anything Barr or any of the previous AGs would like to set in place).

But I suspect that most of the report is the sort of dry legalese that can be spun into whatever a non-expert on the specific legal territory (Which is 99.9999999% of people) would like to see there. Just like the publicly available evidence.

There is no set of words that can be in there that can't be spun as either exoneration or a witch hunt. Nothing it can say will move the barometer of public opinion towards truth. It would just be more fodder for spin machines. And Trump's spin machine is better than the democrats.
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This is pretty close to my own take on it. Snide comments about "impeachment of the gaps" aside, the report isn't going to really satisfy anyone. There'll be plenty to spin, and precious little that's truly conclusive. People who are expecting closure from Mueller are going to be disappointed. People who want closure will have to find it in themselves.

I think this is the main reason why Trump's spin is in better shape on this issue. Because the report isn't conclusively against him, the default is that he gets to keep operating as if innocent. We can quibble over terminology: Innocent? Not guilty? Not proven? The end result is the same. He still gets to be President. Mueller came at him for two years, and he's still there. It doesn't even really need much spin.

In a few weeks the redactions will be done, and Congress will start looking at the report. There'll be committee hearings, and TV appearances, and punditry galore. It'll drag on for another two years. But unless Barr really is covering up a conclusive demonstration of criminal acts by the president, it's basically over.

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The thing I'm most interested in seeing is if the report explains what big payoff Mueller expected to get from Manafort's plea deal.
 
Fast Eddie B said:
To be fair, I imagine jaws dropped in the control room when the comment about smallpox was made, and they rushed to have Payne make some sort of disclaimer at the end of the show so as to not look like total buffoons.

I think Payne, Cavuto, Smith and Wallace still have enough integrity to care about such things. Other talking heads on Fox News, not so much.
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Yeah, I suppose.
 
theprestige said:
I think this is the main reason why Trump's spin is in better shape on this issue.
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Yet the good news is: Trump's popularity appears to be largely unchanged, even after his claims of 'exoneration' following the report's release.

From: https://morningconsult.com/2019/03/26/trumps-popularity-unchanged-after-completion-of-mueller-probe/
The March 25-26 survey found 42 percent of voters approve of the president and 55 percent disapprove – a net approval rating 13 percentage points underwater and virtually identical to the poll conducted the week before.
Because the report isn't conclusively against him, the default is that he gets to keep operating as if innocent. We can quibble over terminology: Innocent? Not guilty? Not proven? The end result is the same. He still gets to be President. Mueller came at him for two years, and he's still there. It doesn't even really need much spin.
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Even many/most Trump critics never expected Trump to be impeached and jailed immediately because of the report, so Trump was always going to operate the same way after the report's release. (That's because impeachment would require the cooperation of Republican congressmen, who are almost as corrupt as Trump and would act to protect him, even if the first works of the report were "Trump is guilty."

The issue is not whether Trump will be impeached, its how much damage the GOP will receive in trying to protect him (with perhaps secondary interests in whether any members of his family would have been arrested.)

The thing I'm most interested in seeing is if the report explains what big payoff Mueller expected to get from Manafort's plea deal.
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And I'm most interested in any sort of explanation/justification about why the Trump tower meeting (and Trump Jr's "Love it" email) don't constitute collusion/conspiracy/etc.
 
Republicans didn't lose any voters over their boneheaded Benghazi witch-hunt.
There is no reason to assume that Democrats will lose voters over trying to make sure that the President isn't beholden to a foreign power.
 
Segnosaur said:
And I'm most interested in any sort of explanation/justification about why the Trump tower meeting (and Trump Jr's "Love it" email) don't constitute collusion/conspiracy/etc.
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I haven't been keeping track of all the ins and outs of the investigation. Do you have a good source that lays out the facts of that meeting (dates, times, cites, etc.)?
 
Segnosaur said:
And I'm most interested in any sort of explanation/justification about why the Trump tower meeting (and Trump Jr's "Love it" email) don't constitute collusion/conspiracy/etc.
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Conspiracy to do what, exactly?
 
The Great Zaganza said:
Republicans didn't lose any voters over their boneheaded Benghazi witch-hunt.
There is no reason to assume that Democrats will lose voters over trying to make sure that the President isn't beholden to a foreign power.
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I think there are a few relevant differences.

For one thing, the Benghazi thing wasn't quite as close to the centerpiece of American politics as the Mueller investigation is. People in hospices were saying they couldn't die before the Mueller report was released. The Benghazi hearing just weren't given the same weight.

And Democrats were too classy to try to make the lack of results a major talking point. Republicans and Trump, have no such hangups.

Knowing what we know about both groups and what we can expect from a report, I suspect the campaign with have heavy overtones of painting the investigation both as Democrats' raison D'etre to try to attack Trump and as a failure. Democrats didn't run on mocking the Benghazi hearings in 2016. That's one reason we can expect a difference.
 
Ziggurat said:
Conspiracy to do what, exactly?
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Not to speak for Segnosaur, but the obvious possibilities would be conspiring to accept foreign national campaign contributions (in the form of information) or conspiring to collude with hostile foreign nations to influence the election.
 
Upchurch said:
Not to speak for Segnosaur, but the obvious possibilities would be conspiring to accept foreign national campaign contributions (in the form of information)
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That doesn't survive even the most cursory of 1st amendment examinations.

or conspiring to collude with hostile foreign nations to influence the election.
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You'll have to be more specific about this. Influence how? By getting information? See above. If you mean something else, well, has anything beyond a desire to get information been demonstrated? Or is it just speculated that there was something more in play?
 
Ziggurat said:
That doesn't survive even the most cursory of 1st amendment examinations.
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Then your beef is with the FEC
https://www.fec.gov/updates/foreign-nationals/

The Act and Commission regulations include a broad prohibition on foreign national activity in connection with elections in the United States. 52 U.S.C. § 30121 and generally, 11 CFR 110.20. In general, foreign nationals are prohibited from the following activities:

  • Making any contribution or donation of money or other thing of value, or making any expenditure, independent expenditure, or disbursement in connection with any federal, state or local election in the United States;
  • Making any contribution or donation to any committee or organization of any national, state, district, or local political party (including donations to a party nonfederal account or office building account);
  • Making any disbursement for an electioneering communication;
  • Making any donation to a presidential inaugural committee.
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Cavemonster said:
Then your beef is with the FEC
https://www.fec.gov/updates/foreign-nationals/
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Does "thing of value" include speech? If so, then the FEC regulations are clearly unconstitutional on their face. If not, then my problem isn't with the FEC, but with a misinterpretation of the FEC rules.

I'm not particularly interested in figuring out which of those two possibilities is correct, the end result is basically the same either way.
 
Upchurch said:
You don't think information can have value?
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I think regardless of its value, it still gets full first amendment protections. And the first amendment doesn't allow this sort of prohibition on speech.

I'm not convinced speech counts as a "thing" for the purposes of FEC regulation, but again, I don't care to argue that point because even if it is, the regulation then fails on constitutional grounds.
 
Are laws involving intellectual property, defamation, and classified information violations of the first amendment as well?

Wouldn't the whole crime of conspiracy of any type go out the window? After all, talking to someone is speech.

It's been pretty long settled that sharing information can constitute things other than expression and be regulated on those terms.
 
Ziggurat said:
Does "thing of value" include speech? If so, then the FEC regulations are clearly unconstitutional on their face. If not, then my problem isn't with the FEC, but with a misinterpretation of the FEC rules.

I'm not particularly interested in figuring out which of those two possibilities is correct, the end result is basically the same either way.
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The real question would be whether you are interested in figuring out why neither is correct.
 
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