Mueller Reports

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has concluded his investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and delivered his results to Attorney General William Barr. The Justice Department says there are no more sealed indictments from the Office of Special Counsel. Barr will decide what to release publicly. Other investigations related to the president and his business continue.

Update (March 23):  Cenk Uygur hopes Mueller investigated money laundering by the Russians through von Clownstick properties because even if there was no explicit cooperation during the election, the threat to expose that illegal activity can be used against Fuckface to win favors for Russia now. If Mueller didn't investigate that aspect, then getting away with something doesn't mean you're innocent.

Update (March 24):  Heather Digby Parton notes that counterintelligence investigations don't necessarily lead to prosecution. Much of Dear Leader's "corrupt and unethical behavior toward Russia" is already well known.

Sadly, since all this is already on the public record, if it hasn't convinced Republicans that the president is a serious threat to the nation it's hard to imagine what would change their minds.

[I]t will be largely up to the Democrats on Capitol Hill to pursue all the open questions -- and there are many of them.

[T]he people of this country can't hold another presidential election without knowing what happened in the last one. A democracy can't function like this.

And Matt Taibbi warns that the whole "Russiagate" story has been full of sensational reporting.

Further Update (March 24):  William Barr has summarized the Mueller report in a letter to the leadership of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees. Quoting from the report:

[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the [von Clownstick] Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.

Barr indicates that Special Counsel did not draw a conclusion on the issue of obstruction of justice. Again quoting the report:

[W]hile this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.

Also, Jimmy Dore and Aaron Maté argue that the relentless promotion of an Orangeman/Russia conspiracy now turns out to be a huge gift to Dear Leader's re-election campaign.

Update (March 25):  Heather Digby Parton cites Ken White to parse Mueller's language:

When prosecutors say that an investigation "did not establish" something, that doesn’t mean that they concluded it didn’t happen, or even that they don’t believe it happened. It means that the investigation didn’t produce enough information to prove that it happened.

Parton also refers to Watergate as a precedent for letting Congress decide the obstruction of justice issue.

Barr appears to have decided that [Fuckface] couldn't have had the intent to cover up a crime he didn't commit. That's nonsense. If someone is successful at obstructing justice, it may well be impossible to prove he committed the underlying crime. That's the whole point.

Meanwhile, Glenn Greenwald claims Mueller found no evidence of collusion. Yet Cenk Uygur still maintains that Dear Leader's actual crimes weren't investigated.

And Jonathan Cook has three brutal lessons from this ordeal on how real power works:

Russiagate has been two years of wasted energy by the left, energy that could have been spent both targeting [von Clownstick] for what he is really doing rather than what it is imagined he has done, and targeting the Democratic leadership for its own, equally corrupt practices.

At the same time, they empowered [Dear Leader], breathing life into his phoney arguments that he is the anti-establishment president, a people’s president the elites are determined to destroy.

Not only was the inquiry doomed to failure – in fact, not only was it designed to fail – but it has set a precedent for future politicised investigations that will be used against the progressive left should it make any significant political gains. And an inquiry against the real left will be far more aggressive and far more "productive" than Mueller was.

Update (March 26):  Amanda Marcotte calls William Barr's letter the fake Mueller report.

[T]he tiny chance that he is offering a good-faith reading of the Mueller report is dangled over people's heads to silence them from expressing doubts.

Update (March 28):  Bob Cesca says there's still a lot we don't know about Mueller's findings. And Jim Sleeper notes that it's up to Americans themselves to preserve democratic traditions, not just one prosecutor. Meanwhile, Cody Fenwick cites Peter Baker in warning that any lack of punishment sets a troublesome precedent.

Mr. Mueller’s decision to not take a position on whether [Mr. von Clownstick's] many norm-shattering interventions in the law enforcement system constituted obstruction of justice means that future occupants of the White House will feel entitled to take similar actions.

Nevertheless, Stuart Newman argues Democrats were powerless to do anything for two years making the Special Counsel worth it.

The investigation quickly began to deliver positive results for the President’s opponents. [Dear Leader's] anger led him to fire his Attorney General, Jefferson Sessions, a staunch racist. [His] obsession with Mueller’s activities kept him tweeting and deflected his full attention from his egregious policies. The ample evidence of corruption that came to light energized Democratic voters and almost certainly contributed to their large gains in the midterm elections, in spite of what appeared to be a strong economy. 

Update (March 29):  Polls show partisan disagreement over the contents of the Mueller report. William Barr says it is now on track to be released (with redactions) by mid-April.

Update (March 31):  Katie Halper interviews Matt Taibbi and Aaron Maté.

Surely, [Fuckface] has done awful things, coverage of which could get out the vote and galvanize opposition. But the Russiagate obsession perpetuated [his] narrative about being picked-on by a media that peddles fake news and a political elite that represents the status quo. [Dear Leader] was able to come off, once again, as the outsider who takes on the establishment, which in turn persecutes him. And now that the Mueller report has said he didn’t collude with Russia, he’s celebrating.

Paul Street agrees.

[I]t’s worse than just diversion. By putting all their eggs into the legally and political non-viable Russia collusion basket, the dismal Dems not only diverted public discussion and attention from the issues that matter most. They also created a deadly exoneration moment for a creeping fascist president they can’t or won’t oppose on authentically democratic and popular grounds.

And Andrew O'Hehir thinks we don't really know anything.

[We're] still in the dark, I’m afraid: Consumed by questions and confronting a report we haven’t read that probably won’t answer them. Did Rachel Maddow and her ilk go way too far in ginning up a seductive conspiracy theory that played into the hopeful, narcissistic yearnings of too many liberals? Yes. Have the skeptics declared premature vindication and issued an overly sweeping indictment of the media, when we still don’t know enough about [von Clownstick's] evident corruption and his numerous connections to sleazy characters around the world, Russian and otherwise? Yes. Are we any closer to a clear idea of how to defeat [him] and what he represents, and how to begin reclaiming democracy? I almost don’t want to answer that. I don’t know.

Update (April 1):  Heather Digby Parton notices that approval ratings for Fuckface haven't moved much despite endless harping about "total exoneration". In fact, there's overwhelming support for releasing the full report.

I would guess that this was not what Barr and the White House expected or intended. Certainly they would have at least expected [Dear Leader's] loyal 42 percent to say they were willing to take Barr's word for it.

But those people didn't, and the only way to dissuade them from wanting it would be to discredit Mueller's findings. [Von Clownstick] and company can't do that since they're now relying on his report to clear the president. It's a bind they didn't anticipate when they launched the "Florida recount" strategy. Now they're stuck waiting once again for the report, and they still don't really know whether they've put this scandal behind them.

Update (April 3):  Doug Noble and Laura Flanders find plenty of collusion--if we just know where to look

Undermining elections? Obstructing justice? There’s no shortage of evidence that the [A]dministration colludes with enemies of democracy of every sort. Sad to say, he’s not the first. But he could be the first to distract so many people, so long, so effectively, with a collusion chase that misses the obvious.

Update (April 4):  The New York Times reports that some investigators who worked within the Office of Special Counsel are complaining that the Attorney General "failed to adequately portray the findings of their inquiry".

Update (April 18):  A redacted version of the Mueller report has been released by the Justice Department. It seems Fuckface really wanted to obstruct justice, but his staff got in the way.

The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the President’s corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law.

I guess Dear Leader's reaction to Mueller's appointment didn't make his intent clear.

Oh my God, This is terrible. This is the end of my presidency. I’m fucked.

But he's not going anywhere even as the Attorney General's spin is debunked. And yet there may be as many as eleven "mystery" criminal investigations handed off from Mueller's work. It's not clear if any of those might involve something like money laundering or other financial crimes. Cenk Uygur maintains that's the only reason Fuckface would be so afraid of Mueller's investigation.

Update (April 19):  Heather Digby Parton says the next move is up to Congress.

Mueller and his team didn't write all that material out just so that [Dear Leader] could claim full exoneration and carry on as if nothing happened. He wrote it with the understanding that while he could not indict [Fuckface], Congress could and would fulfill its constitutional duties.

This dry recitation of the facts in Mueller's report , as dramatic as they are, was never meant to be the last word. It is an impeachment referral, and Democrats must take it up and do what the Constitution requires. If it fails, so be it. But at least the people will know that some leaders are willing to stand up in public and do the right thing.

Update (April 21):  Cody Fenwick points to statements in the report that suggest obstruction could have actually been successful.

[W]hile Mueller didn’t demonstrate that a conspiracy occurred, he leaves open the possibility that it did. And a cover-up may be the reason he didn’t find it.

Fenwick also argues that impeachment proceedings are necessary.

[D]espite my lack of enthusiasm for impeachment, I’m more worried about what failing to impeach [von Clownstick] means. It would likely be seen as a stamp of approval on [his] conduct and behavior. Any future president, guilty of similar offenses, will be able to point to the record of what [Fuckface] has done as an established precedent. They may even push the bounds a little further, eroding the checks on the presidency.

And, Nancy LeTourneau notes two facts from the report that Dear Leader hasn't acknowledged.

(1) Russia attempted to interfere in the 2016 election, and (2) they did so in support of [Fuckface von Clownstick].

Update (April 22):  Jared Yates Sexton gives a nice summary:

[T]he report is a damning incrimination of a president willing to sell out his country, turn his back on duty and loyalty, and win at all costs, even if that meant cooperating with a foreign power in undermining free and fair elections. What’s more, it tells the tale of a man so unfit for office that those around him are constantly betraying his orders in an attempt to avoid their own prosecution.

Heather Digby Parton says Democrats need to show some resolve.

We have reached a turning point in this ongoing crisis. If someone as obvious and inept as [Fuckface] can get away with all this, imagine what a competent authoritarian demagogue could do. Allowing [Orangeman] to just ride out his term and perhaps even win another one -- which is entirely conceivable, I'm sorry to say -- could be catastrophic. If Democrats refuse to take the risk of changing this dynamic once and for all, someone much smarter and stronger than [Dear Leader] is going to come along, very soon, and take advantage of the destruction of our political culture to fundamentally change our democracy in ways we will not be able to fix. At some point there will be no way to "right the ship" anymore. It will be sunk.

If Democrats don't take a stand this time, it's very likely they won't get another chance.

Absolutely correct. Bring him to trial and make those Republican Senators vote "no" on the record. Brendan Skwire quotes Eli Stokols:

As these things come out and there's more that gets laid out there in the Mueller report and from these investigations that Democrats are going to pursue, Republicans are going to have to stand by and either fight these investigations as the president wants them to do, or they are going to have to sit there and look the other way and put their heads in the sand.

That's not great for any of them on the ballot in 2020.

Update (April 23):  As usual, Tom Tomorrow encapsulates the whole mess.

Update (April 24):  Among many reasons for impeachment, Amanda Marcotte argues that Fuckface continues to take no action on Russian election interference and seeks to obstruct other investigations.

I used to be skeptical of impeachment, fearful that it could backfire if and when the Republican-controlled Senate failed to convict [him]. But with the Mueller report out and [Dear Leader] responding only by escalating the criminally suspicious behavior he engages in, there's good reason to think that starting impeachment trials will not only be the right thing to do, but will benefit the Democrats.

Kenneth McCallion agrees action is urgent.

Democrats may think that it is politically advantageous to spend the next two years merely investigating [Fuckface] and hoping the American electorate ousts him from office in 2020. But the crisis in the presidency is real and immediate and requires immediate action. Those in Congress who preach political caution and expediency will be judged harshly by history if their hesitation and political expediency leads America into a genuine national or international crisis over the next two years with a virtual madman at the helm.

But still, Aaron Maté, in conversation with Chris Hedges, refers to "Russiagate" as a conspiracy theory in which Democrats and the media largely ignore the actual harm this administration is causing to focus almost exclusively on fictitious harm.

Was the interference significant? It's hard to say. Was it worth investigating? I think so, but perhaps it didn't need to be as big a story as it was made out to be. I still think there are reasons to pursue impeachment, but it won't solve our political problems. Lawrence Davidson:

It would seem that we are in a decisive struggle that will determine the shape of our future. Will it be reactionary or progressive in nature? Organized conservatism has evolved into a reactionary force throughout much of the West, and the hard-fought-for, progressive aspects of our world are in serious danger.

I'm not looking forward to next year's campaign. Meanwhile the climate clock is ticking.

Noam Chomsky:

The Democrats invested everything in this issue. Well, turned out there was nothing much there. They gave [von Clownstick] a huge gift. In fact, they may have handed him the next election. That’s a matter of being so unwilling to deal with fundamental issues, that they’re looking for something on the side that will somehow give political success. The real issues are different things. They’re things like climate change, like the Nuclear Posture Review, deregulation. These are real issues. But the Democrats aren’t going after those. They’re looking for something else—the Democratic establishment. I’m not talking about the young cohort that’s coming in, which is quite different. Just all of that has to be shifted significantly, if there’s going to be a legitimate political opposition to the right-wing drift that’s taking place. And it can happen, can definitely happen, but it’s going to take work.

Update (April 25):  Ted Rall says failure to impeach would be a tactical error likely to lead to a loss in 2020.

Democrats have painted themselves into a corner. They pimped the Mueller Report and Russian collusion as the road to [Orangeman] B Gon only to have that narrative evaporate in light of the facts. ... Asking the voters to do next year what they’re not willing to do themselves this year—get rid of [Fuckface]—is an invitation for nothing but the brutal contempt of mass indifference.

Update (April 30):  Heather Digby Parton quotes Representative Ted Lieu on how Fuckface is forcing Democrats to enforce their constitutional mandate.

If we can’t fact-gather, we’re going to have to use the other tools at our disposal and make sure our oversight responsibilities are respected. If it turns out we can’t investigate because the White House is not complying with anything that Congress requests, then I think the caucus would support an article of impeachment on obstructing Congress.

Update (May 1):  Leaked letters from Robert Mueller to William Barr indicate that Mueller was not happy with how Barr released information about the report. The letters are also evidence that Barr mislead or even lied to Congress.

Update (May 6):  At least 560 former prosecutors signed a statement.

Each of us believes that the conduct of [Fuckface von Clownstick] described in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report would, in the case of any other person not covered by the Office of Legal Counsel policy against indicting a sitting President, result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice.

Update (May 15):  Cody Fenwick thinks Democrats have blown the chance to use the findings of the Mueller report to hold Fuckface accountable.

[W]hile the Democrats have suggested that the report requires more investigation, [Dear Leader] and his defenders have argued that Mueller has vindicated the president. And if even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, [Manbaby's] most formidable foe, still thinks the merits of impeachment are debatable, why should Republicans have any reason to doubt the president’s claims of exoneration? After a full special counsel investigation, another investigation does seem tedious and redundant. Insisting on it really does send the message that Democrats are sore losers, rather than conveying the truth that the Mueller report painted a devastating portrait of the president, even worse than many knew, and one that should be entirely unacceptable to any decent American.

Update (May 16):  Martin Longman gives the Speaker some credit.

It could be that Pelosi is being too patient. But she is going to make sure that if she has to give the go-ahead for an impeachment inquiry that as many people as possible perceive the decision as made with extreme reluctance rather than eager partisanship. The biggest mistake she can make here is to fall prey to a form of reverse psychology. If she believes she cannot impeach because that’s exactly what [Fuckface] wants her to do, then she really will have fallen in a trap.

Update (May 17):  Cody Fenwick has six reasons to impeach the motherfucker:

1. Impeachment makes clear that [his] behavior is unacceptable.
2. Impeachment would provide a high-profile venue for airing [his] dirty laundry.
3. It would give Congress more leverage in fights with the administration.
4. Republicans would be forced to align with [his] misdeeds.
5. Democrats could show that they’re willing to fight.
6. It would lay the groundwork to remove [him] should the opportunity arise.

And Heather Digby Parton reiterates that Democrats were elected to stop him from causing further damage.

Even if Democrats never actually vote on articles of impeachment, holding the hearings, using the power of their congressional mandate and showing the president that they will turn over all those rocks whether he likes it or not is the only way to keep him from doing his worst. Bullies only back off when someone stands up to them.

Update (May 19):  Representative Justin Amash is the first Republican member of Congress to call for impeachment. But he has never been a Fuckface supporter. He reached these conclusions after reading the Mueller report.

1. Attorney General Barr has deliberately misrepresented Mueller’s report.
2. [Von Clownstick] has engaged in impeachable conduct.
3. Partisanship has eroded our system of checks and balances.
4. Few members of Congress have read the report.

Update (May 29):  Robert Mueller announced his resignation from the Department of Justice. He prefers to let his report speak for itself. But he did briefly discuss the conclusions. "Insufficient evidence" for conspiracy with Russia. But regarding obstruction of justice:

If we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said that.

Update (May 30):  Andrew O'Hehir reflects on the consternation over what Mueller really meant yesterday (" 'the Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing.' That’s so interesting! I wonder whether that process has a name?"). And O'Hehir picks up on a small detail.

Michael Tomasky’s Times op-ed waxed borderline poetic on the "clash of Robert Mueller’s two Americas," one of them the land of elite prep schools and military service and old-line bipartisan collegiality that Mueller "has served with rectitude and dignity." Tomasky doesn’t even say what the other America is, and I guess he doesn’t have to: It’s being made great again!

A friend who has a long track record in Democratic politics and once worked for Bill Clinton put it more directly: Consensus-building moderates who put their trust in the existing system, he said, "have no strategy for dealing with fascism." As for me, I can see Mueller’s two Americas right there in the text of his remarks, in his literal grammar.

[What] Mueller actually said, "If we had had confidence" — an entirely correct and appropriate usage of the past perfect, an English tense hardly anyone uses in conversation and most people apparently cannot even hear.

But Amanda Marcotte says there's no misinterpretation.

[W]hile many in the mainstream press are reacting to Mueller's not-really-mysterious statement with a collective "shrug" emoji, [Fuckface] and his allies at Fox News do not seem remotely confused about how to interpret Mueller's comments. While they continue to push the Orwellian "no obstruction/no collusion" line, their more authentic — and angry — reactions make it clear that they most certainly grasp that Mueller was suggesting that [von Clownstick] is guilty of obstructing justice and was inviting Congress to do something about it.

Update (May 31):  Marcotte considers whether "loss aversion" explains Democrats' fear of impeachment--the focus on what may go wrong rather than possible gains.

Ultimately, the best argument for impeachment is this: Since no one knows how it's going to shake out, it's a waste of time and energy trying to game that out. Political calculation is useless, so Democrats might as well do the right thing. The right thing, when a president is as corrupt and shameless as [Fuckface], is to start an impeachment inquiry. What's the point of winning power, in the end, if you refuse to use it to take a stand?

Update (June 8):  Paul Rosenberg argues against Speaker Pelosi's reluctance to start impeachment proceedings. Meanwhile, audio recordings have been released of obstruction evidence presented in the Mueller report.

John Dowd’s call to Flynn’s attorney Robert Kelner [demanded a "heads up" about what Michael Flynn was telling Robert Mueller investigators that might "implicate" the president and] also appeared to hint at a pardon for the former national security adviser if he stopped cooperating with the special counsel's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 campaign.

Update (July 3):  Paul Street considers the significance of "RussiaGate".

Update (July 14):  Matt Fuller and Arthur Delaney present evidence that Democrats really have no interest in impeachment and so really don't care about the election.

[T]here’s a distinction between educating the public, which impeachment hearings would help do anyway, and just emptily calling for more investigations as a way of running out the clock on the [von Clownstick] presidency.

Update (July 24):  Robert Mueller testified before the House Judiciary Committee and the House Intelligence Committee. Amanda Marcotte boils it down.

There were only two real takeaways from Wednesday morning's hearing. One of them is that [Fuckface's] actions would be enough to charge him with multiple felonies for obstruction of justice if he were not president. Second is that there's only one way to make sure the public understands this: Congress must hold public hearings grilling the very same witnesses that Mueller and his team interviewed during their investigation.

Marcotte says the key concern was over the election interference.

The Mueller report makes it clear that [Dear Leader] knew about the Russia conspiracy, and issued public instructions to guide that conspiracy's efforts; that Manafort shared private information with a Kremlin-linked consultant who he hoped would help get him out of debt; that [von Clownstick] and his associates clearly intended to profit from their Russian connections; and that the ... campaign made multiple efforts to work with the Russian conspiracy to steal emails from Democrats and release them to the public.

Asked about this sort of "collusion" in future campaigns, Mueller replied:

I hope this is not the new normal, but I fear it is.

But in an interview with Chauncey DeVega, Seymour Hersh thinks it's time to move on.

Basically, the bottom line is that you can yell at Barr all you want. Mueller did not indict. So there you are. And if I was a Democrat, you can run with that all week but you're not going to get anywhere. The bottom line is they had the investigation. [Manbaby] may have wanted to fire everybody but they had the investigation. If I were the press, I would start writing about what the Democrats need to do. And if I were the Democrats, I'd start talking about what they are going to do to make America a better place for most people.

Sure, but is it really impossible to both impeach and conduct a campaign? Pelosi certainly hasn't changed her opposition to impeachment. Democrats think they have it in the bag, because of polls showing 53 percent of Americans vowing to vote against the asshole. In 2016, 53 percent of 135 million voters did vote against the asshole.

Update (July 25):  So into the abyss we go. Amanda Marcotte:

[B]oth the Washington Post and the New York Times ran articles declaring that Mueller's inability to play to the cameras means that any hope of impeachment is probably dead.

But William Rivers Pitt says Democrats took their best shot.

If you found the hearings boring, it’s probably because you didn’t read the report like most of Congress and the country. Wednesday had to happen because, even in times of deep political and even existential crisis, vile television beats the meticulously compiled written word every day and twice on Sunday.

But maybe, just maybe, Don McGahn's testimony (after a court battle) will really get Democrats to do something.

Marcotte fumes on the media obsession with "optics" over substance.

If they were reporting on the news, the takes and the headlines would read much differently. They would say things such as, "Mueller testimony reveals extent of criminality in [Manbaby's] orbit" and "Mueller affirms that [Fuckface] could be arrested for felony crimes after leaving office." Other exciting headlines, based on what was actually said, could read, "Republicans use misinformation and conspiracy theories to try to discredit Mueller" and "[Von Clownstick's] greed, immorality led him to betray country, hearing reveals."

It turns out that democracy dies in the glow of the TV set, drowned out by the childish whining of supposedly reputable journalists declaring that they need a little more razzle-dazzle before they can be bothered to care about the fate of the nation.

Update (July 26):  House Democrats are filing a lawsuit to obtain underlying grand jury evidence from the special counsel's investigation. It's on the Friday afternoon immediately before a six-week-long recess, but it might be a compromise within the party on how proceed--and they really did need to act soon or the opportunity is lost. Joan McCarter:

Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler said that, yes, "in effect" the suit and the ongoing investigation constitute an impeachment inquiry, but not a formal one.

Update (September 13):  David Swanson wants impeachment for the right reasons -- most of which have nothing to do with Russia.

Update (November 3):  BuzzFeed obtained 500 pages of summaries of FBI interviews related to the Mueller investigation through the Freedom of Information Act.

Update (June 20, 2020):  Unredacted portions of the Mueller report suggest that Fuckface lied about his knowledge of Roger Stone's connection to WikiLeaks. Lying to investigators is a criminal offence. I'm shocked. David Atkins:

[W]e only know about [this] now because of a Buzzfeed Freedom of Information Act request that forced the removal of the Attorney General Barr’s redactions of large section of the Mueller Report. It is quite clear that there was no actual national security pretext for these redactions, and that by implementing them Barr was engaged in a political coverup for [the president]. This, in addition to Barr’s previous mischaracterizations of the Mueller Report in his personal summaries as totally exonerating the president when it did nothing of the sort, amounts to obstruction of justice on the part of the Attorney General, hiding from Congress crucial information it would need in order to determine if impeachment proceedings were necessary. Now it appears that both [Dear Leader] and Barr has committed impeachable offenses on this matter.

This revelation alone would have brought any other presidential administration to its knees. But it wasn’t even the biggest story of the night.

Update (August 20, 2020):  That other story had to do with William Barr pushing the U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York out his job, yet another impeachable offense. Cody Fenwick suggests Barr had a corrupt reason to do so--to slow the investigation that produced an indictment against Steve Bannon and others.

[I]t’s quite clear why Barr, an unabashed partisan, would want to slow it down. Indicting yet another of the president’s allies — and his second campaign manager — surely reflects badly on [Fuckface]. It’s especially bad because the allegations involve fleecing [Dear Leader's] supporters for venal reasons, which may hit close to home for those feeling let down by his presidency heading into the November election.

Update (September 21, 2020):  Cody Fenwick discusses Andrew Weissmann's book, "Where Law Ends: Inside the Mueller Investigation".

Though he apparently still reveres Mueller and appears to avoid criticizing him directly, Weissmann derides many of the decisions the investigation made that caused it to pull its punches, including refusing to determine whether the president was guilty of a crime.

Update (August 25, 2022):  The memo William Barr used to justify not charging Fuckface with obstruction of justice has been released. Noah Bookbinder explains why Barr wanted to keep the memo secret and why the reasoning is so dangerous.

The memo points to [Dear Leader's] belief that the investigation was motivated to hurt him politically as somehow excusing his actions. It supports the chilling conclusion that any president can interfere with any investigation if they believe it could damage them politically.

Update (February 5, 2023):  The "investigation of the investigators" turns out to be a massive bust.

[The New York Times report] reveals that there was little justification for [William] Barr to install [John] Durham as a special counsel to investigate what [Fuckface] wrongly maintained was an unjustifiable investigation into his ties to Russia.

Heather Digby Parton calls it a "monstrous abuse of power" on Barr's part. And there's more.

[N]ow we learn that they had been told by Italian authorities about some very credible information that [Dear Leader] had committed serious financial crimes. Barr and Durham realized that it wasn't something they could completely ignore (as much as they probably wanted to) so Barr assigned that case to Durham instead of another prosecutor and opened a criminal investigation.

Durham quietly closed that "investigation" without much fuss.

This is stunningly unethical behavior by an Attorney General.

Update (May 19, 2023):  Parton reacts to the final report.

All Durham concluded was that the FBI should not have opened a full investigation but rather a preliminary investigation based on what it knew at the time. He says that when they got a tip from an Australian diplomat who had a conversation with a [Republican] campaign official saying the Russians were working to get [Fuckface] elected in the days right after the hacking of the Democratic National Committee computers, they used the wrong process to start their investigation. That's it. The rest is all smoke and mirrors.

Update (June 22, 2023):  Did John Durham lie to Congress?