In this weekly update to the still ongoing Trump Russia Corruption Timeline the bottom line from the Mueller’s 400 page report strongly indicates that Trump clearly attempted to obstruct the Russia investigation in order to cover up his many, many attempts to collude and coordinate with the Russian effort to influence the election. The fact that many of his obstruction attempts were thwarted by his own staffers who refused to follow his instructions and then lie about it, doesn’t change the fact that he and many of his campaign staff repeatedly communicated with Russian operatives and assets (Mifsud, DCLeaks, Guccifer 2.0, WikiLeaks) in a series of efforts to get their hands on Hillary’s deleted emails, received advance information about the “dirt” on Hillary, failed to notify the FBI about it, continued to access emails stolen from the DNC and DCCC as well as succeeded in getting advance information about Podesta’s stolen emails and then used that particular release to help them campaign when they needed a distraction from the Access Hollywood Tape.
At no point did any of Trump’s people admit that Russia was the source of this information, nor did any of them alert the FBI about it, or try to discourage Russia or WikiLeaks efforts. Instead they said “Russia, if you’re listening — could you find the missing 30,000 emails?” and also “I love WikiLeaks.”
Mueller specifically says that Trump tried to block the investigation because Russia’s goals and interests perfectly coincided with his own. They didn’t have to have a formal agreement between them — although they tried to create one several times — they didn’t have to be part of a express single conspiracy for this to happen, but that’s exactly what happened.
John Oliver did a brilliant job of making this point:
Mueller arranged his report into Volumes 1 & 2 which address the issue of the conspiracy and obstruction separately, but they in fact are part and parcel of the exact same thing. One happened (obstruction) as a direct result of Trump’s attempt to take advantage of Russia’s conspiracy to help his campaign. One prime example was when he told Hope Hicks to cover-up Don Jr’s emails about his meeting with Veselnitskaya which he was told about before he departed to Europe for the G20.
Mueller Report Vol II Page 100.
On June 28, 2017, Hicks viewed the emails at Kushner's attorney's office.680 She recalled being shocked by the emails because they looked "really bad."681 The next day, Hicks spoke privately with the President to mention her concern about the emai ls, which she understood were soon going to be shared with Congress.682 The President seemed upset because too many people knew about the emails and he told Hicks that just one lawyer should deal with the matter.683 The President indicated that he did not think the emails would leak, but said they would leak if everyone had access to them.
Later that day, Hicks, Kushner, and Ivanka Trump went together to talk to the President.685 Hicks recalled that Kushner told the President the June 9 meeting was not a big deal and was about Russian adoption, but that emails existed setting up the meeting.686 Hicks said she wanted to get in front of the story and have Trump Jr. release the emails as part of an interview with "softball questions."687 The President said he did not want to know about it and they should not go to the press.688 Hicks warned the President that the emails were "really bad" and the story would be"massive" when it broke, but the President was insistent that he did not want to talk about it and said he did not want details.689 Hicks recalled that the President asked Kushner when his document production was due. 690 “Kushner responded that it would be a couple of weeks and the President said, "then leave it alone."691 Hicks also recalled that the President said Kushner's attorney should give the emails to whomever he needed to give them to, but the President did not think they would be leaked to the press.692 Raffel later heard from Hicks that the President had directed the group not to be proactive in disclosing the emails because the President believed they would not leak.
However, on Election night Hicks had stated that there were no such contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia during the election. Mueller report Page #21.
On November 8, 2016, Trump was elected President. Two days later, Russian officials told the press that the Russian government had maintained contacts with Trump's "immediate entourage" during the campaign.54 In response, Hope Hicks, who had been the Trump Campaign spokesperson, said, "We are not aware of any campaign representatives that were in touch with any foreign entities before yesterday, when Mr. Trump spoke with many world leaders." 55 Hicks gave an additional statement denying any contacts between the Campaign and Russia: "It never happened. There was no communication between the campaign and any foreign entity during the campaign.”
This was clearly a lie as Hicks had been forwarded an email from Don Jr. by Kushner about his being contacted by WikiLeaks — who are not exactly Americans — and also George Papadopoulos and Carter Page had been specifically authorized to talk with Russians by Trump and Corey Lowendowski, Sessions and Manafort. Michael Cohen and Felix Sater were in contact with Russians (Peskov), Paul Manafort and Rick Gates were in contacts with Russians (KIlimnick), Don Jr. and Kushner were in contact with Russians (Veselnitskaya, Gorkov, Torshin) and Michael Flynn was in contact with Russians (RT, Kislyak).
Most of these people ultimately lied about those contacts in order to keep Hicks false statement, and many similar lies by Trump appear to be true. His lies — were the impetus for their lies.
As Alternet writes these lies, the firing of Comey, the attempting firings of Mueller using Don McGahn and also Corey Lewandowski were all part of conspiracy by the campaign and Trump to hide their many attempts to take advantages of Russia’s crimes. Those attempts may have mostly failed, but the point is the attempt not whether they succeeded or not.
Attempting to obstruct justice, such as giving orders to quash the special counsel probe as Trump did, is just as much a crime as actually obstructing justice. Your aids refusing to carry out your corrupt orders doesn’t make you less corrupt.
Perhaps even more importantly, though, we have no idea how successful Trump was at obstructing justice.
Consider an extremely important caveat in the summary of the first volume of the report, which focuses on the Russian election interference, the Trump campaign’s links to Russia, and potential conspiracy. Mueller could not establish that a conspiracy occurred; however, he noted that
Even when individuals testified or agreed to be interviewed, they sometimes provided information that was false or incomplete, leading to some of the false-statements charges described above.…some of the individuals we interviewed or whose conduct we investigated—including some associated with the Trump Campaign—deleted relevant communications or communicated during the relevant period using applications that feature encryption or that do not provide for long-term retention of data or communications records.
And he explained that
while this report embodies factual and legal determinations that the Office believes to be accurate and complete to the greatest extent possible, given these identified gaps, the Office cannot rule out the possibility that the unavailable information would shed additional light on (or cast in a new light) the events described in the report.
In other words, while Mueller didn’t demonstrate that a conspiracy occurred, he leaves open the possibility that it did. And [the] cover-up may be the reason he didn’t find it.
So Mueller specifically suggests that the obstruction not just by Trump but by many of his aides who lied and had destroyed information and evidence — may. have. worked.
For example, they didn’t find any emails between Papadopoulos and the campaign in which he shared with them that he had been told about the “Dirt” on Hillary which the Russians held nearly two months before the DNC hack and the WikiLeaks copies of the emails were released. Papadopoulos certainly had this prior knowledge, but it doesn’t really make any sense that he never told this to anyone in the campaign. And it makes no sense since he was willing to tell it to a Australian ambassador he’d never met before [and he also told the Greek Foreign Minister], then that Ambassador immediately went to the FBI, which is how the investigation started.
Despite this there was a claim by one member of the Trump campaign John Mashburn that he did recall seeing an email from Papadopoulos about the Hillary “dirt” — but no copy of that email has been found to verify that claim.
WASHINGTON — The White House official had a startling assertion: He thought he had received an email in the first half of 2016 alerting the Trump campaign that Russia had damaging information about Hillary Clinton.
Testifying behind closed doors on Capitol Hill in late March, the official, John K. Mashburn, said he remembered the email coming from George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy adviser to the campaign who was approached by a Russian agent, sometime before the party conventions — and well before WikiLeaks began publishing messages stolen in hackings from Democrats.
Such an email could have proved explosive, providing evidence that at least one high-ranking Trump campaign official was alerted to Russia’s meddling, raising questions about which advisers knew and undercutting President Trump’s denials of collusion.
Could that email have been deleted using an encrypted program or app? There’s frankly no way to know, but to date Mashburn has not recanted this statement. Could everyone else have been lying about it all this time? Frankly, yes.
The point of fact is that most of the Trumpsters may have failed to collude directly with Russia — Don Jr. didn’t get any dirt from Veselnitska, Michael Cohen didn’t complete the Moscow Tower deal, Papadopoulos didn’t find out more about the emails after Sessions asked him too — but as I’ve written before Roger Stone DIDN’T FAIL. He successfully communicated with DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 — both of whom were part of Russian Intelligence — he directly received some of the hack documents from the DCCC and gave Guccifer his review and opinion on them, and also through intermediaries established a two way link with WikiLeaks where he received early information about the Podesta emails and also also told them precisely when they should start releasing that information, which was ultimately just an hour after the Access Hollywood story was published, about which he had been apparently warned by someone inside Trump’s campaign.
The fact that Stone at the point wasn’t technically a member of his campaign is the only thing supports the argument that Trump “campaign” didn’t collude — the rest tried and failed, but Roger Stone definitely succeeded.
Also there has been the claim that the Russia “didn’t impact the votes” but frankly the releases from Wikileaks absolutely did have an impact on the election.
Philip Bump of the Washington Post, the Mueller report actually reveals the opposite. “It may be — and appears to be — true that Russia didn’t manipulate actual voting results,” says Bump, “but Russia’s efforts absolutely affected the vote, as they were intended to — and as Trump and his campaign hoped they would.”
“Mueller’s indictments against a number of alleged Russian intelligence agents details how they accessed the Democratic National Committee network and Podesta’s email account (among other targets) and transferred the data to WikiLeaks,” said Bump. “There, the stolen material became a central component of the election coverage for much of the last month,” and even though the hacked Democratic emails didn’t really show anything damning or incriminating about Clinton or her associates, they were treated as a huge story, drowning out coverage of Trump’s “Access Hollywood” tape bragging about assaulting women.
Based on the Mueller report, writes Bump, “The campaign knew that WikiLeaks was releasing material damaging to Clinton, prompting Trump to praise the organization frequently that October,” they believed it would help their campaign.” And public polling at the time showed 37 percent of voters would be less likely to vote for Clinton due to WikiLeaks.
The claim that Russian involvement didn’t affect the race “is particularly indefensible coming from Trump, who celebrated WikiLeaks publicly precisely because he knew it would help his candidacy. He knew it and Mueller knew it,” Bump concludes. “It was, after all, one of the key reasons that Russia was interfering in the election in the first place.”
NBC news notes just how heavily the Trump campaign leaned on help from WikiLeaks in the final days of the campaign.
Less attention, however, has been paid to how Trump and his team seized on that Russian meddling, which the U.S. intelligence community says included the hacking of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta’s emails — and their release via WikiLeaks.
How did Hillary Clinton blow a 7-percentage-point lead over Donald Trump in the final month of the campaign? Much of the post-election analysis has revolved around FBI Director James Comey’s letter to Congress on Oct. 28. Less attention was spent on the role that WikiLeaks played. Until, that is, news broke that the CIA thought Russia actively tried to help Trump win; figures connected to the Russian government allegedly hacked Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s emails, which then found their way to WikiLeaks. So what effect did WikiLeaks have on the election?
The revelations from Podesta's emails — including excerpts of Clinton’s paid speech to Goldman Sachs, advisers’ candid criticisms of their candidate and a memo on "Bill Clinton Inc." — all fueled negative headlines. And Trump pounced:
- Oct. 31 in Warren, Mich.: "Did you see where, on WikiLeaks, it was announced that they were paying protesters to be violent, $1,500?... Did you see another one, another one came in today? This WikiLeaks is like a treasure trove"
- Nov. 2 in Orlando, Fla.: "WikiLeaks just came out with a new one, just a little a while ago, it's just been shown that a rigged system with more collusion, possibly illegal, between the Department of Justice, the Clinton campaign and the State Department"
- Nov. 4 in Wilmington, Ohio: "Boy, I love reading those WikiLeaks"
NBC News counted 145 mentions of WikiLeaks by Trump in the last month of the race.
Beyond the headlines and attacks from the stump that they produced, the WikiLeaks revelations hurt Clinton because voters couldn’t tell the difference between them and the longstanding controversy surrounding Clinton’s own emails, according to top campaign officials.
Be that as it may, Mueller’s investigation has been far from a “Nothing Burger.”
All told the Mueller and parallel investigations resulted in a total indictment count of: 9 Guilty Pleas (Cohen, Flynn, Gates, Papadopoulos, Van Der Zwaan, Pinedo Jr, Fieldman and Russian hackers Baratov and Dokuchaev) out of 50 indictments between the U.S. (47) and Russia (3) which include a total of 7 Americans, 1 British Citizen (Van Der Zwaan who’s father in Law is Russian Oligarch German Khan), 1 Canadian Citizen (Baratov who was born in Russia), 38 Russians and 3 Russian companies.
They weren’t able to gather the evidence they needed to prove a conspiracy by Trump and Co. — but they definitely have evidence of obstruction [which may be why they couldn’t prove the conspiracy] that Congress now has to address via Impeachment or other means.
Here are the detailed daily events for this week:
April 17th —
April 18th —
-
WaPo reports that Mueller punted on the obstruction question because of the ambiguity of Trump’s intent.
-
Pelosi and Schumer call on Mueller to testify.
-
Adam Schiff and House leadership call on Barr to cancel his “inappropriate” press conference. [and instead answer questions after the report is released.]
-
DOJ announces that Barr will address the contacts with the WH over the report and executive privilege during his press conference.
-
Happy Mueller Day from Trump: “Greatest Political Hoax of all Time.”
-
North Korea wants Pompeo out of the Nuclear Talks because he says “Nonsense.”
-
Barr begins his presser at 9:30 am. and repeats Trump's “No Collusion” line word-for-word, says that Mueller investigated 10 instances of potential obstruction but those were “understandable” because of Trump’s “frustration” over probe [Sure, try “I’m frustrated" then next time you try and stop a cop from giving you a ticket.] and says “he was told” that Mueller made it his choice to decide on obstruction. He claims the WH “fully cooperated” because they didn’t exert executive privilege — although Trump wouldn't let himself be interviewed — he doesn't answer a question from Fox News about the “genesis” of the investigation but then he suggests that there needs to be an investigation of the investigation even though there already is an inspector general probe of that. He also confirms that Trump's lawyers saw a copy of the report first. Rod Rosenstein is there standing behind Barr stonefaced, but Mueller and his deputies are not present to comment or answer questions themselves.
-
Barr gets upset and walks out of his own press conference when CBS News Paula Reid challenges his summary/letter and the redactions: “A Republican appointed judge on Tuesday said you have ‘created an environment that has caused a significant part of the American public to be concerned about these redactions,'” Reid began. “You cleared the president on obstruction. The president is fund-raising off your comments about spying, and here you have remarks that are quite generous to the president, including acknowledging his feelings and his emotions.”
-
Scarborough slams Barr as a “political hack… Sleaziest AG since John Mitchell.”
-
Jeff Toobin is not impressed and calls it ‘A political commercial for the president’.
-
Chris Wallace is taken aback by how much Barr defended Trump during the presser and says Barr was acting more as Trump’s defense lawyer than the attorney general.
-
Andrea Mitchell explodes over Barr’s ‘extraordinary and objectionable’ shilling for Trump.
-
The redacted 400 page Meuller Report is released. About 12% is actually redacted and most of that relates to other ongoing cases being handled by other offices inside DOJ.
-
The report confirms that Russia’s GRU hacked the DNC, DCCC, John Podesta and several state election systems, shared the hacked emails and documents they obtained with Wikileaks, setup a social media bots and trolls to influence U.S. voters against Clinton and toward Trump.
-
Trump had tried to echo the efforts of the Russians by asking Michael Flynn to try and get copies of Clinton’s deleted emails. He did so by reaching out to Barbara Ledeen who searched for copies on the dark web under the presumption that Clinton had been hacked just like the DNC [GRU didn't start their hacking operations until after her emails had been deleted months previously] and Robert W. Smith who hired a set of hackers to try and find them. Both came up empty although Ledeen did find some emails which turned out to be fakes.
-
Mueller did not note “collusion” [because that’s not a criminal standard.], but he did note a voluminous list of lies about Trump campaign contacts with Russians and attempts to delete and destroy communications. This appears to be a widespread attempt to hide the truth about attempts to take advantage of Russian influence, but they never fully made an agreement with the Russian government [Not for lack of trying, that is. Former campaign members like Roger Stone did make direct contact with the GRU — DCleaks & Guccifer 2.0 — and also contact with people like Jerome Corsi and Ted Malloch who were able to provide a two-way conduit with WikLeaks who had been provided hacked and stolen documents by the GRU. Much of this section related to Stone is redacted, but his indictment tells that tale.] Evidence proving the Trump campaign was an active part of Russia’s two conspiracies to hack, disseminate the data and influence the campaign was not sufficient for a conspiracy prosecution beyond a reasonable doubt.
-
Although Mueller declined to prosecute for conspiracy — he writes that the Trump campaign was "deeply co-opted” by the Russian effort and that members of the campaign repeatedly looked for aid from the Russians or were unwittingly in contact with GRU spies and assets. However “At other times, Mueller says that campaign officials knew who they were dealing with and were “receptive to the offer” of assistance.” “Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.” (pg. 13)
-
Trump told his staff that “more would be coming” after the first Wikileaks dump of emails indicating he was receiving inside information. [Most likely from Stone who was in touch with the GRU and WikiLeaks.]
-
Trump was not only aware of the Moscow Tower project until late in the campaign, he had agreed with plans to travel to Russia to finalize the deal during 2016.
-
Mueller declined to prosecute Don Jr for campaign finance violations over his meeting with Veselnitskaya because he did not feel that those involved were sufficiently familiar with campaign finance law. [Yeah, well they might have become familiar if they'd talked to a lawyer first.] Similarly he didn't bring charges of Misprison of Felony against Papadopoulos for not notifying the FBI about the “dirt on Hillary" for similar reasons.
-
Trump had freaked out and said “My presidency is over. I'm fucked” when Mueller’s appointment was announced.
-
Multiple members of the Trump campaign and administration lied about their contacts and interactions with various Russians: “The investigation established that several individuals affiliated with the Trump campaign lied to the office, and to congress, about their interactions with Russian-affiliated individuals and related matters. Those lies materially impaired the investigation of Russian election interference.” (pg. 17)’ They didn't find they were part of the same conspiracy, but they did find that the Trump campaign and the Russians had the exact same goals.
-
The report includes the beginning of Stephen Miller’s screed accusing James Comey of losing the confidence of the FBI rank and file. [This version of the letter was said to be “problematic" by McGahn, at which point Rosenstein was asked to provide a recommendation which was then used as the excuse to fire Comey.]
-
Meuller found Trump’s written answers on conspiracy “inadequate” since Trump claimed “I don't know" or “I don't remember" at least 30 times. [So much for the “greatest memory”]. He didn't pursue a subpoena for a face-to-face interview because it might not work and would take too long, and push things into the 2020 election. “We noted, among other things, that the President stated on more than 30 occasions that he does not ‘recall’ or ‘remember’ or have an ‘independent recollection’ of information called for by the questions.” (pg. 417)
-
Mueller looked at 10 instances of attempted Obstruction.
-
The report supports Comey's assertion that Trump requested his “loyalty” and to “let Flynn go” and also that he instructed KT McFarland to draft a memo claiming he didn't tell Flynn to discuss sanctions with Kislyak. McFarland didn’t write the memo because she didn’t know if it would have been true.
-
Trump was angry over Sessions recusal, and reached out to the Intel agencies to try and get them dispel the notion that Russian meddling and his campaign were linked and also to talk to Comey about the investigation [Which would have been inappropriate]. They didn’t do it.
-
Trump’s “I’m fucked” reaction to the appointment of Mueller and his request to have Don McGahn have Sessions “get rid of him” are confirmed, as well as McGahn’s threat to quit in protest because he was being asked to do “crazy shit.”
-
He tried to get Sessions to state that the Mueller probe was unfair and to limit the scope of the probe. Trump asked Cory Lewandowsi to tell this to Sessions, but he just didn't bother.
-
He tried to block release of the emails related to the June 6th Veselnitskaya meeting and to limit any links between the meeting and the campaign. Hope Hicks thought Don Jr’s emails “looked real bad” so Trump told her to cover them up.
-
Trump tried to pressure McGahn into denying that he tried to get him to have Sessions fire Mueller, and that he threatened to quit over it — but McGahn refused to lie about it.
-
Trump’s attorneys notified Flynn that Trump was very fond of him and asked that he give a “heads up” of anything that could damage Trump — and also how much Trump fawned over Paul Manafort when it became obvious that he wouldn’t flip.
-
Trump's Obstruction was frequently blocked by his own staffers who simply didn't implement his requests. “The President’s efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests.” (pg. 370)
-
Chris Christie refused to deliver a “friendly” letter from Trump to Comey after Mueller was appointed— because it would have made things awkward for Comey.
-
KT McFarland didn't draft a memo denying that Trump told Flynn to talk about sanctions - because she didn’t know it it was true or not.
-
Jeff Sessions refused Trump's requests to un-recuse himself.
-
Don McGahn was asked to call then Acting Attorney General Dana Beonte and tell him to “shorten the probe” — but Boente stated that wasn't possible and also that he would not issue a public statement that Trump “wasn't under investigation.” [Probably because that wasn’t true anymore and/or it would have required admitting that their *was* an investigation which hadn’t been announced to the public yet.] McGahn was also pushed to tell Sessions to fire Mueller, he refused and threatened to quit over it.
-
Dan Coats refused requests from Trump to publicly exonerate the Trump campaign from links to the Russia influence effort, and also requested to contact Comey about it.
-
Rod Rosenstein was asked after writing the negative recommendation on Comey to do a press conference and take sole credit for the decision to fire him. He refused.
-
Rick Dearborn received a note for Corey Lowendowski meant for Sessions to ask him to “short the Mueller probe” but he didn’t pass the message along because he wasn’t comfortable with it. [Lowendowski didn't work the for Government, so how is he giving orders to Dearborn and Sessions?]
-
Reince Preibus slow-walked a letter requesting Session’s resignation during the summer of 2017 — just a couple months into the Mueller probe — ultimately Trump forgot about it.
-
Rob Porter was asked by Trump to get in touch with Rosenstein's deputy Rachel Brand to see if she would be interested in taking over the Mueller probe [which would happen only if Rosenstein quit or was fired while Sessions was recused]. Porter didn't do it. Brand eventually quit.
-
Mueller did not “Punt" on obstruction due to “insufficient evidence”, executive powers or mitigating factors. “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 applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment.” (pg. 182) He specifically said that he could not move forward on obstruction because of existing DOJ rules which prohibit indicting a sitting President “The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has issued an opinion finding that ‘the indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the executive branch to preform its constitutionally assigned functions’ in violation of ‘the constitutional separation of powers.’ Given the role of the Special Counsel…this office accepted OLC’s legal conclusion for the purpose of exercising prosecutorial jurisdiction.” (pg. 213) [That means Impeachment and/or Censure and also that AG Barr lied, possibly even under oath.]
-
And that the matter of Obstruction should be addressed by Congress: “The Department of Justice and the President's personal counsel have recognized that the President is subject to statutes that prohibit obstruction of justice by bribing a witness or suborning perjury because that conduct does not implicate his constitutional authority. With respect to whether the President can be found to have obstructed justice by exercising his powers under Article II of the Constitution, we concluded that Congress has authority to prohibit a President's corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice. (pg. 8)
-
Mueller looked into evidence regarding the Moscow “Pee Tape" but couldn't confirm it existed, although it did fit very well within FSB strategies and capabilities. KGB had previously used exactly that type of technique to discredit politicians when Putin was their director.
-
There are 14 other investigations which were referred by Meuller currently ongoing within the DOJ, all but two of which — Stone and Cohen — are currently classified.
-
The report states that Sarah Huckabee-Sanders admitted that her claim that “countless” members of the FBI rank and file were demoralized by Comey before he was fired wasn't really based on anything. She called it a “slip of the tongue.”
-
Nadler requests that Mueller testify no later than May 23rd.
-
WH tweets at Game of Thrones “GAME OVER” meme. Trump declares he’s having a “good day, no collusion, no obstruction.”
-
Barr releases another letter to Congress about the Mueller report which again claim Mueller found “no collusion” even though he wasn't looking for that, he was looking for members of Trump's campaign being involved in the Russian conspiracies, and falsely claims that Mueller didn't take the DOJ policy against indicting a President into account when he most certainly did and described exactly that in detail.
-
Giuliani declares victory and rants about “no obstruction” in a bombastic interview with Fox.
-
Kellyanne Conway calls the Mueller probe a “political proctology exam… and Trump emerged clean.” [Uh, ewwww. And also no he didn't.]
-
Nadler nails Barr for lying about Obstruction and begins to consider an Impeachment inquiry.
-
Schiff states that Congress “will need to consider” if Trump obstructed justice and that Barr may have essentially place Trump above the law.
-
Steny Hoyer states that "going forward on Impeachment is not worthwhile” after the release of the Mueller report.
-
Notes taken by Don McGahn indicate that Senate Intel Chairman Richard Burr provided a briefing on the Mueller report to the White House just days after the Gang of 8 was briefed in 2017.
-
Jake Tapper: ‘Trump should be in handcuffs right now’:
-
April Ryan lays into SHuckabee for lying — in general, and specifically about the FBI and Comey. “She needs to go.”
-
Carl Bernstein calls the Mueller report: “Ugly and Damning.”
-
Chris Cuomo on the WH happy talk about Mueller: ‘That is BS and they know it!.
-
CNN legal analyst Laura Coats slams Barr for blaming Trump’s frustration to ‘innoculate him’ against charges of obstruction.
-
Jay Sekulow generates laughter when he claims on MSNBC that ‘[Trump] doesn’t support anyone telling lies’. [Yep, that’s a knee slapper!]
-
Former Obama WH Counsel Bob Bauer writes that Guiliani’s “counter-report” could open Trump’s lawyers up to subpoena’s from Congress without attorney-client privileged.
-
Shep Smith blasts Barr’s letter :”We were deceived.”
-
The RNC makes an ‘Embarrassing and traitorous’ attempt to spin the Mueller report to blame Obama for Russian meddling.
-
Brit Hume attacks Schiff saying he’s “spouting nonsense” about Barr essentially placing Trump above the law, then Renato Marrioti tweets back that Barr grossly distorted what Mueller actually said in his report.
-
Multiple GOPers including VP Pence, Minority Leader McCarthy, and Minority Whip Steve Scalese claim the Mueller report didn't find any collusion or obstruction even though that is patently not true.
-
Trump begins to sour on the Mueller report half-way through his victory lap: “I could have fired everyone.”
-
Trump-Loving Q-Anoners are crushed because Mueller report fails to live up to their conspiracy theories.
-
Dailybeast reports that Mueller answered many questions, but not why Russia was so interested in helping Trump in the first place.
April 19th —
-
House Judiciary issues their subpoena for the full unredacted Mueller report.
-
Pelosi: “Congress will not be silent.”
-
AMI is selling the National Enquirer.
-
DOJ says that Congress Gang of 8 can view the “less" redacted version of the Meuller report next week, but the Grand Jury information will still be redacted.
-
SHuckabee tries to excuse her “slip of the tongue” [Blatant Fuckine Lie] about Comey was because she's “not a robot" like Dems. [What? Huh?]
-
Trump gets mad about the “Crazy Mueller Report”. [Victory Lap Now Officially Over and it barely took 24 hours.] Then he says it’s “Total Bullshit.”
-
Russian state-owned media crows over the Mueller report: ‘We will help you elect Trump once again — just like last time!’
-
The Kremlin echoes Barr and the Trump WH claiming the Mueller report is only another “told you so” moment. [Well, he echoes them as of yesterday, but that narrative is spinning.]
-
Scarborough slams Barr: “He humiliated himself" with a “Pathetic performance.”
-
Hogan Gidley on Nadler’s subpoena for the unredacted report : “We’re not going to deal with Nadler in that manner” [You're not going to get much choice and who is “we” Kemosabe, that subpoena went to the DOJ, not the WH?]
-
Phil Bump at the WaPo points out that despite Trump’s claim that Russia didn’t “change the vote" the Mueller report indicates the opposite: “It may be — and appears to be — true that Russia didn’t manipulate actual voting results,” says Bump, “but Russia’s efforts absolutely affected the vote, as they were intended to — and as Trump and his campaign hoped they would. [...] The campaign knew that WikiLeaks was releasing material damaging to Clinton, prompting Trump to praise the organization frequently that October,” they believed it would help their campaign.” And public polling at the time showed 37 percent of voters would be less likely to vote for Clinton due to WikiLeaks. [If that poll was about evenly split between likely Dems and Repubs it means that Clinton was facing a negative 18% headwind among Democrats who probably didn't vote out of loyalty to Sanders or else went for Jill Stein — and that difference is exactly how she lost 70,000 combined votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania and WIsconsin.]
-
Giuliani continues his smear campaign against Don McGahn during an interview with the WaPo arguing that if McGahn thought he was being asked to do anything illegal he wouldn’t have stayed. [Or he might threaten to quit because he was asked to do something illegal — which he did, then eventually, he did leave.]
-
Alternet points out how AG Barr four-page letter vastly distorted Mueller’s report: In his letter in March, Barr wrote that Mueller “recognized that ‘the evidence does not establish that the president was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference,’ and that, while not determinative, the absence of such evidence bears upon the president’s intent with respect to obstruction.” But Mueller’s report, Savage notes, also said that “the evidence does point to a range of other possible personal motives animating the president’s conduct. These include concerns that continued investigation would call into question the legitimacy of his election and potential uncertainty about whether certain events—such as advance notice of WikiLeaks’ release of hacked information or the June 9, 2016 meeting between senior campaign officials and Russians, could be seen as criminal activity by the president, his campaign or his family.”
-
Former Federal Prosecutor Renato Mariotti says that Barr deliberately misled the American public.
-
Jim Acosta blasts SHuckabee and the WH: ‘They can’t keep gaslighting the American people’. [Yes, they can and they will until Americans refuse to take it anymore.]
-
Senator Romney states that he is “sickened” by what he’s read in the Mueller report.
-
Ohio Sen Rob Portman slams Trump’s actions as detailed in Mueller report.
-
Former GW Bush speech writer David Gershon blasts the GOP for enabling and rewarding Trump’s corruption.
-
Former GW Bush Spokeman Ari Fleischer says Trump’s Mueller tweets “make it look like he's got something to worry about.”
-
Politico reports that Trump’s 2020 campaign has dropped their ties to McGahn’s lawfirm Jones Day potentially in retaliation for his testimony to Mueller. [Could this be a violation of whistle-blower laws?]
-
Matt Geatz hires a former White House speechwriter Darren Beattie who was fired for attending white nationalist conference.
-
Noam Chomsky argues that the focus on Russia may have handed Trump a huge gift, and possibly a return to the WH in 2020.
-
TPM argues that Trump’s “No Collusion, No Obstruction” canard is completely blown up.
-
Another Florida Man is arrested for threatening to kill several Democrats including Reps. Omar and Tliab.
-
Rep. Cummings states “we may consider Impeachment very soon, but not yet.”
-
Senate Republicans don't say much of anything.
-
Elizabeth Warren calls for the start of Impeachment proceedings against Trump.
April 20th —
April 21st — Easter
April 22nd —
-
Pompeo announces that sanction waivers for counties importing Iranian Oil won't be renewed, as of May 3rd including those who are our allies. [This affects Japan, South Korea, Turkey, China and India.]
-
NYTimes reports that much of Mueller's information about the WH came from staffers notes.
-
Trump sues Rep. Cummings to halt his subpoena for Trump's financial records from his personal adviser arguing that it’s not part of a legitimate governmental function.
-
Senator Joni Ernst shrugs off Trump's list of crimes and blames them on his “brash demeanor.”
-
Herman “Shucky Ducky” Cain drops out of the nomination for the Fed.
-
CNN’s Joe Lockhart, who was Bill Clinton's WH spokesman, says the SHuckabee “only stops lying when she’s threatened with jail.”
-
House Judiciary submits a subpeona for Don McGahn to testify on Trump’s obstruction.
-
Dem Leaders discuss Impeachment on a conference wide conference call, many argue that they should continue to investigate things before jumping headlong into impeachment particularly since it’s unlikely to be successful in the Senate. Some counseled caution but others like Rep. Val Demmings (D-FL) argued “We have enough evidence [to Impeach] NOW!”
-
Pelosi issues a statement that Impeachment won't be pursed now, but investigations will.
-
Napolitano argues that Trump's lawsuit against Cumming's subpeona is “doomed.”
-
CNN hosts Town Halls with Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Warren, Sanders and Harris — where they disagree on whether Congress should start an investigation based on the Mueller report or Impeachment hearings. Warren says “There is no political inconvenience exception to the U.S. Constitution and if anyone else had done what is described in the Mueller report they would be arrested and sent to jail.” Sanders says “If we attempt to Impeach the next two years will be Mueller, Mueller, Mueller and not any talk about what's best for the American people.”
-
Sean Hannity claims Hillary Clinton is the “real threat” to America. [For what, being a Grand mother?]
-
Videos show how Republicans like Graham and McConnel were gung-ho for Impeachment over obstruction claims that even they didn't think could be prosecuted 20 years ago.
-
Trump retweets a “hit list” from Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch that promotes going after Obama, Biden, Susan Rice, the DNC, Hillary Clinton, Brennan, Clapper, Loretta Lynch, Sally Yates, Comey, McCabe, Lisa Page and Peter Strzok. [Now that shit is a “Witch Hunt.”]
April 23rd —
-
Sri Lankan Defense Minister says that the Easter bombings were a retaliation for the New Zealand Mosque shootings.
-
KIm and Putin plan to meet in a face to face summit for the first time in Vladivostok.
-
Pelosi states “We can investigate without Impeachment Hearings.” But she also says “if the investigations lead us to impeachment, that's where we have to go.”
-
Trump claims that NYTimes needs to get down on their knees and “beg forgiveness.” [No, you first.]
-
Giuliani stuffs his 140 page Mueller counter-report into his back pocket and holds it, and says he will deal with episodes as surfaced by media.
-
Cain says he dropped out the Fed nomination because it doesn’t pay enough.
-
Lindsay Graham predicts House Dems will “stampede to Impeach Trump” and twitter slams him as a “gutless sycophant” for parroting Trump’s “No Collusion, No Obstruction” propaganda.
-
Internet erupts when Gingrich calls Democrats “Impeachment crazy” Yeah, “He would know!”
-
WH tells witnesses to ignore Cummings subpoena in their probe of denied Security Clearances. The Committee has subpoenaed Carl Kline who allegedly granted invalid clearances and retaliated against Whistle-blower Tricia Newbold, but isn't allowing any representatives from the WH to attend with him, while WH deputy counsel Michael Purpura sent Kline’s lawyer Robert Driscoll a letter saying he couldn't attend without someone from WH Counsel Office. Catch 22.
-
The Atlantic reports that J.W. Verret, a law professor who had served as part of Trump's transition team as deputy director of economic policy has stated that the Meuller report shows evidence that calls for Impeachment. “There is a point, though, at which that expectation turns from a mix of loyalty and pragmatism into something more sinister, a blind devotion that serves to enable criminal conduct.”
-
Hogan Gidley claims that Trump’s 2016 “win” shows that “No One Cares" about his taxes. [That would be 63 Million “no ones” to you.]
-
Jared Kushner says that he never discussed “business” with Sergei Gorkov the head of VEB Bank whom he met on recommendation of former Ambassador Kislyak during the transition period. He claims the Russians just “put up a couple facebook ads” and that the Mueller investigation was worse for the country than what Russia did. [A couple thousand facebook ads that reached 126 Million people - which is nearly as many as everyone who voted — and actually fostered actual rallies in America attended by real Americans.]
-
Cummings threatens to hold Kline in contempt for failure to appear.
-
Trump bans WH staffers from attending the WH Correspondents Dinner.
-
Shep Smith unloads on Kushner for downplaying Russian election interference.
-
Islamic Group — but not ISIS — claims credit for the Sri Lanka bombings.
-
AG Barr gets a waiver to oversee an investigation into the foreign firm laundering money into the Trump inaugural
-
Jennifer Rubin states in the WaPo opinion column that Don McGahn can do the most to puncture Trump’s “Web of Lies.” [Which is exactly why Kellyanne and Giuliani are trying to knee-cap him first.]
-
Both Conservative and Liberal NYTimes columnist gang up on Trump calling for his ouster.
-
Crazed Trump supporter Dave Daubenmire stands in front of Hillary Clinton’s house demanding her arrest.
-
Mormon Utah women's group slams Senator Mike Lee for tolerating Trump’s “utter disregard for the law.”
-
Gov. Larry Hogan reams the RNC for demanding “ultimate 100% loyalty to dear leader Trump.”
-
Former State Dept. Officials say that Trump’s foreign policy will wreck international relations for years to come after his administration is over.
-
Michael Cohen responds to Trump’s criticism and attacks his credibility within a suit against Chairman Cummings for the Oversight Commitees subpoena of Mazar’s groups financial documents related to TrumpCo by saying it’s clear “he has something to hide.”
-
Dana Milbank in the WaPo : Trump ‘talks like Stalin but governs like Homer Simpson’:
-
Betsy Devos didn't respond well to a report that the DOE has been scammed for hundreds of $Millions by fraudulent and mismanaged charter schools.
-
Reporters argue that the Steele Dossier included “exaggerated tales” which may have been part of Russian “disinformation” [Yes, several things were not confirmed — like the “pee tape” and Michael Cohen visiting Prague — but that doesn’t mean none of them happened and quite of few items in the dossier were confirmed and did happen like Carter Page talking to high ranking officials from Rosneft and the Russian government while in Moscow.]
-
Ways and Means Chairman Neal considers issuing a subpoena to the IRS as the deadline passes on his request for Trump tax returns.