We begin today’s roundup with Jill Lawrence’s piece at USA Today, where she imagines what it would be like if special counsel Robert Mueller was able to tell us what he really thinks during his upcoming testimony:
Regrets, I have a few, starting with letting Attorney General William Barr take over public relations for my painstaking report. He called me “snitty” — Me! Snitty! — for objecting to the way he tried to clear this president of wrongdoing and mislead the public about why we didn’t indict him. We couldn’t! Our hands were cuffed! I mean, tied! I could go on. But I want to avoid a heart attack and enjoy my retirement. So let's move on.
I regret being overly considerate of the president and his right to a “speedy and public trial.” We faced so many limits on our investigation and obstacles in our path, I should not have added more restrictions of my own free will and out of a sense of good sportsmanship. We are in a crisis that demands clarity and, alas, I did not recognize just how dire our circumstances — Barr’s perfidious misrepresentations, maddening Democratic caution, scandalous Republican indifference — until too late.
Stop treading water: 'I think I'd take it' is the last straw. Nancy Pelosi, it's time to impeach Trump.
Nick Akerman, former assistant special Watergate prosecutor, outlines what to look for in tomorrow’s testimony:
His much-hyped testimony is unlikely to include anything outside his 448-page report. But within those hundreds of pages are highly critical facts that Congress now has an opportunity to highlight for the public.
In particular, two elements of the investigation into Russian interference during the 2016 election have not received much attention. The first is the Feb. 16, 2018, conspiracy indictment against 13 Russian operatives and two Russian companies for targeting “tens of millions of U.S. persons” through social media. These efforts were designed to specifically target voters in key states in order to suppress the vote for Hillary Clinton and enhance voter turnout for Trump. The second key piece of the report relates to the additional July 13, 2018 conspiracy indictment against 12 Russians who, beginning in March 2016, hacked into the computers and email accounts belonging to the Democratic National Committee and Clinton’s campaign manager. They later disseminated the stolen documents throughout key periods of the 2016 presidential campaign.
It is equally important to understand why Mueller ultimately was not able to file charges against any alleged American participants. It is important for the public to know the extent of the evidence Mueller uncovered concerning Americans who may have participated in these two criminal conspiracies. It is equally important to understand why Mueller ultimately was not able to file charges against any alleged American participants. Mueller’s decision not to bring charges does not mean Americans were not involved in these conspiracies — and should not be used to obscure evidence tending to show that Americans in fact may have participated in these criminal conspiracies.
Over at Lawfare, Hadley Baker and Mikhaila Fogel highlight exactly what’s written about Trump in the report:
for those who want to figure out what Mueller has said about Trump, here is a list: all of Trump’s actions as detailed in the Mueller report.
This list includes everything Trump said or did, actions others recall him taking, and recollections of when Trump was informed of events and facts relevant to the investigation. In other words, it’s an account of everything the president did, said or knew, according to the Mueller report.
Each of the following section headers and excerpts is presented verbatim and sequentially as they appear in the report. We have included responses to or circumstances surrounding the president’s actions only to the extent that they provide necessary context.
David Friend at Vanity Fair compares the current climate to another time in history:
It’s beginning to feel a lot like the 1970s. No, not because of all the talk of NASA’s Apollo program—or the pending release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. I’m referring more precisely to 1973 and 1974, when a special prosecutor named Leon Jaworski was busy building a case against President Richard Nixon and his inner circle; House Democrats were scheduling appointments to grill Nixon’s advisers; and the daily news cycle became punctuated by phrases like “smoking gun” and “unindicted co-conspirator.” History, to borrow from Karl Marx, repeats itself—first as tragedy, second as reality TV.
And yet what we are witnessing in Washington these days is less like The Apprentice than it is like a premium-cable series centered on several intertwined scandals, an epic, binge-worthy drama replete with serial liars, corrupt antagonists, and a huge and hapless ensemble cast. In fact, the ever expanding set of crises that define The Trump Show has only one predecessor—Watergate—in terms of the sheer number of colorful, conniving, and improbable bit players.
On a final note, at TIME, James Banner, who created what he calls “the record of presidential malfeasance” during the Nixon saga, also gives historical context:
So what are we to make of the overall record? Serious misconduct has ensnared both major parties, but conduct hasn’t seemed to worsen over time: Unusually corrupt administrations have been spaced, not clumped. Perhaps we should take comfort that executive branch malfeasance has been less frequent, deep and widespread than it might have been.
Those conclusions held true in 1974, as they do today. Yet, in one critical respect, this updated report is more troubling than the earlier one...