Nailed it!
Nailed it!
Three weeks ago I wrote No, the Meuller report ***DID NOT*** “find no collusion!” in which I lambasted and parsed Barr’s conclusory snippet of the Mueller report, to wit, that “[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
I pointed out that:
… the bracketed [T] in Barr’s quote of Mueller is doing a lot of work. Because it means that there was a first part of the sentence that was omitted. Put that together with the fact the Mueller’s quote then specifically references that “the investigation did not establish …” and there is compelling evidence that the first part of the actual sentence was a qualifier. …. Almost certainly the first part of the sentence is something like “Although…’” “Since …’” or “Despite …” followed by “the investigation…”, or a formulation like “The grand jury’s work is incomplete, and so the investigation …”
(Emphasis added)
Now that we have (most of) the actual Mueller report, we know that the complete sentence reads:
“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.”
(Emphasis added)
Exactly as I thought, and said. The first part of the sentence Barr quoted severely qualified the portion he chose to highlight.
I also wrote:
While the “no finding” formulation is consistent with a “finding of no collusion,” it is also consistent with other readings:
1. The investigation isn’t complete yet (which is almost certainly a correct statement).
2. The evidence is inconsistent, weak, or contradictory.
3. There are too many unknowns to come to a conclusion.
4. While the evidence of collusion is strong, it is not strong enough to support a jury verdict beyond reasonable doubt.
Mueller’s report makes clear that, first of all, he made “no finding” as to the narrower question of criminal conspiracy, which requires an actual or tacit agreement, rather than encouragement and coordination, I.e., “collusion.” Further, he explicitly qualifies his “no finding” by noting gaps in the evidence, in the form of witnesses who refused to testify under oath, and/or deletions of crucial communications Mueller’s report leaves open the possibility that the conclusion could change if the missing evidence were provided.
Yep! This is essentially the same point as “That One Sentence” ala Sandwichman. Now his post got a lot of long winded trolling from Team Trump. Get prepared because these clowns get paid by the word. Of course they get paid in rubles and it takes 67 rubles to exchange for one dollar.
This really is quite amazing. Trump is leading the Russian effort to break America and Republicans are blindly following along.
Bear:
Welcome to Angry Bear. First time comments always go to moderation to weed out spammers and advertising.
Bear,
Please explain what Trump is doing to break America.
The defense budgets are up, sequestration has been lifted so they can go up faster. US spending is at and above “Reagan build up” levels and 4 or 5 times the sum of China and Russia war budgets.
Trump is doing fractionally more than Obama (Obama was $1T over 30 years) to build up US’ offensive thermonuclear capacity, he sold anti tank systems to Ukraine (maybe the new Ukraine president who was not installed by the US will not use them), he pulled out of Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty of 1987, and is placing anti ballistic missile systems in Poland and keeping the system in Rumania, etc……..
Also link how the Russians effect his tactics to break America.given the incomplete list of muscular military things Trump is doing in and around expanded NATO.
Being called soft on Russia is/was both not true, and motivated by the neoconservative members of the democratic party.
I am impressed Mueller and his spies can read Russian minds, as well as the minds of the GOP operatives spied on during the campaign, such perpetrators Mueller could not get indicted!
“collusion is not a specific offense or theory of liability found in the United States Code, nor is it a term of art in federal criminal law.”
That is what Meuller’s report says about “collusion”. Basically that it isn’t a thing in this context. It’s too nebulous to be useful.
But nebulous terms are very useful for liars.
With regard to Russia. The Russian elite are basically fossil fuel oligarchs. The Republican party is extremely pro-fossil-fuel-oligarch. There are, as Trump is involved, surely highly shameful elaborations, but fundamentally the Republican Party and Russian Oligarchs share key interests in fossil fuel dependence, lax financial regulation, policy favorable to the ultra-wealthy, etc.
ILSM refuses to read the Mueller report:
“Please explain what Trump is doing to break America.”
Lord this comment is almost as dumb as what Jared Kushner said – there were only 2 Facebook ads.
OK Jared is a traitor. So is ILSM.
pgl,
all you got is ad hom.
explain what I asked.
You read Mueller, his report is affirmation for your Trump Derangement Syndrome..
Mueller’s report is babbling appealing to Clinton followers ultra nationalist far right wing views disguised as a democratic.
Read the rest. Lester Holt and Clinton could be Petro Poroshenko the strong man Obama’s state dept imposed on Ukraine in 2014.
The Whittington thing on Mueller no indictment report which mind reads the Russians and trump aides.
https://niskanencenter.org/blog/reckoning-with-the-mueller-report-volume-one/
Is it liberal to complain about not being hard enough on Russia?
Interesting that Hillary Clinton said Trump was a “Russian puppet” (probably after Obama sent the FBI after the GOP campaign) and NBC’s Holt (Nov 9 2016) said the US election was a Russian coup. Since when (except maybe if Joe McCarthy were a democrat).
A parallel maybe. In Ukraine since 2004 the popularly elected president was deposed twice by extreme right wing ultra nationalists. In 2014 the popular Yanukovych was deposed in the Maidan revolution with help from the US replaced with no election by Petro Poroshenko.
Sunday we hear that a comedian Zelenskiy soundly beat Poroshenko in a popular vote.
To this Poroshenko: “Poroshenko said on social media he thought Zelenskiy’s win would spark celebrations in the Kremlin.”
“They believe that with a new inexperienced Ukrainian president, Ukraine could be quickly returned to Russia’s orbit of influence,” he wrote.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/ukraine-elections-comedian-volodymyr-zelenskiy-declares-victory-presidential-race-n996776
Clinton and Holt could be writing for Poroshenko, a far right wing ultra nationalist!
I worry a lot about Obama’s spying on the Trump campaign and the supposed liberals in this country sounding like far right, ultra nationalist, looking for a new, expensive cold war!
@NewDealdemocrat | April 23, 2019 5:08 am
No. Somebody else nailed it
likbez:
One of my German associates said in answer to a similar nonsensical diatribe; “Does your comment (your C&P) come with sprinkles on it?” He nailed it as NDD did also in his earlier commentary.
Most people here use the comments section to post their opinions supported by facts. You wish to turn it around and post a pseudo-fact as your opinion. It is relatively easy to do and claim as your position without doing a bit of research or originalism. Neoliberalism is an abused label which I tend to ignore. Commentary using it is never about the impact on people of the politics for which it is used as a descriptor. Just another slinging of mud . . . to muck up the conversation.
If Crooked Timber makes you feel good, then hang there. I would strongly urge others not to comment in answer to you. Have a good day . . .
@pgl, April 23, 2019 7:35 am
I wish ;-). Than I would hang in forums all day long like some of the commenters here.
Meanwhile some people slowly, incompletely but are starting getting it: http://crookedtimber.org/2019/04/21/transactional-trumpism/#comment-748044
And
IMHO crookedtimber.org blog is a forum for a bunch of “soft neoliberals” and neocons like this one, so this is a pretty remarkable development.
The world would be a better place if you had no time to be on the blogs.
What a horrible excuse for a human being.
Fivethirtyeight author on the opposing line ups for the democrats’ Mueller post game show aka impeachment.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-major-democratic-and-republican-blocs-are-responding-to-the-mueller-report/
From a ‘decisions under uncertainty’ point of view if I were the democrats I would let this go………. they should minimize their maximum regret, however they define it.
An impeachment debate in the House plays to Trump, how can you prosecute Trump his campaign was the target of a Watergate style spy operation. While a 60 democrat senate is unlikely in the next 30 years.
Impeachment would get the “democrats had the FBI spying on GOP campaign” out from the right wing shock jocks onto C-SPAN.
It could convince the public that the Mueller report is a red herring of phony, non evidence of treason factoids for the crime of disagreeing with the neocons and not being into a new cold war; that is Trump was not hard enough on Russia.