The Barr coverup continues – and Republicans pretend that the Barr letter is the Mueller report, while Barr declines to release the Mueller report. Adam Schiff cites a litany of bad behavior – all of which is on the public record – by Trump campaign officials and advisors:

• the Russians offered dirt on the Democratic nominee
• the President’s son did not call the FBI; he said he would love the help the Russians offered
• the President’s son, son-in-law, and campaign chairman Paul Manfort took the meeting and concealed it from the public
• a year later, they lied about it and the President is helped dictate the lie
• the campaign chair offered information on the campaign to a Russian oligarch in exchange for money or debt relief, and offered polling date to someone linked to Russian intelligence
• the President called on Russia to hack his opponent’s emails and the Russians attempted later that day to hack into her campaign
• the President’s son-in-law sought to establish back-channel communications with the Russians
• an associate of the President contacted the Russian military intelligence agency through Lucifer 2 and wikileaks
• a senior campaign official was instructed to find out what dirt that hostile agency had on Trump’s opponent, and
• the National Security Advisor-designate secretly spoke with the Russian ambassador about undermining U.S. sanctions and lied about it to the FBI

“You might say that’s all OK. You might say that’s just what you need to do to win. But I don’t think it’s OK.

I think it’s immoral. I think it’s unethical. I think it’s unpatriotic. And, yes, I think it’s corrupt and evidence of collusion.”

Representative Schiff observes that he has always distinguished between this bad behavior and proof beyond a reasonable doubt of conspiracy. And he expresses complete confidence in Robert Mueller and the Mueller report.

Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee are pretending that the Barr letter is the Mueller report and that collusion is off the table. Yesterday they issued a letter demanding that Adam Schiff step down as chairman.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump, also pretending that the Barr letter is the Mueller report, declared victory at a campaign rally and thundered: “After three years of lies and smears and slander, the Russia hoax is finally dead. The collusion delusion is over.”

As noted in my previous post, the Barr letter appears to have been designed to give cover to Republicans’ falsehoods regarding the Mueller report. So far things have worked out as designed. And the coverup continues.