Tag Archives: Robert Mueller

Democracy, Republicans

Release of v. 5 of the report by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is a man bites dog story

The Republican-led Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has released what is probably its final report on Russian interference in the 2016 election, which goes beyond what we learned from the Mueller report. The 966-page fifth volume provides more details and establishes more conclusively that Trump’s claim — “It’s all a hoax” — is a lie.

▪ “The Committee found that the Russian government engaged in an aggressive, multifaceted effort to influence, or attempt to influence, the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.” (p. 5)

▪ “Manafort hired and worked increasingly closely with a Russian national, Konstantin Kilimnik. Kilimnik is a Russian intelligence officer. . . . Kilimnik and Manafort formed a close and lasting relationship that endured to the 2016 U.S. elections and beyond.

Prior to joining the Trump Campaign in March 2016 and continuing throughout his time on the Campaign, Manafort directly and indirectly communicated with Kilimnik, Derispaska, and the pro-Russian oligarchs in Urkraine. On numerous occasions, Manafort sought to secretly share internal Campaign information with Kilimnik.” (p. 6)

▪ “The Committee found that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian effort to hack computer networks and accounts affiliated with the Democratic Party and leak information damaging to Hillary Clinton and her campaign for president. Moscow’s intent was to harm the Clinton Campaign, tarnish an expected Clinton administration, help the Trump Campaign after Trump because the presumptive Republican nominee, and undermine the U.S. democratic process.

[Redacted] WikiLeaks actively sought, and played, a key role in the Russian influence campaign and very likely knew it was assisting a Russian intelligence effort. The Committee found significant indications that [redacted] …

While the GRU and WikiLeaks were releasing hacked documents, the Trump Campaign sought to maximize the impact of those leaks to aid Trump’s electoral prospects. Staff on the Trump Campaign sought advance notice about WikiLeaks releases, created messaging strategies to promote and share the materials in anticipation of and following their release, and encouraged further leaks. The Trump Campaign publicly undermined the attribution of the hack-and-leak campaign to Russia and was indifferent to whether it and WikiLeaks were furthering a russion election interference effort” (p. 7)

SSCI report on Russian interference in 2016 election, v. 5, p. vii.

Writing at Lawfare, Benjamin Wittes suggests that, in their statement asserting that “the Committee found no evidence that then-candidate Donald Trump or his campaign colluded with the Russian government in its efforts to meddle in the election,” Senate Republicans on the committee have misrepresented the report they signed off on.

Wittes draws three conclusions from the report: First, the report’s findings validate and go further than the Mueller report. Second, the findings undercut Bill Barr’s efforts to portray the Russian investigation as illegitimate “spying” on the Trump campaign. And, finally [emphasis added]:

Third, while I have contempt for the rhetoric of these Republican senators and I find it almost mind-boggling to try to reconcile the text of this report with their votes in the impeachment only a few short months ago, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the public service they have done here. Yes, they are lying about having done it—pretending they found things other than what they found and did not find the things they actually found. And yes, they are almost religiously evading the moral, legal, and democratic consequences of what they found.

But unlike their counterparts in the House of Representatives, they allowed this investigation to take place. They ran a bipartisan, serious investigation. They worked with their Democratic colleagues to insulate it from an environment rife with pressures. And they produced a report that is a worthy contribution to our understanding of what happened four years ago.

This report may represent the most significant example of bipartisanship in American politics in 2020. It is an extraordinarily rare instance of senators working across the aisle on a fiercely partisan issue that has become nearly extinct.

In their 2012 book, It’s Even Worse Than It Looks, Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein write: “The Republican Party has become an insurgent outlier — ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic regime; scornful of compromise; unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”

Documenting and illustrating the truth of that conclusion has been the most consistent theme of this blog. As someone who has followed politics since my teenage years in the mid-1960s, it has been fascinating and horrifying to see the Republican Party run itself off the rails. Bipartisanship, a collegial Senate, and even placing U.S. security interests above the Republican party line, are in the last stages of extinction.

Let’s acknowledge that we’re not quite there yet — not 100%.

(Although Marco Rubio now heads the panel, I suspect that we can attribute this milestone to the relationship between Senators Richard Burr and Mark Warner, and their respective authority as leaders to direct the work of the committee and to make decisions for their side of the party divide, for this success. Just like in the good ole days.)

Note however that this exception reveals the Republican Party’s comprehensive success in evading accountability and truth: Republican voters don’t trust the mainstream media, and will hear (if they hear anything at all of this report) only mischaracterizations on Fox New Channel and in other conservative media. So, the Republican senators who allowed the release of this report could rest assured that their false statement — which relies on “lying,” “pretending,” and “almost religiously evading the moral, legal, and democratic consequences of what they found” — will be taken at face value by Donald Trump and his base.

Republicans, in other words, will accept the fraudulent cover story as true. Should the actual substance of the report come to their attention, that will be rejected as “fake news.” In 2020, a singular gesture of bipartisanship doesn’t leave us much to celebrate.

(Image: screengrab of Reuters video.)

Off the Rails, Republicans

Adam Schiff: Bill Barr is the second most dangerous man in the country

“But I do want to, before we move on from the subject of Barr and contempt, talk about, I think, the most grave concern about Bill Barr. And that is, during his Senate testimony, he opined that the president could have made the Mueller investigation go away any time he wanted because he thought it was unfair. That’s his view of the unitary executive.

Under that view a president is truly above the law. Because what president would not think an investigation against him or her was unfair? It also means that the president can make go away any of the investigations that were farmed out to any of the other elements of the Department of Justice. And, because they are stonewalling us on just about everything, it also means that we might not know – unless whistleblowers step forward – whether Bill Barr is abusing his authority even beyond the fundamental abuse by trying to exonerate the president on obstruction of justice.

And so we find ourselves, I think, for the first time with an attorney general who really is the president’s defense lawyer and spokesperson. And who’s quite good at it. And has the veneer of respectability to camouflage what he’s doing. He is not the sophist that Giuliani is. He’s much more dangerous. And I think he’s the second most dangerous man in the country for that reason.

When you listen to his interviews and you listen to the way he dissembles—when he was asked, even on Fox News, about, well, Didn’t Don McGahn call for Mueller to be fired? His answer was, No, he called for him to be removed, as if that’s a distinction that really makes a difference here. When he was asked, Well, you said that the president fully cooperated, but the president wouldn’t even sit down for an interview. No, no, I said the White House fully cooperated.

When you have an attorney general willing to dissemble that way. When you have an attorney general—and I hesitate to use the word, but there’s no other word that seems to apply here—that lies to Congress as he did when Charlie Christ asked him about whether he was aware of these revelations that had been reported about the Mueller team, and he said that he was not. That’s a very dangerous situation.

And as someone who came out of that department—I spent six years with the Justice department. I venerate the department. To think that it is being led by someone this way—you know, it breaks my heart for the department, but it’s profoundly concerning for the country.” – Congressman Adam Schiff on Attorney General Bill Barr, Council on Foreign Relations, June 4, 2019

Ryan Goodman, at Just Security, provides a side by side comparison of Barr’s and Mueller’s statements about the Special Counsel Report. Goodman comments:

“Whether or not Mueller was intentionally trying to correct the record, the differences between what he and Barr said are, in many cases, stark. Some of the differences involve near complete contradictions—in other words Mueller’s statement and Barr’s statements cannot both be true. Other differences are more a matter of emphasis or tone (e.g., references to the threat posed by the Russian operations, descriptions of the qualities of the special counsel staff).

The special counsel’s Report also contradicts some of Barr’s statements (such as his claim that the Report found no evidence of “collusion,” his suggestion that difficult issues of law and fact stopped the special counsel from concluding the president engaged in criminal obstruction, his claim that the President cooperate fully with the investigation). The following analysis, however, does not include the Report. Instead, it focuses only on Mueller’s public statement and how it compares to statements made by Barr between March 22 (the date that the special counsel handed his final report to the attorney general) and May 29 (the date of Mueller’s statement). This includes statements made by Barr in his 4-page summary submitted to Congress, a formal press briefing, and three congressional hearings, but it does not include Barr’s interviews with Fox News and the Wall Street Journal.”

Donald Trump, Off the Rails

Good grief. Bill Barr can hardly sink any deeper into the tank for this president

“I think one of the ironies today is that people are saying that it’s President Trump that’s shredding our institutions. I really see no evidence of that, it is hard, and I really haven’t seen bill of particulars as to how that’s being done. From my perspective the idea of resisting a democratically elected president and basically throwing everything at him and you know, really changing the norms on the grounds that we have to stop this president, that is where the shredding of our norms and our institutions is occurring.” – Attorney General Barr on “CBS This Morning”

For a bill of particulars, of course, we need look no further than the Mueller Report (as if we needed that report as evidence of Trump’s off the rails behavior). And, in the world according to Barr, it’s the opponents of the President who are shredding norms.

The Attorney General’s interview with CBS, following Bob Mueller’s brief public statement earlier in the week, continues his ongoing misrepresentation, obfuscation, and validation of baseless conspiracy theories to subvert the rule of law, undermine our law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and shore up Trump’s political position.

(Full disclosure: the first two words of the headline were inspired by Barr’s hapless mien, reminiscent – to the editor – of Charlie Brown.)

Democracy, Donald Trump, Off the Rails, Republicans

Adam Schiff: “You might say that’s all OK, but I don’t think it’s oK.”

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.


Democracy, Donald Trump, Republicans

William Barr’s Letter is a master stroke in media misdirection and political mischief

The Attorney General’s 3 ½ page letter is a master stroke that has – by design – incited a media circus, transformed the state of political discourse, strengthening Trump and Republicans while turning the tables on Democrats, and set the stage for the Trump reelection campaign.

It has thrown Democrats back on their heels and given life to wild Republican demands for payback: with cable television black lists of Trump critics, calls for deposing Democratic committee chairs, and demands for new investigations of the FISA warrant, the Clinton campaign (even the Bill Clinton-Loretta Lynch visit on the tarmac), and the counterintelligence investigation of candidate Trump.

We will look back on this letter much as we look back on James Comey’s July 5, 2016 public scolding of Hillary Clinton (which overshadowed his announcement that the justice department would file no charges against her) and his announcement, two weeks before the November election, that with the discovery of new emails, the FBI was reopening the case.

Those events in 2016 were catnip for the media – including the prestige and partisan press, the tabloids, cable news, internet sites, talk radio, and social media – resulting in significant impacts on the shape of public discourse and campaign narratives. Polling shows that they swayed public opinion and, arguably, the results of the 2016 election.

In the same way, the Barr letter has fundamentally changed media preoccupations, priorities, and daily news coverage. Consider Monday morning’s headlines: ‘Republicans and Democrats angle to take offensive after Mueller report,’ Los Angeles Times and ‘Trump and Republicans Seek to Turn Tables After Report,’ New York Times. We are not yet at ‘after Mueller report!’ Barr is still hiding it from view. The Washington Post’s headline is a bit more careful, ‘With Mueller probe over, Trump allies switch from defense to bruising offense,’ but the gist is the same. We’ve raced past the actual Mueller report (in virtually complete ignorance of it) and are onto how the report boosts the Republicans and harms the Democrats. (Note these are the headlines that appeared on the first online pages of these newspapers Monday morning; they may not match the headline that appears after the click.)

The Barr letter – at barely more than 3 pages of text – is a big, shiny object that the media, political actors, and the public can’t help but fixate on. Because – apart from the Barr’s purported summary of “the principal conclusions reached by the Special Counsel and the results of his investigation” – there is nothing else to examine. The report is still shrouded from view.

Not a single complete sentence, as written by Robert Mueller, appears in the Barr letter. We have only words, phrases, and sentence fragments pieced together by Trump’s AG to go on.

Never mind the parsing of Barr’s letter, which reveals even at this stage that the Attorney General is spinning like mad. To understand this cynical act of media misdirection and political mischief, consider a single, simple question: How long is the Mueller report? Mueller’s talking indictments stretched to hundreds of pages. Their strength lay in details and context. Moreover, because of their considerable heft and scope, they had a greater impact than they would have otherwise. We could assess their significance and their credibility even with scads of redactions.

The Barr letter doesn’t so much as reveal the length of the report. Two hundred pages? Five hundred? More than 1,000? The lengthier the report, the fishier Barr’s letter looks. Whatever the length, though, there would be vastly more grist for the mill – and tremendously more substance for the media to dig into and the public to focus on – if we could see the actual report. We know this because we know Robert Mueller’s work.

Barr’s release of this meager summary – which we have every reason to believe has a heavy partisan slant – has precluded meaningful discussion. The letter, without the report, hides Mueller’s decision-making regarding prosecutions and declinations from view. We get, instead, a spin-doctor’s characterizations. More significantly, Barr’s letter has preemptively killed a robust series of narratives – including alarming facts and context of Russian interference, an account of  the President’s off the rails actions, a record of unseemly and despicable behavior by those surrounding the Trump campaign, and who knows what else?

Well, Barr knows. And he’s not saying.

By the time we see the Mueller report (if we ever do), the Trump White House, Fox News Channel, Congressional Republicans, talk radio, Brietbart,  Daily Caller, et al. will have baked-in the narrative that the Mueller investigation has exonerated the President and exposed the concerns with Russian sabotage and the Trump campaign as invidious slanders by Democrats. The mainstream media (from the New York Times to NPR to CNN and all the way down) will report all this in typical He Said, She Said fashion (which even the prestige press favors when covering partisan issues), so this cake will be fully baked.

Whatever the Mueller report contains, the significance will have been brushed aside for most Americans who have not yet chosen sides. Those are the folks who can turn elections.

Mission accomplished, Mr. Barr.

Note: my suggestion in the first sentence of this post, that Barr’s letter was crafted (“by design”) to achieve political ends, this is based on Barr’s longstanding partisanship. As Josh Marshall has reported, William Barr in his first gig as Attorney General, was among the political appointees in the Bush 1 administration who “took a case that Bush-appointees in Little Rock didn’t believe had merit and worked hard to make it an active case. This was in the hopes that a late breaking scandal would help then-President Bush stage a dramatic comeback to win reelection.”

I regard this history at least as relevant to Barr’s Trumpian partisanship as his 19-page audition memo for his second run as AG, which preemptively cast doubt on the legitimacy of the special counsel’s investigation of presidential obstruction.

April 4, 2019 update: The New York Times reports in this morning’s paper, “Some members of Mr. Mueller’s team are concerned that, because Mr. Barr created the first narrative of the special counsel’s findings, Americans’ views will have hardened before the investigation’s conclusions become public,” as I suggested in this post.

(Image: William Barr via wikipedia.)

Donald Trump, Short & Sweet ... Short & Sour

“We are going to get to the bottom of this.” – Congressman Adam Schiff

George Stephanopoulos: You say the Justice Department will have to live by that precedent, but what if they don’t? What if they simply say, “No, we’re not going to release the underlying evidence.” What options do you have?

Adam Schiff: Well, we will obviously subpoena the report. We will bring Bob Mueller in to testify before Congress. We will take it to court if necessary. And in the end, I think, the Department understands, they’re going to have to make this public. I think Barr will ultimately understand that as well. . . .

George Stephanopoulos: When you’re talking about public pressure, are you prepared to take the Administration to court?

Adam Schiff: Absolutely. We are going to get to the bottom of this.

[Editor’s note: quoted exchange begins at 4:11.]

Donald Trump, Off the Rails, Republicans, Short & Sweet ... Short & Sour

Roger – “Admit nothing, deny everything, launch counterattack” – Stone reacts to criminal indictment by Mueller

Roger Stone mimicked his hero, Richard Nixon (who flashed his trademark V for victory pose on the campaign trail and on his last flight on Marine One), by striking the same stance in celebration of his indictment. Stone kept his polo shirt on when addressing the media today, so we didn’t get a glimpse of the Nixon tattoo that adorns Stone’s back. Perhaps next time he’ll rip off his shirt and show us a Trump tattoo accompanying the visage of the 37th president.

“Admit nothing …” quote from the New Yorker.

Image: screen grab from MSNBC.

Donald Trump

That was the week that was (or wasn’t), but definitely shouldn’t have been

A brief review of an extraordinary week for U.S. diplomacy and the American presidency:

Sunday, Donald J. Trump on Twitter: “Our relationship with Russia has NEVER been worse thanks to many years of U.S. foolishness and stupidity and now, the Rigged Witch Hunt!”

Monday, during the Trump-Putin news conference: “My people came to me — Dan Coats came to me and some others — they said they think it’s Russia. I have President Putin; he just said it’s not Russia.

I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be …”

And moments later: “So I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today. And what he did is an incredible offer; he offered to have the people working on the case come and work with their investigators with respect to the 12 people. I think that’s an incredible offer. Okay?”

Tuesday, the walk back: “… I thought I made that clear yesterday, but having just reviewed the transcript of yesterday’s press conference, I realized that there is the need for further clarification. In a key sentence in my remarks, I said the word ‘WOULD’ instead of ‘WOULDN’T.’ The sentence should have been: ‘I don’t see any reason why it WOULDN’T be Russia’ — a double negative.

I think that probably clarifies things pretty good by itself.”

But, while his written statement expressed confidence in U.S. intelligence agencies, he stressed that Russian actions had no effect on the 2016 election and suggested that Russia might not be fully culpable: “So I’ll begin by stating that I have full faith and support for America’s great intelligence agencies, always have.

I have felt very strongly that while Russia’s actions had no impact at all on the outcome of the election, let me be totally clear in saying that — and I’ve said this many times — I accept our intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election took place. It could be other people also. There’s a lot of people out there.

There was no collusion at all, and people have seen that and they’ve seen that strongly.”

Wednesday, at a press availability before a cabinet meeting:

Q: “Is Russia still targeting the U.S., Mr. President?”

A: “Thank you very much. No.”

Q: “No?! You don’t believe that to be the case?”

A: “No.”

Two hours later, Sarah Huckabee Sanders offered an alternative account of what reporters heard.

When she was questioned about the “incredible offer” made at the summit by Putin – Robert Mueller could travel to Russia to interview with Russian officials the 12 recently indicted GRU (military intelligence agency) spies, if the U.S. would send its former ambassador, Michael McFaul and other Americans to Russia for interrogation by Putin and company – which was widely condemned, she held open the possibility that Trump would agree to Putin’s offer: “The president is gonna meet with his team and we’ll let you know when we have an announcement on that.”

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert was more dismissive: “I can’t answer on behalf of the White House … but what I can tell you is that the overall assertions that have come out of the Russian government are absolutely absurd – the fact that they want to question 11 American citizens and the assertions that the Russian government is making about those American citizens. We do not stand by those assertions.”

Thursday, another walk back from Ms. Sanders – this time on the incredible offer: “It is a proposal that was made in sincerity by President Putin, but President Trump disagrees with it. Hopefully President Putin will have the 12 identified Russians come to the United States to prove their innocence or guilt.”

Friday, Director of National Security Dan Coats is in the midst of an onstage interview at a security forum in Aspen when Andrea Mitchell advised him of “breaking news” – a tweet from Sarah Sanders announcing that Vladimir Putin is coming to the White House in the fall.

“Say that again. Did I hear you?”

Upon hearing confirmation, amid laughter: “Okaaay. That’s going to be special.”

The nation’s top intelligence official had known nothing about another summit.

The interview offered even more unsettling news: Four days after the two hour meeting between Trump and Putin – with no other American present except for an interpreter – neither the Director of National Security, nor any other U.S. diplomatic or intelligence professional, knew the agenda or the substance of that conversation, or any agreements that the two men had made.

In contrast, by this time Putin had briefed Russian diplomats on the one-on-one meeting and lauded a number of “useful agreements” the two men made. Anatoly Antonov, the Russian Ambassador, had said that his country was prepared to move forward to implement the “important verbal agreements” concerning arms control, among other issues.

At this stage, on the American side, only Trump was privy to what had been discussed and what agreements had been made.

These events led to this exchange on “The 11th Hour with Brian Williams,” July 20, 2018, with Williams and John E. McLaughlin (who had 30 years experience in intelligence and counter-terrorism in the CIA):

Williams: “I have to ask you your reaction to finding out that our D of N I is unaware that an adversary has been invited to Washington, say nothing of others of our allies who have yet to receive their first invitation of this presidency.”

McLaughlin: “Well, Brian, you know, my reaction sitting there in the audience today was, you know, our government has slipped out of gear. It is not functioning normally. And that would not happen – I’ve served seven presidents – that would not happen in any other administration. And it shows that the President was not prepared for the Helsinki summit and is now improvising again.”

Monday, July 23, 2018 update: “Trump has now walked back his walk-back on U.S. intelligence and Russia.”

(Photo: Reuters / Kevin Lamarque; source: The Nation.)