Mueller meant for Barr to rule on obstruction of justice, says Mulvaney
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https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/31/mulvaney-mueller-barr-obstruction-of-justice-1244952
Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney claimed Sunday that special counsel Robert Mueller intended for Attorney General William Barr to determine whether President Donald Trump obstructed justice in the FBI’s investigation into Russian election interference.
“What you saw here is simply Mueller saying, ‘You know what? I’m going to let Barr call this one,’” Mulvaney said, discussing the final report on Mueller’s 22-month probe with host Jonathan Karl on ABC’s “This Week.”
“He had plenty of evidence to say on collusion, ‘Absolutely not,’ and he actually punted over to Barr,” Mulvaney continued. “Again, that’s the way the system can and does work.”
In a four-page letter delivered to Congress last weekend summarizing the “principal conclusions” of Mueller’s nearly 400-page report, Barr wrote that the special counsel “did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities” during the 2016 White House race.
William Barr believes in Unitary Executive Theory which basically means the President is an untouchable god while in office so there's pretty much no way he would think Trump committed a crime.
This whole report has basically just been this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CTnTi1Lq60
Say it was a let-down is an understatement.
If Mueller didn't write it down in the report then Mulvaney's talking shit, because for all he knows, Mueller punted to Congress and Barr can shut his jowly well-fed piehole.
Also Mulvaney's mouth in that picture almost feels like it's what happens if you take advantage of that visual trick of flipping someone's eyes and mouth upside-down but position them upside-down and the viewer doesn't notice until they look at the picture right-side up and the horrific photoshopped monster reveals itself to them. The rest of him looks like a normal, perfectly-slappable human, but his mouth's on upside-down.
That's amazing man, I mean, you must be one of the only people then to have read the report, if you're so certain it's disappointing. Tell us, what's in the report?
Mueller INTENDED for only a four-page report to be released. In fact most of the pages in the full report are just him stating over and over how little info he wants to be released publicly!
It's just a really long poem
Mueller gave Barr an opportunity to not be a traitor to his country, and Barr decided not to take it.
"Okay now that the formal stuff is out of the way, I've come to make an announcement: Donald Trump is a bitch ass motherfucker, he pissed on my wife"
It doesn't matter. If Barr is the one deciding whether to lay charges then what more is there to say? It's not like I am happy about it being a let-down.
Hm, I dunno, but I'm just not inclined to trust a word this guys says. Maybe it has to do with the fact that he's one of Trump's hand picked goons. They're not exactly known for honesty.
the weird part about this whole thing is that mueller followed the law to the letter and the law is unambiguous, he has to make a ruling, so that's where this is such a head scratching moment
Can you guys imagine a slightly alternative reality where Jeff Sessions would've had to call the shots on this?
while I don't think the whole report will be as empty as the summary has made it out to be, still acting as if mueller is engaging in a game of 12D chess like this is really setting yourself up for disappointment.
I wish we lived in the world conservatives think we live in where Hillary won
I have wondered if Mueller punted it off to Barr to see what he'd do, just to see if Barr, too, would rule that Trump, despite the evidence, did not obstruct justice.
Nah, Mueller knows that Barr believes in a 'Strongest Unitary' and, since he dictates DoJ policy, would likely not recommend charges because he knew Barr would never allow them. The 'strong unitary' theory basically boils down to 'the President is in full control of all parts of the Executive and therefore can't be investigated or charged by anything in the Executive because that would violate the constitutional order of things'. This would also mean that independent or outside counsels (e.g. the Special Counsel) are illegal by the Constitution because they're using power that the President isn't wielding. Also it argues that the separation between powers 'should be absolute' -- in other words the Judiciary and Legislative Branches should have zero control over anything in the Executive domain whatsoever, including things such as launching investigations into the Executive etc etc.
So it boils down to: Barr is unlikely to ever recommend charges against the President under any circumstance because he believes the President is Constitutionally above the law while serving in office. Therefore, the most likely thing to have happened is for Mueller to have assembled a 300 page document intending for it to get into the hands of Congress so that they would make the determination on whether or not the President should be impeached, since the DoJ as-is would likely never indict the President.
Yeah I by no means believe he seriously has some sort of plan to go after Barr, this was purely him passing the buck up the chain of command. For one reason or another he didn't want to personally be the one recommending the obviously needed prosecutions, so he left it to the AG to make that call.
No one The president is above the law.
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