Tag: Mueller Report

Here are 5 of the most bizarre moments from Trump’s bonkers Mueller rant on the White House lawn

President Donald Trump delivered a crazed rant on the White House lawn before heading to Colorado — and here are the wildest moments.

The president lashed out at special counsel Robert Mueller, after his first public remarks in two years, and claimed exoneration in the Russia investigation, and he seemed to grow angrier and angrier as the impromptu news conference went on.

These are the most bizarre moments from the president’s remarks:

View the complete May 30 article by Travis Gettys from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

What Mueller Told The Country About Trump

Behind the straight shooting, ramrod demeanor always mentioned by his friends, Robert Mueller possesses a shrewd intelligence. He demonstrated that strategic acuity on Wednesday morning when, with a few carefully selected sentences, he wielded his own reticence to deliver a crushing blow to Donald Trump (and a hard shot to Attorney General William Barr, the White House henchman).

The more diffidence Mueller displayed in speaking publicly — after two years of principled silence as special counsel — the more powerful were the words he chose to utter. Standing before the seal of the Justice Department, he told us it is important that his 448-page report “speak for itself.” Yet with the nation listening, he briskly underlined the most salient aspects of the report, which the great majority of his fellow Americans will never read.

Mueller wants us to understand — contrary to whatever Trump, Jared Kushner, or assorted Republican patsies might claim — that the Russian plot to sway the 2016 election against Hillary Clinton was a historic assault on our democracy. This act by a hostile foreign power was a matter “of paramount importance” that “deserves the attention of every American.

View the complete May 29 article by Joe Conason on the National Memo website here.

Trump: ‘I had nothing to do with Russia helping me get elected’

President Trump said early Thursday that he “had nothing to do with Russia helping me get elected” while slamming special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation in a series of tweets.

“After spending $40,000,000 over two dark years, with unlimited access, people, resources and cooperation, highly conflicted Robert Mueller would have brought charges, if he had ANYTHING, but there were no charges to bring!” he said in his first tweet of the morning.

“Russia has disappeared because I had nothing to do with Russia helping me to get elected. It was a crime that didn’t exist,” he said in a subsequent tweet.

View the complete May 30 article by Kyle Balluck and Tal Axelrod on The Hill website here.

This obscure 1973 memo kept Mueller from considering a Trump indictment

The memo itself is not law, but it is the Justice Department’s binding interpretation of law governing its own conduct

The obscure government memorandum that Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III says prevented him from pursuing criminal charges against President Donald Trump points at one avenue for dealing with a misbehaving president: impeachment.

During his first public remarks since taking over the Russia investigation two years ago, Mueller made clear that he never considered indicting Trump, regardless of the findings of his investigation, partially because a 1973 Office of Legal Counsel memorandum prevented him from doing so.

That memorandum, issued in the midst of the Watergate scandal, meant that “charging the president with a crime was therefore not an option we could consider,” Mueller said Wednesday. The memo itself is not law, but it is the Justice Department’s binding interpretation of law governing its own conduct.

View the complete May 29 article by Michael Macagnone on The Roll Call website here.

Mueller says he does not want to testify before Congress

Special counsel Robert Mueller said Wednesday that he does not want to testify before Congress on his investigation into Russian interference.

“I hope and expect this to be the only time that I will speak to you about this matter,” Mueller said in remarks that lasted about eight minutes from the Justice Department. “I am making that decision myself — no one has told me whether I can or should testify or speak further about this matter.”

Mueller also said that any testimony his office would give “would not go beyond” what is already laid out in the public version of his 448-page report.

View the complete May 29 article by Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

Before Seeing Any Charges Or Evidence, Senate Republicans Vow To Acquit Trump

Senate Republicans have vowed that Trump will face no punishment if the House draws up articles of impeachment — no matter what the evidence shows,

The House has yet to begin impeachment proceedings, but if it were to file articles of impeachment, the Senate would then have to hold a trial to determine whether Trump is guilty of the charges and decide whether to remove him from office.

According to a report from The Hill newspaper published Monday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — who runs the Senate with a 53-47 Republican majority in the chamber — would hold a sham trial that would acquit Trump of the charges, no matter what the charges are or how strong the evidence against Trump is.

View the complete May 28 article by Emily Singer on the National Memo website here.

Did Congress read the Mueller report? More than a quarter of these key lawmakers won’t say.

Rep. Justin Amash broke ranks with fellow Republicans when he said special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report shows that President Trump took actions that “meet the threshold for impeachment,” arguing that the stark partisan divide over the findings was because “few members of Congress have read the report.”

While it’s common for politicians to draw very different conclusions from the same set of facts, the Michigan congressman’s suggestion in several tweetstorms this past week is bolder — that most lawmakers simply ignored Mueller’s report.

So how many lawmakers actually read the entire 448-page, redacted report released on April 18?

View the complete May 24 article by Scott Clement, Emily Guskin and Kevin Uhrmacher on The Washington Post website here.

House Intelligence enjoys breakthrough with Justice Department

An unexpected breakthrough in negotiations between the Justice Department and the House Intelligence Committee is about to offer some lawmakers an intimate look at highly sensitive intelligence files collected by special counsel Robert Mueller.

The development represents a rare example of a deal amid what Democrats otherwise describe as a sea of stonewalling by the president and his officials of their investigations.

While the Justice Department has not yet met all of the panel’s demands, Chairman Adam Schiff (Calif.) and other committee Democrats say they are encouraged.

View the complete May 24 article by Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

Former intelligence officer Malcolm Nance: Mueller gave Trump a pass for ‘the greatest scandal in American history’

Author and former intelligence officer says Mueller “pulled every punch,” Trump must be impeached to save America.

On April 18, Attorney General William Barr released his redacted version of special counsel Robert’s Mueller’s report about the Trump-Russia scandal and obstruction of justice. What did this report reveal?

Donald Trump and his inner circle both publicly and privately colluded with a foreign power and its representatives to influence the 2016 presidential election and ensure Trump’s victory. Both in public and private, Trump obstructed justice in an effort to stop Mueller’s investigation. By virtue of his behavior as detailed in the Mueller report and his other conduct in office — all of which easily meets the standard for “high crimes and misdemeanors” — Trump should be impeached, convicted and removed from the presidency.

But on April 18 the world did not stop. America’s political terrain has not been radically changed in the weeks since. Malignant reality has not ended, nor did the clouds over American democracy and society suddenly clear. Pre-Mueller-report America is unfortunately much the same as Post-Mueller-report America. A would-be fascist and authoritarian is still in power, and his minions and enablers continue to assault the rule of law and the Constitution.

View the complete May 23 article by Chauncey DeVega from Salon on the AlterNet website here.

Mueller and House Democrats at impasse over how much of his testimony would be public Add to list

Robert S. Mueller III and House Democrats have been unable to reach an agreement on how much of the special counsel’s expected congressional testimony would be public, and how much would take place in private, according to people familiar with the matter.

The special counsel’s office, along with senior Justice Department officials, has been quietly negotiating with the House Judiciary Committee, whose chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), has been eager to have Mueller testify as soon as possible.

Who is driving the dispute is a source of debate. Two people familiar with the matter said the Justice Department is deferring to Mueller, who would like for any discussions beyond the public contents of his report to be conducted in private. But another person said it is primarily the department, rather than Mueller himself, resisting a nationally televised hearing.

View the complete May 21 article by Devlin Barrett, Ellen Nakashima, Rachael Bade and Matt Zapotosky on The Washington Post website here.