Tag: Mueller Report

Trump frustrated with aides who talked to Mueller

President Trump is venting frustration with associates who cooperated with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation after their notes and first-hand observations were used to paint a negative and damaging picture of his presidency.

Even as the White House reveled in what it saw as a generally positive news cycle in the hours following the release of the Mueller report, Trump made his dissatisfaction clear.

“Watch out for people that take so-called ‘notes,’ when the notes never existed until needed,” Trump tweeted Friday morning, less than 24 hours after the report’s release.

View the complete April 19 article by Jordan Fabian and Brett Samuels on The Hill website here.

Trump painted as media-obsessed in Mueller’s report

At times, focus on press was a blessing for Trump; at other times, it was a burden

ANALYSIS — Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller’s investigation of the Trump White House reveals a presidency calibrated to drive and respond to media coverage of itself. Though unconventional, Donald Trump’s unique approach helped save his presidency.

At several critical points of his turbulent term, Mueller found that Trump — who once cold-called New York reporters claiming to be a public relations agent named “John Barron” to promote his real estate ventures — was mostly focused on responding to negative press reports or trying to generate positive ones. When the president took several questionable actions, the former FBI director concluded, it was because he was focused on a “press strategy” — and misleading or even lying to reporters is not a crime.

This pattern of presidential behavior is part of the web that led Mueller to conclude the evidence before him fell short of proving Trump’s intent in relation to his investigation was to obstruct justice. It is part of the reason his much-anticipated report does not plainly state the president obstructed the probe even though it does not exonerate Trump.

View the complete April 19 article by John T. Bennett on The Roll Call website here.

These are the 4 times Fox News was referenced in the Mueller report — and why they make Trump look even worse

With the release of the redacted version of the Mueller report by Donald Trump’s plant in the Justice Department, Attorney General William Barr, there is going to be a flurry of furious spinning by Trump’s devoted martinets in the right-wing press. Trump himself will continue his frantic robo-rant of “no collusion, no obstruction,” as he has been doing for months.

Naturally, Fox News will assume its predictable role as the main line of defense for Trump. They will focus exclusively on any positive angles among the vague interpretations of Mueller’s report offered by Barr or other Republican partisans. And they will brazenly ignore anything in the report that is remotely detrimental to Trump, of which there is a significant amount. Even Chris Wallace of Fox News noted that “There is a lot of stuff in here that is damaging to the president, politically embarrassing to the president.”

However, Fox News itself had a place in the Mueller report with four references to Trump’s State TV affiliate. The following passages from the report illustrate just how deeply integrated Fox is with Trump and his associates. For instance:

View the complete April 18 article by the News Corp on the Daily Kos website here.

Trump: Some statements about him in Mueller report are ‘total bulls—‘

President Trump on Friday lashed out over special counsel Robert Mueller‘s redacted report a day after declaring the report cleared him of collusion and obstruction, claiming some statements about him in the document “are total bullshit.”

In a string of tweets, Trump derided the more than 400-page document as the “Crazy Mueller Report.”

The president took a jab at former aides who supplied notes and other information to investigators and claimed certain statements about him are “fabricated & totally untrue.”

View the complete April 19 article by Brett Samuels on The Hill website here.

Mueller report is a reminder that Russian hack hit House races, too

Talks between the DCCC and NRCC about using stolen information stalled in September

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report provided new details Thursday about how Russian agents hacked into Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee computers in 2016, renewing the question of whether the two parties would agree not to use stolen material in future political attacks.

Leaders of the DCCC and the National Republican Congressional Committee came close to such an an agreement in late 2018, but talks broke down.

The two committees, which have new leaders for the 2020 cycle, have not restarted discussions. The DCCC is interested in re-engaging in talks, according to a source familiar with the committee’s thinking.

View the complete April 18 article by Bridget Bowman on The Roll Call website here.

Top Takeaways From the Mueller Report

A redacted version of Robert Mueller’s report has been released, detailing the special counsel’s findings on Russian interference in the 2016 election and instances of possible obstruction of justice by President Donald Trump.

Here are the top initial takeaways from the 448-page report summarizing the Russia investigation and Attorney General William Barr’s press conference.

Mueller Found Many Cases of Possible Obstruction

Mueller said he found at least 10 instances of possible obstruction of justice by Trump. The episodes included his firing of FBI Director James Comey and actions to protect former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

View the complete April 18 article by Steven T. Dennis, Chris Strohm and David McLaughlin on the Bloomberg News website here.

Mueller says messaging apps likely destroyed Trump-Russia evidence

Tech challenges prevented special counsel from establishing full picture of what happened

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III concluded that there was insufficient evidence to bring criminal charges against individuals connected with President Donald Trump’s campaign for their ties to Russia, but he said the investigation faced numerous challenges, including technological ones, in establishing a full picture of what transpired in 2015 and 2016.

“While the investigation identified numerous links between individuals with ties to the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign, the evidence was not sufficient to support criminal charges,” Mueller wrote in his report made public Thursday by the Justice Department.

In investigating ties between the Trump campaign and Russian individuals, Mueller’s team ran into technological hurdles, in addition to old-fashioned ones such as unavailable foreign witnesses, according to the report.

View the complete April 19 article by Gopal Ratnam on The Roll Call website here.

Mueller’s report paints a damning portrait of Trump’s presidency

The Trump presidency long has been an exercise in normalizing extraordinary behavior, with President Trump repeatedly stretching the limits of what is considered appropriate conduct by the nation’s chief executive. The report from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III puts into high relief the degree to which Trump has violated the norms.

The principal focus of the special counsel’s investigation was on questions of criminality. But there is more than the issue of what rises to the level of criminal conspiracy or criminal obstruction when judging a president and his administration. These are questions that go to the heart of what is acceptable or normal or advisable in a democracy. On that basis, the Mueller report provides a damning portrait of the president and those around him for actions taken during the 2016 campaign and while in office.

The 448-page document is replete with evidence of repeated lying by public officials and others (some of whom have been charged for that conduct), of the president urging advisers not to tell the truth, of the president seeking to shut down the investigation, of a Trump campaign hoping to benefit politically from Russian hacking and leaks of information damaging to its opponent, of a White House in chaos and operating under abnormal rules.

View the complete April 18 article by Dan Balz on The Washington Post website here.

What Attorney General Barr buried, misrepresented or ignored in clearing Trump

Attorney General William P. Barr has twice ensured that he had the first word on the conclusions drawn by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III after Mueller’s almost-two-year probe into President Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia’s efforts to interfere in that election.

In March, shortly after Mueller’s team completed its work, Barr offered the country a four-page overview of what Mueller found, one that necessarily elided a lot of detail from Mueller’s work.

On Thursday, Barr held a news conference an hour before the Justice Department released a redacted version of Mueller’s full report to make pointed comments about what the report contained. Barr repeatedly declared that Trump had been cleared of collusion, for example, words that were music to Trump’s ears.

View the complete April 18 article by Philip Bump on The Washington Post website here.

Mueller report shows Trump aides routinely ignored his orders on crucial matters

Special counsel highlights chaotic West Wing where staff tried to save president from himself

Presidential orders given but often ignored. Ample cursing. Aides working behind the scenes to protect Donald Trump from his own anger and impulsiveness. And an effort to prevent the president from firing special counsel Robert S. Mueller III despite his determination to do so.

Mueller’s long-anticipated report reveals a chaotic West Wing driven by paranoia and frequent outbursts from a green president who wanted to remove the special counsel and demanded that his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, be more like predecessors Robert F. Kennedy and Eric H. Holder Jr., whom he felt “protected” the respective presidents they served, John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama.

It also reveals that his current press secretary misled reporters on multiple occasions, and that he circumvented the White House counsel’s office by having a domestic policy adviser, Stephen Miller, research whether he could oust an FBI director without cause. And it shows the president’s penchant for cursing under stress, including when he declared “I’m f—ed” after Mueller was appointed.

View the complete April 18 article by John T. Bennett on The Roll Call website here.