Wildcat said:

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It's unclear to me how Mueller benefits (or doesn't lose) by playing along with the Democrats? Why go along with this charade?

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I'm not sure he did play along with the Dems. The general consensus was he has the beginnings of dementia, which I finally concluded he doesn't have. He just wanted to ride off into the million dollar sunset, and not answer any other questions.

He already refused to answer questions by saying "it's not in my purview", or "I won't get into that". Why was it necessary for him to feign dementia, which also made the dodo Dems look bad? He was already answering the questions he wanted to, so I wonder if his act was THAT good?

If so, Sun Tsu would be proud.

Wildcat said:

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It's unclear to me how Mueller benefits (or doesn't lose) by playing along with the Democrats? Why go along with this charade?

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Protection of his friends and cronies.

Well, there ya go!

What was the comment from Doc Holiday in "Tombstone"? "Now I really hate him"!!!

aggiehawg said:

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Wildcat said:

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It's unclear to me how Mueller benefits (or doesn't lose) by playing along with the Democrats? Why go along with this charade?

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Protection of his friends and cronies.

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I don't know. He spent a career building a reputation and torched it all in a few hours for the likes of Brennen, Clapper and whomever else is considered a "friend"?

I find that difficult to believe.

Wildcat said:

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aggiehawg said:

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Wildcat said:

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It's unclear to me how Mueller benefits (or doesn't lose) by playing along with the Democrats? Why go along with this charade?

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Protection of his friends and cronies.

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I don't know. He spent a career building a reputation and torched it all in a few hours for the likes of Brennen, Clapper and whomever else is considered a "friend"?

I find that difficult to believe.

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He and James Comey worked together for years and are friends. Lots of the people involved in the coup attempt are Mueller's friends and former associates.

aggiehawg said:

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Wildcat said:

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It's unclear to me how Mueller benefits (or doesn't lose) by playing along with the Democrats? Why go along with this charade?

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Protection of his friends and cronies.

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My guess was either this, or his TDS backed him into a corner he couldn't make himself come out of. Another example of having to "McCain" someone....separate the young hero/public servant from the elder political hack.

Ellis Wyatt said:

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Wildcat said:

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aggiehawg said:

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Wildcat said:

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It's unclear to me how Mueller benefits (or doesn't lose) by playing along with the Democrats? Why go along with this charade?

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Protection of his friends and cronies.

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I don't know. He spent a career building a reputation and torched it all in a few hours for the likes of Brennen, Clapper and whomever else is considered a "friend"?

I find that difficult to believe.

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He and James Comey worked together for years and are friends. Lots of the people involved in the coup attempt are Mueller's friends and former associates.

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Now you are arguing he is an accessory?

I find it easier to accept that he was simply a figurehead and the partisan hacks on the team wrote the report.

They're not just friends. I think Mueller is god father to Comey's kid(s).

Dereliction of duty? I guess it wouldn't be accessory but he completely failed at the job description of the SC.

Oh he was an accessory.

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Now you are arguing he is an accessory?

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After the fact? Likely. We know Comey illegally took government records, some including classified information, and gave them to his friend with instructions to leak them to the press.

Although Mueller denied having any contact with Comey for the six months preceding his termination by Trump, there's no doubt he met with Comey many times after his appointment. Where was the referral on Comey?

aggiehawg said:

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Wildcat said:

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It's unclear to me how Mueller benefits (or doesn't lose) by playing along with the Democrats? Why go along with this charade?

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Protection of his friends and cronies.

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My gut suggests Mueller (and perhaps Comey as well) were fed lies by co-conspirators Clapper, Brennan, Lynch + other Obama admin, who afterwards swallowed them hook, line and sinker without question. Falsely believing the sources to be true patriots, he/they don't want to reconsider the facts.

It remains to be seen whether they will choose to fall on their sword...if/when the time comes. Would love to witness some/all confess their error and apologize to America. Doing so would MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

Once he took the job, he was stuck dealing with it, AND all the political implications. What he knows is Trump has 4-8 years, but the Dems and state bureaucracies are permanent and relentless political fixtures, and he himself probably made many presumptions going in, and had many biases in favor of the institutions he worked in and led, and loyalties to friends and political allies. He wasn't going to throw them all under the bus to be appearing to help Trump. He knows leftists write most of the history books and sign most of the big checks.

Wildcat said:

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Now you are arguing he is an accessory?

I find it easier to accept that he was simply a figurehead and the partisan hacks on the team wrote the report.

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I can only trust my own eyes. It looks like a duck and walks like a duck. The duck had too many conflicts to have ever been in the position he was in. Any duck with integrity wouldn't have taken the job.

Wildcat said:

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It's unclear to me how Mueller benefits (or doesn't lose) by playing along with the Democrats? Why go along with this charade?

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I see his performance as a way to distance himself from the work. He looked like a figurehead who didn't know what was going on. His reputation was being used to make the report to seem legitimate. When it all blows up he can claim "I'm the old guy who was taken advantage of" and "I had no clue". He's playing both sides.

Although diGenova hasn't had a stellar record lately.

He sure does refer specifically to documents, etc. that we've been hearing about a lot recently on another thread....

I was just coming to post that audio. Hopefully this time it's for real -- release of declassified documents starting Wednesday.

drcrinum said:

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I was just coming to post that audio. Hopefully this time it's for real -- release of declassified documents starting Wednesday.

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Yep. I think most of us are in "believe it when I see it" mode on most of this after a year or more of "breaking, bombshell news" that doesn't pan out.

Sure do hope he is right, though.

Let's see what kind of FF they come up with this time...

will25u said:

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Although diGenova hasn't had a stellar record lately.

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Another huge mention by diGenova was that Durham's investigation is a criminal investigation and progressing very quickly... and that it includes a federal grand jury. He mentions Brennan by name.

VegasAg86 said:

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drcrinum said:

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I was just coming to post that audio. Hopefully this time it's for real -- release of declassified documents starting Wednesday.

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Yep. I think most of us are in "believe it when I see it" mode on most of this after a year or more of "breaking, bombshell news" that doesn't pan out.

Sure do hope he is right, though.

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Now y'all, if declass happens, it doesn't necessarily mean we'll hear,, or see, it, correct? In fact, I would assume we wouldn't see it. Doesn't it just mean that "need to know" folks will see it?

Of course, it means Schiff is going to want to see all of it, so he can pass it along to someone.

Edit:
drcrinum beat me by a few seconds!

fasthorses05 said:

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VegasAg86 said:

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drcrinum said:

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I was just coming to post that audio. Hopefully this time it's for real -- release of declassified documents starting Wednesday.

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Yep. I think most of us are in "believe it when I see it" mode on most of this after a year or more of "breaking, bombshell news" that doesn't pan out.

Sure do hope he is right, though.

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Now y'all, if declass happens, it doesn't necessarily mean we'll hear,, or see, it, correct? In fact, I would assume we wouldn't see it. Doesn't it just mean that "need to know" folks will see it?

Of course, it means Schiff is going to want to see all of it, so he can pass it along to someone.

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In the audio, diGenova says the information would be to the public.

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Now y'all, if declass happens, it doesn't necessarily mean we'll hear,, or see, it, correct? In fact, I would assume we wouldn't see it. Doesn't it just mean that "need to know" folks will see it?

Of course, it means Schiff is going to want to see all of it, so he can pass it along to someone.

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Assuming there is a federal grand jury involved, what we will know will come from indictments, not the documents themselves.

Wildcat said:

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It's unclear to me how Mueller benefits (or doesn't lose) by playing along with the Democrats? Why go along with this charade?

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This theory/idea may have been posted here before, and if so, I apologize for the duplication.

However I think this spells out why Mueller would play along with the Democrats. Link to Part 1

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obert Mueller's congressional testimony was such a bumbling fiasco that it was easy for a viewer to be confused and stay that way about the main bone of Democratic contention regarding his report: the "OLC guidance" that prevents the Justice Department from charging a president with crimes while he is in office.

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The OLC is the Office of Legal Counsel, the lawyers' lawyers in the Justice Department who formulate policies that guide federal prosecutors throughout the United States. The OLC guidance at issue in the Mueller investigation is the prohibition on indicting a sitting president.

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The guidance is binding on Justice Department lawyers, period. That means it is also binding on special counsels. By regulation, they are firmly in the Justice Department chain of command.

Consequently, the OLC guidance applied to Mueller's investigation of President Trump. In particular, it was relevant to the obstruction aspect of the probe, which was always a criminal investigation.

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The president may not be indicted while in office. Notice: This does not mean the president may not be investigated while in office; nor does it mean the president may never be indicted. The investigation may proceed while a president serves his term; if the prosecutor finds sufficient evidence to charge a criminal offense, an indictment may be obtained from the grand jury as soon as a president is out of office.

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That, however, is not how the OLC guidance was construed by Mueller or, I should say in light of Mueller's patent unfamiliarity with the Mueller probe, by whoever on the special counsel staff was actually running the investigation.

The staff took the position that the OLC guidance did not just forbid the indictment of a sitting president. Its logic, they insisted, rendered it impermissible even to consider whether there was sufficient evidence to indict a sitting president.

That's ridiculous. But before we come to its incoherence and disingenuousness, let's deal with why the special counsel's theory was critical to Mueller's testimony.

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Legally, Mueller's interpretation of the OLC guidance is absurd. A prosecutor has only one job: to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. This is elucidated by federal regulations: The special counsel must prepare "a confidential report explaining the prosecution or declination decisions." There is no third way. There is no authorization to evade what Mueller's transgressive staff described as the "traditional," "binary" prosecutorial decision to charge or not to charge.

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My job was to investigate cases and make a recommendation to my chain of command to indict or decline prosecution. Mueller's job was to make that same recommendation to the AG. If Mueller had found sufficient evidence to file charges, it would then have been up to the AG to decide (a) whether to accept that recommendation and (b) whether to delay indictment until the president left office, in accordance with the OLC guidance.

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Link to Part 2

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Justice Department protocols prohibit prosecutors from prejudicing suspects by publicizing the evidence against them unless and until they are formally charged. The idea is that the government must refrain from speaking until it files an indictment. For at that point, the person becomes an "accused" under the Constitution, vested with all the due process guarantees our law provides: assistance of counsel, confrontation of witnesses, subpoena power the full array of rights to challenge the government's indictment.

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From this commonsense proposition, Mueller's staff leapt to an untenable conclusion: Because the OLC guidance prevents the Justice Department from formally charging a sitting president, poor President Trump would have been denied his due process protections if Mueller had recommended an indictment: It would be as if the government slimed him by publicizing the evidence but denied him his day in court to clear his name.

If this doesn't insult the intelligence, nothing will. Sliming the uncharged president by publicizing the evidence is exactly what Mueller's team did.

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Even though the regulations call for a confidential report from the special counsel to the attorney general, the Mueller report was patently written with the intention that it would be transmitted to Congress and the public. (Indeed, even before the report was submitted to the Justice Department, various industrious publishers planned to make it available for sale.) Moreover, when AG Barr undertook to announce only the special counsel's bottom-line conclusions, Mueller's staff threw a fit, grousing to the media that Barr was wrongly withholding the report and denying the public the condemnatory narrative in which they had couched these benign conclusions.

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To summarize, Mueller's staff operated under an expansive construction of obstruction, claiming that any presidential act including legitimate exercises of a president's constitutional prerogatives, such as firing or considering firing such subordinates as the FBI director and the special counsel himself could be grounds for an obstruction charge if a prosecutor (i.e., an inferior executive official) decided the chief executive's motive was corrupt.

Barr, by contrast, hews to the traditional understanding that a president is only liable for a criminal obstruction charge if he engages in blatantly corrupt conduct that is not within his constitutional prerogatives e.g., bribing witnesses or destroying evidence. Importantly, that does not mean a president is immune from accountability for abusing executive powers; rather, in our system, it is for Congress, not an inferior executive official, to second-guess the legitimacy of the chief executive's acts i.e., Congress can impeach the president.

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Barr was not going to buy the Mueller staff's theory of obstruction. Consequently, if Mueller had recommended obstruction charges against Trump based on the legal analysis explicated in Volume II of the report, then the Justice Department would have rejected the recommendation and the legal analysis. There would have been an intense debate within the Justice Department involving the special counsel's staff, OLC, and the AG a debate Mueller's staffers had to know they would lose if they were foolish enough to force it. Volume II would have gotten much more Justice Department scrutiny. Mueller's staff would not only have been thwarted in their quest to indict Trump; their report might have been tied up at DOJ for months and perhaps never be released in its current form.

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Mueller's anti-Trump staffers knew they were never going to be able to drive Trump from office by indicting him. The only plausible way to drive him from office was to prioritize, over all else, making the report public. Then, perhaps Congress would use it to impeach. At the very least, the 448 pages of uncharged conduct would wound Trump politically, helping lead to his defeat in 2020 an enticing thought for someone who had, say, attended the Hillary Clinton "victory" party and expressed adulatory "awe" for acting AG (and fellow Obama holdover) Sally Yates when she insubordinately refused to enforce Trump's border security order.

Of course, it wouldn't be enough to get the report to Congress. The challenge was to get it there with the obstruction case still viable even though prosecutors knew they couldn't get away with recommending an obstruction indictment. How to accomplish this? By pretending that the OLC guidance prevented prosecutors from even making a charging decision.

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TLDR: Mueller's testimony was bumbling and confusing because he is trying to obfuscate the central premise of his report, which is that his team started with a ludicrous interpretation of the OLC's guidance on indicting a sitting president. They did so because they wanted to bypass the AG and send their report directly to Congress in the hopes of getting Congress to impeach the president, since they did not have evidence enough to indict. Additionally, a recommendation to indict would not have seen the light of day until after Trump was out of office and might not have impacted the next election.

In short, they played pure politics with the entire process. The result of this convoluted baloney was Mueller looking like a dottering old fool in his testimony in order to try to hide/justify his ridiculous premise.

Look, I have my suspicions about the article, even though it's possible. I'm not saying it's not well thought out. I'm just saying it would take exraordinary TDS hatred, the real deal, to formulate this.

It just seems like the damage to the public was worse than setting up the political golf ball on the tee to win in the end.

Keep in mind this is very much about delaying as much and long as possible any political or criminal blowback from all the initial scheming. The investigation was to buy time and separation and cover, and a gamble that they could find or fabricate something to warrant impeachment. It partially succeeded by winning the house for the Dems so they could keep drawing this out to 2020. When they failed to build enough momentum for an effective impeachment or win the senate, they had to start suspecting things were going to fall apart. Now they are just trying to manage the damage and hope for anything to come along and help them for 2020, because they will try to re-bury this far more aggressively if one of them wins somehow.

It really looks like only a very few knew what was going on, and that you had intel (and interested third parties) seeding the soil as much as they distantly could, and a mostly naive (though definitely biased) DoJ reaping the harvest, assuming at at least some level what they were on to was legit, with their bosses blinding them to multiple red flags.

will, I like you but truepundit, without any sources, is not that reliable of a site.

aggiehawg said:

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will, I like you but truepundit, without any sources, is not that reliable of a site.

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Ok ok. I'm the novice here. Ha. I'll do better.

No problem. Just check to see if they are linking to other media reports and if so, link those, too.

I will give truepundit credit though ...

They were the first one to publish something on the FBI agent's arkancide in Austin last week. Eventually some other media caught on but they were the first to put it out there. (5 days post incident, but they were the first).