The Robert Mueller Investigation

[Willfully Horn 8280]

On 1/26/2023 at 10:42 PM, Anastasis said:

 

[Satchel 6983]

Bill Barr is savvy enough to stay legal, but he is without a doubt the most deceitful, unprincipled AG in the last hundred years. I wish there was a way to hold him accountable for the myriad of ways he snookered the American people. The way in which Durham allowed himself to be used and in the process have his good name besmirched, is something that should  become a case study in ethics classes:

https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/3836162-senate-judiciary-mulls-action-amid-fallout-from-durham-probe/

Recent reporting from The New York Times detailed ethical concerns during the probe that prompted numerous staff departures, including concerns over former Attorney General Bill Barr’s involvement in the investigation as well as the decision to proceed to trial with insufficient evidence.

The report also revealed that the Justice Department obscured the nature of the criminal aspect of the probe, failing to disclose that it concerned Trump’s financial dealings rather than misconduct related to the initial investigation into the former president’s ties to Russia.

“These reports about abuses in Special Counsel Durham’s investigation — so outrageous that even his longtime colleagues quit in protest — are but one of many instances where former President Trump and his allies weaponized the Justice Department,” committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said in a statement.

“The Justice Department should work on behalf of the American people, not for the personal benefit of any president. As we wait for the results of ongoing internal reviews, the Senate Judiciary Committee will do its part and take a hard look at these repeated episodes, and the regulations and policies that enabled them, to ensure such abuses of power cannot happen again,” he added.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to request for comment, and Durham and Barr did not respond to the Times story

[Satchel 6983]

Remember when the world stopped because Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch had a brief exchange on the tarmac? Well, now, we have the AG and the lead Prosecutor globe trotting together  in order to thwart justice and the media couldn’t be more bored:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/26/us/politics/durham-trump-russia-barr.html

Interviews by The Times with more than a dozen current and former officials have revealed an array of previously unreported episodes that show how the Durham inquiry became roiled by internal dissent and ethical disputes as it went unsuccessfully down one path after another even as Mr. Trump and Mr. Barr promoted a misleading narrative of its progress.

• Mr. Barr and Mr. Durham never disclosed that their inquiry expanded in the fall of 2019, based on a tip from Italian officials, to include a criminal investigation into suspicious financial dealings related to Mr. Trump. The specifics of the tip and how they handled the investigation remain unclear, but Mr. Durham brought no charges over it.

• Mr. Durham used Russian intelligence memos — suspected by other U.S. officials of containing disinformation — to gain access to emails of an aide to George Soros, the financier and philanthropist who is a favorite target of the American right and Russian state media. Mr. Durham used grand jury powers to keep pursuing the emails even after a judge twice rejected his request for access to them. The emails yielded no evidence that Mr. Durham has cited in any case he pursued.

• There were deeper internal fractures on the Durham team than previously known. The publicly unexplained resignation in 2020of his No. 2 and longtime aide, Nora R. Dannehy, was the culmination of a series of disputes between them over prosecutorial ethics. A year later, two more prosecutors strongly objected to plans to indict a lawyer with ties to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign based on evidence they warned was too flimsy, and one left the team in protest of Mr. Durham’s decision to proceed anyway. (A jury swiftly acquitted the lawyer.)

Now, as Mr. Durham works on a final report, the interviews by The Times provide new details of how he and Mr. Barr sought to recast the scrutiny of the 2016 Trump campaign’s myriad if murky links to Russia as unjustified and itself a crime.

Mr. Barr, Mr. Durham and Ms. Dannehy declined to comment. The current and former officials who discussed the investigation all spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the legal, political and intelligence sensitivities surrounding the topic.

[bernorange 8386]

Quote

Seven and a half years ago, journalism began a tortured dance with Donald Trump, the man who would be the country’s forty-fifth president—first dismissing him, then embracing him as a source of ratings and clicks, then going all in on efforts to catalogue Trump as a threat to the country (also a great source of ratings and clicks).

No narrative did more to shape Trump’s relations with the press than Russiagate. The story, which included the Steele dossier and the Mueller report among other totemic moments, resulted in Pulitzer Prizes as well as embarrassing retractions and damaged careers. For Trump, the press’s pursuit of the Russia story convinced him that any sort of normal relationship with the press was impossible.

For the past year and a half, CJR has been examining the American media’s coverage of Trump and Russia in granular detail, and what it means as the country enters a new political cycle. Investigative reporter Jeff Gerth interviewed dozens of people at the center of the story—editors and reporters, Trump himself, and others in his orbit.

The result is an encyclopedic look at one of the most consequential moments in American media history. ...

https://www.cjr.org/special_report/trumped-up-press-versus-president-ed-note.php?a=home-hero&utm_source=cjr-org&utm_content=homehero

If you click the link there are links just above the headline for parts 1,2,3,4.

 

[wildcat09 29599]

 

Huh, would you look at that?

[VRHorn 732]

Edit - in fairness, Anny was pretty blase about Durham, but a whole bunch of other DT heroes will, I am sure, be by to acknowledge this.

Edited May 15, 2023 by VRHorn

[wildcat09 29599]

25 minutes ago, VRHorn said:

Edit - in fairness, Anny was pretty blase about Durham, but a whole bunch of other DT heroes will, I am sure, be by to acknowledge this.

Ana pretended he wasn't particularly invested in the Durham investigation in much the same way he pretends not to be invested in GOP anti-abortion policies.

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20950]

2 hours ago, wildcat09 said:

 

Huh, would you look at that?

Could you explain this to me like I am five years old?

[Anastasis 23719]

26 minutes ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

Could you explain this to me like I am five years old?

DOJ pulled their objection on a FOIA request related to the Special Counsel investigation. That objection was based on an "ongoing investigation" justification. Thus, the assumption is that pulling that objection reflects that the investigation has concluded. People ostensibly interested in the read out would like to unpack the prosecution declination decisions, specifically wrt a tip that Durham apparently received in Italy regarding financial crimes committed by Trump. 

[Anastasis 23719]

1 hour ago, VRHorn said:

Edit - in fairness, Anny was pretty blase about Durham, but a whole bunch of other DT heroes will, I am sure, be by to acknowledge this.

Here is the report, just released a few minutes ago:

https://www.justice.gov/storage/durhamreport.pdf

 

[jimmyjazz 47284]

"Waiter, I'll have the word salad."

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20950]

21 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

DOJ pulled their objection on a FOIA request related to the Special Counsel investigation. That objection was based on an "ongoing investigation" justification. Thus, the assumption is that pulling that objection reflects that the investigation has concluded. People ostensibly interested in the read out would like to unpack the prosecution declination decisions, specifically wrt a tip that Durham apparently received in Italy regarding financial crimes committed by Trump. 

Either your five year old is exceptionally verbally adroit and has a high degree of verbal acuity or my five-year-old nephew needs a crash course in word usage and grammar. 

Edited May 15, 2023 by Horn Under a Bad Sign

[TwiceHorn 32101]

3 minutes ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

Either your five year old is exceptionally verbally adroit and has a high degree of verbal acuity or my five-year-old nephew needs a crash course in word usage and grammar. 

He explained the original tweet about as well as could be done, and accurately.

But now that we have the report, the Durham investigation is pretty conclusively over, so there's no need to read between the lines as in the original tweet.

[Anastasis 23719]

1 minute ago, TwiceHorn said:

He explained the original tweet about as well as could be done, and accurately.

But now that we have the report, the Durham investigation is pretty conclusively over, so there's no need to read between the lines as in the original tweet.

I don't see anything in the report about the financial crime tip as described by NYT, but that was just based on a quick key word search. 

[Satchel 6983]

Wingers have predictably, moved the goalposts and are now declaring the Durham report a winner for them.

[Aqua Buddha 14808]

 

[TwiceHorn 32101]

Well, the way the Carter Page warrant was obtained was anything but commendable and we should all agree on that.

That's within the margin of "FBI are cops and do shitty things" standard error.

And it should be abundantly clear that Russia believes it has an ally or has made an ally in the Trumpy right wing.

It should also be abudantly clear that Russia sucks and is entirely too close to the Trumpy right wing.

QED Trump sucks.

[Neonmoon 38130]

lol

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/15/us/politics/trump-russia-investigation-durham.html

Quote

The article also described how Mr. Durham used Russian intelligence memos — suspected by other U.S. officials of containing disinformation — to gain access to emails of an aide to George Soros, the liberal philanthropist who is a target of the American right and Russian state media. Mr. Durham shifted to using grand jury powers to obtain the information after a judge twice rejected his request for an order as legally insufficient.

The article also revealed that in the fall of 2019, Italian officials unexpectedly gave Mr. Barr and Mr. Durham a tip about suspected financial crimes linked to Mr. Trump. While the tip was unrelated to the Russia investigation, Mr. Barr had Mr. Durham investigate the matter rather than referring it to another prosecutor. Mr. Durham brought no charges.

Mr. Durham’s report did not mention any of those matters.

Soros! Drink 

[Anastasis 23719]

NYT writer is upset that the storylines that were fed to him by his sources were apparently distractions?

NYT writer is not particularly bright. Let me guess, Charlie Savage, right?

 

 

[Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand 13636]

I think the point was the Durham investigation produced 0 convictions investigating the Mueller "witch hunt" which produced multiple convictions, identified multiple instances of obstruction of justice by then President Trump which weren't prosecuted per DOJ policy (and weren't pursued by radical Dems as grounds for impeachment despite that was one of the grounds Clinton was impeached), in addition to spurring multiple federal investigations into potential illegal actions by Trump that weren't under Mueller's purview, while Durham refused when presented with the same opportunity. 

Which investigation more closely matches the definition of a witch hunt and weaponisation of the DOJ?

[hpslugga 4097]

11 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Well, the way the Carter Page warrant was obtained was anything but commendable and we should all agree on that.

That's within the margin of "FBI are cops and do shitty things" standard error.

And it should be abundantly clear that Russia believes it has an ally or has made an ally in the Trumpy right wing.

It should also be abudantly clear that Russia sucks and is entirely too close to the Trumpy right wing.

QED Trump sucks.

As I’ve often said even before the Mueller Report was released, even if the very worst of the allegations about Trump re: Russia were 100% true, they barely constitute a blip on the radar in terms of the shittiest things he’s done since 2015.

I do love seeing all his sycophantic followers gushing over this news as if it changes everything…or even anything. Reminds me of…

 

[wildcat09 29599]

They're running out the tried-and-true playbook of just blatantly lie about it:

 

 

[jimmyjazz 47284]

Bowels AND highest levels?  Wow!

[Neonmoon 38130]

6 hours ago, wildcat09 said:

They're running out the tried-and-true playbook of just blatantly lie about it:

 

 

In no way does the report show any of that. It talks about Clinton authorizing her campaign to connect Trump to Russia. The FBI started their investigation before they even knew about Steele dossier 

[WhatTheBuck 28938]

Pretty clever the way Hillary got Trump to negotiate with the Russians during the campaign about building a Trump Tower in Moscow and deny that he was doing it. She really is the ultimate puppet master. 

[TwiceHorn 32101]

26 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

In no way does the report show any of that. It talks about Clinton authorizing her campaign to connect Trump to Russia. The FBI started their investigation before they even knew about Steele dossier 

The most damning thing the report says is that the FBI suffered from "confirmation bias" during the investigation, and notes that it is unintentional.

[TwiceHorn 32101]

Also, it occurs to me that, apart from 4th Amendment problems with FISA warrants, it's just a fucking investigation.

If the investigation doesn't result in bad charges, it's kind of who gives a fuck?  

An investigation that occurs without bad convictions or civil rights violations is like a tree falling in the forest with no one to hear it.

[WhatTheBuck 28938]

Trump obstructed justice and got away with it. 

[Biff Tannen 46197]

I hate when this thread is bumped.

[Longhorn_Fan68 34106]

12 hours ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Trump obstructed justice and got away with it. 

which time?