I am losing all faith in Americans doing the right thing.
128
@Rob Brown
"I am losing all faith in Americans doing the right thing."
That was sort of the point behind the Trump administration though, wasn't it?
Although, I might qualify "Americans" aren't the ones doing the wrong thing. Trump was not popularly elected. Some Americans support wrong over right. However, I would never throw my hat into the same ring as President Trump.
I felt the same way explaining Bush II to Europeans when I was very young. "I'm sorry. I agree with you but I'm not allowed to vote yet," was my standard response.
9
@Rob Brown
May I suggest that you read all the comments here before "losing all faith in Americans doing the right thing"?
After all, THIS is what a REAL Democracy looks like.
It's called the right to dissent, and it's also covered by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Now is not the time to lose faith.
It's the time to VOTE!
19
@Rob Brown, sadly, the day they attacked Iraq, post 9/11, we lost all faith. We no longer trusted America to do the right thing.
10
I have given up on this once great nation, the nation I gave 4 years of my life during the Vietnam War. I have contacted several real estate agents in Canada to help me find a new place to live. Not ready to give up my citizenship, but that is now “on the table”.
152
@Vietnam Veteran
I serve Vietnam War and spend 32 years Military will fight High crime of President Donald Trump and will not go to Canada. But to serve America People.
29
@Vietnam Veteran: First of all, thank you for your service during a troubled time in our history. I would suggest you hold off on your decision on moving to Canada until you are sure you want to renounce your citizenship. There is still much to be thankful for by being a citizen of this country, regardless of how many idiots from both parties occupy Washington, D.C.
17
@Vietnam Veteran Don’t go. Please.
26
It's beyond obvious that Barr is using HOM -- for Harm to Ongoing Matter -- as his blanket excuse to black out page after page of Mueller's report.
This is purposefully vague.
The Democrats need to get an unredacted report by any means necessary.
There is absolutely no reason that a small House committee couldn't see an uncensored report.
Barr is so obviously shilling for Trump that it is plain to see he's doing what he was hired to do: writing another summary that obscures the truth.
The Democrats need to get a hold of an unredacted copy ANY way they can so they can see all the key things Barr left out.
If they find too many that were just detrimental to Trump, Barr needs to be disbarred or impeached.
3
I see a cartoon of Mr. Barr standing before a wall on which the Constitution has been written. Paint brush in hand, he is about done painting the wall black. It could include his little buddy with the red hair, painting with a smaller brush, but smiling hugely.
3
The hard --and obvious-- fact is, the entire Republican Party has become the Cult of Trump. We can "thank" the Senate Republicans for Barr's approval as AG, in spite (or, more likely, because) of his blatant partisanship and his ability to overlook or to play down Trump's unethical, illegal behavior.
The House Republicans are an even more lickspittle bunch. Witness its inability to see anything at all, right, wrong or indifferent during its "investigation" into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Through the late 40's, the 50's and 60's and into the 70's, clandestine "cells" of communists (i.e. Russian sympathizers led by actual Russian spies) were perceived as the greatest threat to America's future. It turns out that the Russians needn't have bothered with that effort. All it had to do was wait until technology provided the means, and for Americans to elect enough partisan idealogues in the party most susceptible to conspiracy theories, which then put forth as its candidate for president the worst of a plethora of bad choices. And when all those dominoes were lined up, all it took was one little nudge, and the predictions of the 50's came true.
For four years, anyway. If it lasts for one day longer than four years, our long term future is bleak, very bleak.
1
I am really curious how the American people will take this report. The world is watching, folks.
2
May be Robert Mueller's testimony before the House of Representatives could help dispel the doubts surrounding the redacted Mueller report while also exposing the spin master William Barr.
2
How about Mueller testifying before Congress? As a citizen he can explain exactly what he meant.
4
Mr. Barr, Mr. Nineteen Page Gratuitous Kiss Up To The Donald, gets made AG and then pays off the donald with a whitewash. Absolutely both parties must see the full report, and the American people should see the report with minimal redactions.
5
Trump has worked hard as he can to polarize the country. His lies and insults and distortions have succeeded in producing a polarized public that is angry and feactured. Trump ends up breaking the rules and the law to cover up his misdeeds and intentions and his attempts at this keep getting worse and more damming. And it keeps getting worse because Trumps keeps on doing more unlawful acts to cover up the cover-ups. He thinks because he is president he can do what he wants and nothing is further from the truth because all he understands is to be a type of mafia boss. Trump is his own worst enemy, and he has succeeded in coopting all those around him in his distorted sense of his predicament. This unholy mess has to be straightened out before we end up in an even worse and more dangerous and intractible situation. We need to break the cycle.
Unfortunately, Trump is what he is and what you see is what you will continue to get with Trump. Good luck with that.
3
Why is this Trump scandal the worst in a history replete with presidential scandals?
Because Watergate, Iran-Contra, and the fake WMD's were webs of deceit designed to by-pass the Constitutional authority of the Congress (Iran-Contra), insure a president's reelection (Watergate), or hoodwink the nation into an unnecessary and ultimately catastrophic war (Colin Powell at the UN).
But Trump's lies serve no presumed higher purpose, no national interest, however misconstrued: no, Trump lies purely for personal reasons--to further bloat his bank account and his ego--and now that Barr has insulated his president from accountability we must turn the case of Trump's behavior over to mental health professionals.
What makes a man like Trump literally debase every institution we Americans are supposed to hold sacred? And what causes "the party of Lincoln" to defend him?
2
I've heard that Barr has the authority to shut down all of the State of NY investigations into Trump and his finances. I wouldn't be surprised if he does that.
1
In a rare moment of comity, the House Intelligence Committee chairman, Adam Schiff, and the ranking member, Devin Nunes, sent a letter to Mr. Barr last month demanding “full visibility into the Special Counsel’s Office’s report, findings, and underlying evidence and information.”
Methinks Nunes senses the walls are closing in on him and keeping his pitiful job.....otherwise he'd continue to sell out America.
2
We need more of this. Thank you NYT editors for this clear and concise context.. you are extremely important voices of leadership and reason in this swampy mess of our greatest threat to democratic ideology
2
Based upon his 4 page summary and yesterday's "press conference" Mr. Barr has demonstrated he is not suited to the job as Attorney General and the Nation cannot put its' trust in the fact he would do the right thing. Impeach Barr.
4
These are not Barr's redactions; he did not make these redactions on his presonal whim as this editorial implies. Redactions are made according to Federal guidelines and the people who make the redactions are trained to do it. Moreover, the rules for classification/declassification of information is codified by Executive Order; the current EO on classification was signed by none other than Barrack Hussein Obama. So this redaction process is being done according to Obama policy! So many contradictions! At any rate, I support the President. I support Trump. America first! Never last! MAGA! Thank you.
2
What an era when such an editorial is set forth but undoubtedly lost on the AG.
Maybe our attorney general should be "dis Barred."
1
Having gotten away with 'high crimes and misdemeanors' in his 1st term, during his 2nd term the rot will grow exponentially. Expect a GOP drumbeat to repeal the 22nd amendment. Or to find a permanent way around that obstacle.
Look at the ugly smirk on Barr's face. Look at Mr. Rosenstein, frightened, what is he so very fearful of? And the man on the right of Barr, fear also. Who is this person anyway, the photo does not reveal this information.
This corrupt family, this corrupt A.G., this corrupt administration needs to be dismantled, bit by bit, jailed, and pushed and dragged to prison. No pardons, no more MAGA, it is way past the time to vote the monsters out. My support right now is for Mayor Buttigieg. He can definitely take down this criminal organization.
1
no matter what this report, or any report, demonstrates, Trumps 38-40% of the republican party will never stray from him. They like his racism, xenophobia and his pandering to the religious right on issues like abortion, transgendered people, and discriminating against gay people.
To republicans and the religious right it is no longer WWJD it is WWTD-to-let-them-keep-spewing-hate.
1
"The Trump administration hasn’t earned the benefit of the doubt from the American people."
What the so-called president and his administration of liars, crooks, outright criminals and in-house scapegoats have earned is our well placed SUSPICION....and eventual prosecution.
The release of Mr. Barr's March 26, 2019 white-washing and cover-up for Donald Trump and labeling of his summary letter as Mueller's Report was too galling. What's hard to swallow is this man's willingness to tell transparent lies in real time. So this morning's news briefing came as no surprise. What was stunning and alarming, was Barr's arrogance that "Robert Mueller wrote this report for me". How stupid is that? Doesn't he realize that "We The People: the taxpayers, paid for this investigation and the resulting report? This guy, Barr, has no credibility, he lies as easy as Trump.
1
Who in their right mind believes Trump ? And Barr is a terrible actor . It’s so obvious that Barr is only there to protect Trump. It was as if Barr was told to go out there and keep saying
“ no collusion , no collusion”
What a joke . It’s depressing.
Trump's supporters are demonstrating their complete ignorance of what the Mueller report says. They are mistaking Barr's words for Mueller's. Barr is nothing more than Trump's political lackey! Barr is not "redacting" Mueller's report, he is rewriting it.
Attorney General Barr must resign immediately.
He lies as much as his boss.
He has destroyed his credibility in but weeks. He cannot remain in office.
He is a shill without a shred of integrity.
Again, just like his boss.
I agree totally with The NYT assessment. What a dog and pony show. Disgusting and he should be fired also. There is no honesty in Trump's Washington.
The vaunted report has become as cloaked in secrecy as Trump taxes.
If our esteemed leader is so squeaky cleans, what's he worried about? What's he hiding?
Exonerated??? Hogwash!
1
I can't believe that I now miss Jeff Sessions; who would have thought that such could come to pass?
It shows just how much trouble we are in as a country!
If this were president Hillary Clinton, then the Republicans - all across the country, in every town, in every borough and in every suburb would be boiling the tar, sharpening the pitchforks and marching on Washington en mass- threatening mayhem and destruction!
But, alas, we won't hear a peep from them on this!
In their eyes, court judges, abortion as murder laws and public funds for religious causes and protecting Israel are enough to justify all this lying, cheating and theft and anti-democratic behavior by the Trump clan.
Trump and his advocates lie through their teeth; they brush them with mendacity and gargle with turpitude.
Just another Trump stooge. Reputation permanently damaged
1
Too depressed to even comment.
Who should we trust ? The NY Times objective reporting ? Should we be enforcing one party rule (which this paper clearly supports) ? Let's let Muller do his job. Barr is a trusted legal expert.........
Muller clearly didn't come to the conclusion the NYT wanted, he's obviously now a dottering old fool, Barr a Trump coverup guy, etc etc..... I believe Maduro used these tactics to take control of Venezuela.
This report is Barr’s sanitized version. And it’s still pretty damning.
Only thoughtful, bright people who understand the necessity of the rule of law and are educated to patiently sort out details will understand the Muller report. This is really a great tragedy for our country. Democracy is only as capable as the people that make up the democracy. This is why education is so important. We need to support public education and we need to restore civics in our schools so kids can learn about their government. We need to mandate civics for immigrants so they too will understand how democracy works. There is a great ignorance out there about how our government actually works and about the details of the process of governing. Government officials are servants of this process and of the people. Trump needs this education badly, but he refuses to try to learn, which is the root of all this dysfunction.
1
It isn't clear from this what you think the unredacted version would reveal, beyond a symbolic act of transparency. The conclusions are already clear for all to see; the redacted material won't change the finding on collusion, and it's disingenuous of you to imply that it might.
3
Mr. Meuller's burden of proof is much higher than that of the court of public opinion. Since it is the members of this court that decide who is elected to office, maximum transparency is requires for this court to render an accurate verdict.
1
Who knows, maybe somewhere deep in the report there is a hidden line that justifies the total war that has been waged on an elected president.
2
@Dimitris Politis
Waging war does not mean what you pretend to think it means.
@Dimitris Politis, let us hope our congress has people who are not attention deficit and who can actually read the entire document and digest it fully.
Maybe? Did you say, "Maybe."? Muller's report says that there was not enough evidence to prove collusion beyond a reasonable doubt. Mueller says his report doesn't in any way exonerate Trump of collusion. Do you know what the words, "... does not exonerate, " means? Mueller could not have been more specific.
1
Despite his claims to the contrary, Rosenstein wholly went along with this sham of an AG. The optics tell it all.
5
Trust Barr?
Look at him.
He is a man who likes his meat well done.
Look at the report he redacted and gave to the American people.
It is blackened from the roasting he gave it.
There is nothing left to it.
And yet, we know Mueller gave him a good cut of meat.
Like Barr's boss, there is a lot of fat in the report.
Trump has been hanging from a hook, like one of his steaks, ready for a real grilling.
6
The entire Democratic Party platform now revolves around the axis of "Russiagate", a giant garbage fire conspiracy theory.
Not climate change, not economic injustice, not foreign wars, not health care, no, a giant conspiracy theory.
And many millions of people will never let go of their now internalized beliefs.
The whole 3 year episode culminating in this day shows how cultish the media is. They are a doomsday cult whose Day of Judgment has come and passed. But they will cling to their faith using contortions of mind that looks dangerously close to causing permanent damage. For some of the most deranged like Marcy Wheeler, Rachel Maddow, Seth Abramson and their readers, it has likely already caused serious damage to their mental health.
But the worst part is not the rot in the media. It's that this is helping push various nations closer to war with Russia. Europe, Canada and the US are spending billions they can ill afford on armaments and bases to encircle Russia. Just imagine what could have been accomplished had they strived for peace.
But continuing to fantasize about obstruction or impeachment is so much easier than mounting an actual Resistance effort.
Having an actual resistance effort would include changing the political leadership and direction of the Democratic Party, which is D.O.A. as a topic, so apparently it’s best to keep this circus going through 2020, virtually guaranteeing a Trump 2020 win.
5
What was Barr's legal grounds for releasing the Mueller report first to the White House? He gives the appearance of actings as Trump's consigliere.
10
Trump may be a total crazy man but he's correct that all this stemmed from an attempted illegal take down. This obsession with obstruction is a total joke. Trump was within his rights to fire Comey -- and it is a joke that this Board was still printing commentary from Comey up to a few short weeks ago. The surveillance of the Trump campaign and the corruption in the FBI should be the lead and starting point for all commentary of this whole debacle.
3
@Sam, you do realize as a country we are run by "a total crazy man", your own words.
1
@Sam
Individual-1 is NOT “within his rights to fire” anyone if he does so with a criminal intent.
Barr lost whatever little credibility he had. Congress needs to see the full report.
6
So, let's make sure the television networks and cable channels do not agree to broadcast a nation-wide Presidential message...
...until Attorney General Barr releases the full - unredacted - report to Congress; our duly elected representatives.
That would be us...the employer of Congress.
This is...a democracy, people.
Not a reality show.
3
Just goes to show once again that anyone who enters Trump's orbit and ventures too close to the center gets burned. Barr can change his name to Mudd.
2
I for one haven't given up on this country as some I read here are. I think the House should call in Mueller, ask him point blank that based on what he found and the legal perimeters, did he want the House to take the ball and look into this further. If the answer is yes then impeachment should begin, leave no stone unturned, prosecute to the fullest. If the Senate republicans try to obstruct, open investigations into them as well. Time to stop looking weak democrats, if you do what needs to be done and you all lose in an election then hold your heads high and know you did the right thing for the country. As for Barr, I'm still upset over Iran Contra, I remember how upset and disappointed I was that all the criminals in that case were let off the hook, this is just the second chapter of the same thing for him...
4
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms it will be because we destroyed ourselves." -- Abraham Lincoln
6
Prosecutors are vicious people. They are trained to twist facts into evidence so they can put people in jail. If Mueller had anything he would've labeled Trump an unindicted co-star conspirator, at the very least. He had no trouble going after over 30 people and disrupting the lives of countless more. If there was anything there, he would've pounced. The establishment can't believe that this guy won the presidency and will almost certainly be re-elected. There are many people like me out there that voted Hillary or for a third party candidate and are now firmly in the Trump camp. A big tax cut and great economy, along with a great Israel and middle east policy will do that. Keep this up and Trump will win in 2020 in a landslide.
3
@MJG
Individual-1 IS an unindicted co-conspirator. That’s why he is Individual-1.
Barr's motive? He has his eye on Ruth's position on the Supreme Court. Trump could make it happen for him.
4
John Mitchell was also our attorney general. By now we shouldn't be surprised in AGs who are basically the personal attorney of of their president.
2
Sadly, the Mueller report is part of a political process that in normal times would have led quickly to the impeachment of Donald Trump. But even more sadly, these are not normal times. We have a Republican Party that is more loyal to Trump than to the Constitution that they've sworn to obey and uphold, and thus the normal process of our democracy has been corrupted. It's clear that Donald Trump is a "clear and present danger" to the Constitution and the democratic institutions it supports. However, Robert Mueller felt constrained by Justice Department policy that prohibits indicting a president. But the national emergency we are facing with a president installed with the help of a foreign government whose aid he publicly welcomed with "Russia if you are listening" demands that precedent be ignored given the threat we are facing. The situation is dire and inaction will only take us further down the path from democracy to autocracy.
15
I have been a registered Republican for decades. Unfortunately the Republican Party has ceased to be a legitimate vehicle for expression of political preference. From the moment it became clear Mueller's frame of reference for the investigation was defined in terms of criminal liability the likelihood of a "successful" investigation turned extraordinarily small just because of the difficulty of proving willful and structured collaboration beyond a reasonable doubt. But as even the redacted version of the Mueller report indicates there is ample evidence of cooperation and communication with a foreign power, and Donald Trump's behavior as president demonstrates he embraces his relationship with that power far more tightly than he does his oath of office. Whether is is a witless pawn, the victim of blackmail, or a paid agent is immaterial.....the Republican Party should have removed him from office and claimed it made a great sacrifice for the national good. As it is every Republican in Congress needs to be removed from office as unindicted collaborators with an individual who is a national security threat. Were Trump actually exonerated he would have released the unredacted document 3 weeks ago. I find it plausible that William Barr was promised the next Supreme Court availability as long as Republicans hold the Senate. Corrupt practices are not necessarily illegal but should not be tolerated. A party embracing corruption as its operational code is no longer legitimate.
28
@usa999
A most intelligent comment. Though it seems highly unlikely that Barr, being in his late 60’s, would ever get nominated by Individual-1.
It is disappointing you choose to undermine your argument by using "censored" to describe the report, especially when you admit the redactions are valid. You then argue Barr can't be trusted, but assume Congress can, when you know they will leak everything, on a selective basis. Your paranoia and disappointment are clear. Move on to getting one of your candidates elected if you can't trust Barr and his colleagues.
2
Shall we just say that Barr should be barred from making public announcements and that the President should be debarred from making proclamations on Twitter.
4
Did the Trump campaign collude, Billy Barr, Billy Barr?
Did the Trump campaign collude, loyal Billy?
Although Putin helped him win,
Trump did not invite him in.
I’m a big fan of Presidential power.
Did Mr. Trump obstruct, Billy Barr, Billy Barr?
Did Mr. Trump obstruct, loyal Billy?
Although Mueller said, “Could be!”
I’ve declared him clear and free.
I’m a big fan of Presidential power.
Can we see the whole report, Billy Barr, Billy Barr?
Can we see the whole report, loyal Billy?
I may let you fume and squirm,
Until Donald’s second term.
I’m a big fan of Presidential power.
9
As Barr was hired PRECISELY to run interference for the traitor in the WH, and he lobbied hard to get that job, NO ONE should trust Barr. He is NOT the U.S. Attorney General, he's just the traitor's shield from actual justice, and OUR Justice Department has been derailed, and has forever lost any semblance of judicial independence.
This is how wannabe dictators operate. That we have a "political party" that WILL NOT stand up and defend the Constitution from this despot is both pathetic and treasonous. McConnell is as much a traitor as is the man in the WH. And that man does NOT have the support of veterans.
15
The God Father got his man in Barr. This whole thing is a fiasco.
Trump & his gang are guilty as sin & Trump must be Impeached.
12
And we should trust an opinionated report from the most liberal paper in America. Please!!
TRUMP 2020
MAGA
2
If I was inclined to photoshop this story's photo, here's the outcome:
Barr, wearing a MAGA hat, flanked by Guiliani and Hannity.
7
Didn't see editorials like this when AG Eric Holder was serving President Obama! Not only didn't we see editorials like this, but I'd give 1000 - 1 odds if Eric Holder was the Democratic nominee for President the NYT editors would come out with sympathetic glowing support of his candidacy!
2
@Dennis
Holder was not "serving President Obama". Holder was serving the American People. Important distinction ....
5
@Dennis
AG Holder did not engineer the pardons of the Iran-Contra criminals.
The Trump family are behind Barr's.
2
I sure wished the Editorial Board provided as much scrutiny and non-stop coverage to actual, well-documented crimes such as the WAR CRIMES committed by the last two administrations.
Yet all you hear is absolutely nothing.
3
@Chris
Point made. But that was then. This is NOW.
While all of this is “fascinating” ... there is a MUCH BIGGER crime happening daily, and with AT LEAST as much ruinous, and lasting effect to our people and country.
45’s administration, cabinet, children, advisors, et al are a kleptocracy at every level that they can slither into — rewriting laws, not enforcing others to make themselves and their friends rich.
While the nation is transfixed on Russia and obstruction of justice (which is historically bad, don’t get me wrong, and should rightly put multitudes in jail) — we appear to pay no attention to the things this administration is doing to make the next 4 decades years of clawing our way back to a fair and just society.
I say, have your crying jag, or rant today at the state of the Mueller Lite report... but tomorrow — start paying attention to all the THOUSANDS of other things 45 and his minions are doing to rape this country of everything from clean air and water to a moments rest from telemarketers calling your mobile to the point you never answer it anymore.
Sad to say, but there are MANY worse things than Russia, conspiracy and obstruction. You’re paying attention to the shiny object. Look away to see the real damage, and then volunteer, pledge time, money or both to get out the vote in your neighborhood. And let’s vote 45 and the Republicans that support him out of office. It’s our only hope.
5
Barr is yet another (white, Republican, Trumpian, power and/or money seeking) hack) who can stand at microphone or compose 'summarizing/non-summarizing letters -- while his pants are engulfed in flames.
Dis-bar the man, and, perhaps, go on to Dis-Barr this Nation for allowing daily lies, borderline treason, and the failure to fulfill the Presidential oath of office by Trump & his swamp to get this far.
Thank God for the 'Free Press', and thank God for the professionalism of Mueller's group of investigators. Now we will turn to see what the integrity and functionality of Congress and the adult American public are.
That said, I find the whole 'Mueller had narrow focus' thing lacking in wisdom, common sense, and truly inadequate.
There is and was obstruction of justice in and out of plain sight, and a conspiracy/no conspiracy thing going on too. That if you merely distribute hacked info you are not guilty like if you did hacked it.... a real slight of hand that invites chaos and criminality in our future leadership or misleadership. If you brag about, encourage others, and receive stolen materials do you go to jail?
There is a GOP-assisted, deepening corporate coup happening, and our democracy, healthcare, economies and more, including knowing 'the truth' when we see it -- that lies in the balance. Russia's 'virtual 9/11', like Trumps failure to to carry out his sworn duties must not be allowed to set new precedents!
Call you Congressperson - insist on impeachment.
3
The more details we know about Muller's report, the more damning it looks, and the more partisan Barr looks. It looks like a slam dunk obstruction case, as clearly stated in Muller's report.
3
OK...but I recall the NYT running a banner headline all day the day Barr provided his 4 page "summary," w a headline simply restating Barr's claim that the report exonerated our game show host president. Glad to see a change of heart here, pls do more like that in future, take everything this admin says w more than a grain of salt...put statements in quotes...and no euphemisms for the verifiable lies. Thanks, we need a critical press now more than ever.
1
“Don’t just trust Barr”
How about- Don’t trust Barr. But then based on Iran-Contra we should have known that.
He fooled the NYT once then, and again a few weeks ago with his memorandum.
He is not the one to be shamed. The Times is. Fooled twice, and now gullible enough that when the third attempt happened this morning, and the times bought in hook line and sinker until other news outlets read the redacted Mueller report.
Now the NYT says don’t Trust only him. The desire to protect both sides is immoral and stupid.
I calll on the editorial staff of the Times to resign. They are more compromised than Trump, and honestly now have less morals.
2
It's time to impeach Barr.
3
Re: "...Don’t Trust Barr. Verify His Redactions.
The Trump administration hasn’t earned the benefit of the doubt from the American people. Both parties must see the uncensored Mueller report..." {NYT's Editorial_Board}
...Phew!
Finally, we have the Barr_Report; Now: ...what about the, (unabridged), Mueller_Report? I'd love to read / set, each tome side x side, and compare them for, ('Factual', Vs. 'Alternate_Factual'...), accuracy / context / conflict!
Do we have subpoena('s) / date('s), for Robert Mueller, 'N, others to appear before the... / ...various committees, yet?
1
Can someone please tell me why Mueller does not give the entire report, without the magic marker decor, to the House and Senate. We paid for it, we own it, we want to see it.
3
For some perspective, I think it's good to consider what things would have been like had Hillary been elected.
I don't mean to go into where the Republicans would have gone trying to impeach Hillary for her email gaffes; rather, you would have had Trump, whining to half the country like a spoiled child, pursuing his Russian Trump Tower deal. Russia would be delighting in a country maybe even more split than it is now, because of Donald Trump.
In short, Trump was and is willing to sell his country's credibility to benefit his bank account, and Russia is the beneficiary of all that.
Look at how putrid Barr's reputation now is and will be. Others have said Trump feeds on the credibility of others (associates, the Republican Party, the country, Barr, etc.).
2020 can't come soon enough, so long as Trump is pushed aside to the dustbin of history.
3
When you read the part of the report concerning Don McGhan and his resignation..you see the difference between he and Comey. Both believed the same thing regarding Trump...but they each reacted in opposite ways. Too many in Trump's Administration simply resigned or were fired and left the public eye without explanation. Seems they weren't looking out for the country as well as they should have. The Democrats in Congress are doing the oversight we need them to do !! Support for this Putin endorsed President is simply unAmerican !!
4
To those who claim President Trump obstructed justice- did he fire Mueller? Did he allow him to finish the investigation without impediment? Did he or anyone in his campaign collude with Russia ? What crime then, did he commit that he was trying to obstruct? The report shows there is nothing more to investigate. Time to move on, except those who want to politicize the investigation. The USA deserves better.
2
The number of times I have seen lawyers fall into the "cleverness trap" is remarkable - and Barr just did.
What is the cleverness trap? To put it in simple terms, people who get into elite law schools are clever - often very clever, smarter than the "average bear." This is an advantage and a pitfall. The cleverness trap consists in overestimating your own cleverness - and underestimating the counterparties - in coming up with a tricky scheme that depends on they're not being smart enough to see through it.
The trouble with the cleverness trap is that if you "get busted," the people you thought would fall for it are insulted and furious and ready to teach you a lesson. Barr has waltzed into the "cleverness trap."
2
More fishing expedition. We were told by Dems for 2 years that Mueller would have the last word. Well, he obliterated the collusion story and the obstruction charge is so wafer thin as to be meaningless. Obstruct an investigation when there was no crime?
Obstruction because he told some people to fire Mueller, they didn't do it, and then Trump never followed through? Huh?
You want obstruction? How about destroying 30K emails that are under subpoena? That is real obstruction.
2
Cartoonish and ham-fisted handling by AG Wm. Barr-Sinister...!
Bring Barr before the TV and Radio talk show circuit, as WE need to hear him explain a thing or two about how he came to his ‘conclusions’ and on his track record, before he became tRump’s Sherpa and caddie.
I hope Roseanne Barr disowns him outright.
1
Barr has perjured himself before congress during his nomination.He has obstructed justice by his "summaries"of the Mueller report.He has stained the constitution by his actions.There is no reason for anyone to hear anything he has to say.He should either be fired or resign and then charged for the above crimes and serve time in jail.Barr is a criminal.
1
We should concentrate our energies on uniting and voting in 2020 and enacting legislation to tighten the rules re collusion and conspiracy.
Unite, and vote! Get out the vote
1
Congressmen are notorious for leaking information. They cannot be trusted with an unredacted version of the Mueller report.
1
@john holcomb
Benghazi and Whitewater were different because Republics never leak.
It’s critical that Mr. Barr immediately initiate an aggressive investigation into FBI spying on the Trump campaign. It will be the Feds’ task to show why they deemed it necessary to look into the the antics of the Trump Ship
Of Fools.
@Victor
When you meet 100+ times with Russian agents who are under surveillance then you get surveilled, so give it up with the “spying” bogusness.
If a foreign power aided in electing Trump in any capacity, his administration is illegitimate. Resignation or impeachment.
2
Barr before becoming AG: "The Mueller investigation is illegitimate and should not be trusted."
Barr as AG: "Mueller says Trump did nothing wrong!"
So if an illegitimate, untrustworthy investigator has cleared Trump after a fraudulent investigation... the results are of course fraudulent and the opposite is in fact true.
2
Obviously.
I hope the Times staff is hard at work counting (where possible) the letters of the censored names - and its legal team preparing a brief calling for at least an in-camera hearing where a federal judge reveals the censored material and allows arguments demanding that most of the “threatens ongoing investigation” nonsense (as if the Russian citizens indicted would ever be extradited, or leave home for any nation where they could be arrested), the naming of unindicted co-conspirators who are already pubic figures even if only so because of the investigation - especially if the names are Trump Family members, and that favorite “revelation of information gathering technique” - which often comes down to “we interviewed everyone at the meeting” or some other “secret” method of gathering material.
"Both parties must see the uncensored version of the Mueller Report." Interesting choice of words. The report has not been censored; it has been redacted of information for very legitimate national security reasons. One reason, the protection of sources and methods, is essential to protecting our freedom as Americans, the freedom for which the patriots fought and died. Sources and methods refer to the ways that the USG collects information, or to put another way, spies on foreign adversaries (and allies, if need be). In order for one to have access to that kind of information, one has to undergo an extensive background investigation, take a counterintelligence polygraph test, and a lifestyle polygraph. As far as I am concerned, the results of the lifestyle polygraph are most important, as they determine the moral integrity of the individual accessing the information. The individual's lifestyle must be representative of one worthy of entrusting the nation's secrets, otherwise, America is doomed. Before November 6, 2016, America was, as Barry McGuire sang in the 1960s, "on the eve of destruction." But since the election of Donald Trump that is no longer the case. It has been restored. The Mueller Report indicates that. But the liberal opposition will do what it can to spin the facts in their direction. The only problem with that is that Americans who think for themselves are not listening. I support the President. I support Trump. America First! Never last! MAGA! Thank you.
1
@Southern Boy
You do realize that that involves something far more than "liberal opposition", don't you?
Obviously not.
Sorry. But only someone who truly believes in "America First! Never last!" knows that.
Thank you.
@Southern Boy
Individual-1 would never pass any of the background investigations nor the ‘tests’ you refer to.
To paraphrase Strother Martin in "Cool Hand Luke" -"what we have here is a DELIBERATE failure of communication by A.G. Barr." May he suffer the same consequences as John Mitchell. To lie and protect Trump speaks volumes about Barr's lack of ethics. He belongs in the Hall of Shame alongside Sanders, Miller, Kushner, Mnuchin, Flynn, Trump Jr., Melania, ad nauseum.
1
There remain the meetings with Putin since the election. What did they discuss?
2
@Jean Travis
Money ?
Read Mueller Report, Vol. II, pages 180-181
Quote:
In sum, contrary to the position taken by the President's counsel, we concluded that, in light of the Supreme Court precedent governing separation-of-powers issues, we had a valid basis for investigating the conduct at issue in this report. In our view, the application of the obstruction statutes would not impermissibly burden the President's performance of his Article II function to supervise prosecutorial conduct or to remove inferior law-enforcement officers. And the protection of the criminal justice system from corrupt acts by any person-including the President- accords with the fundamental principle of our government that "[n]o [person] in this country is so high that he is above the law." United States v. Lee, 106 U.S. 196, 220 (1882); see also Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. at 697; United States v. Nixon, supra.
End Quote
I wonder if the statement “contrary to the position taken by the President's counsel” also includes AG William Barr without explicitly mentioning him. Mueller had to have known of Barr’s position before the report was finalized.
For those who are not lawyers, United States v. Lee, 106 U.S. 196, 220 (1882) is a citation to a US Supreme Court decision.
2
NYT is absolutely correct. The whole administration can't be trusted. This includes my worry about our national security. When will people, particularly the leaders in both houses enabling the president realize the present and clear danger?
1
The final paragraph of this editorial nails it--the importance of what happens with this report is so much bigger than Trump his crew of con men, and his (not to be mistaken for the US's) AG.
To Rep. Nadler: Please get the full report, get the grand jury testimony and tell us (the People) anything that won't imperil witnesses or ongoing litigation.
1
Let the process roll. I know it's infuriatingly slow, but I believe that we are still a nation of people who are interested in the common good. At least, I hope that is so. We are not subjects of a monarchy or dictatorship. When Trump says game over, he is wrong! It's not a game and it isn't fantasy, it is the integrity of our nation, our lives and our freedom that is at stake. Don't avert your eyes or attention from this important moment.
4
It may very well be that there is insufficient evidence to successfully pursue a case in court; happens all the time.
This does not make Trump innocent. It also doesn't make him legally guilty either. However, the report does reveal what many of us already feel, this president is an embarrassment to our country because of how he acts. I rue the day he was elected by a minority of voters and look forward to the day he is gone so we can begin the work of repairing the destruction he will inevitably leave behind.
7
One can no longer have faith in our Democratic government - the system of checks and balances is no longer working and I believe Mr. Trump may be heading to another win in 2020. Since he has never acknowledged the Russian interference in the 2016 elections they, of course, will have free rein to do whatever is necessary to have their favorite candidate continue this lawless presidency. I am sure that Mr. Trump's acolytes will be aware of this, but will do nothing to stop it. I hope that Mr. Mueller will give us more access to his very ambiguous conclusions when and if he appears before the Judiciary committee. That is the only light at the end of this very dark tunnel. I fear for this Democracy with Mr. Trump in total power. It is wise to remember Lord Acton's famous quotation "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
5
@Gladys
And it's also wise to remember the recent Midterm elections restored the checks and balances system back to American government when WE, THE PEOPLE voted the Republican Party out of their strangle hold on the Judicial, Executive and Legislature.
Now is not the time to give-up.
Now is the time to VOTE!
5
@Gladys Attention: warning, the republicans will be stealing and manipulating the 2020 elections just as they did in 1876, 2001, 2004, 2016. Stop them at all costs no matter what! Pass this along to all you know.
2
Impeachment is a political process. The only question that has ever mattered is whether 34 Senators will block conviction.
During 2018 when the Democrats were concerned with winning control of the House, Trump and his supporters focused on insuring that there were at least 34 Senators personally loyal to Trump.
Defying Congress's constitutional checks and balances is not enough. Committing felonies is not enough. Trump's done that and been there, with only excuses coming from the Republicans. The media avoids the criminality of Trump's actions.
Since Trump is so concerned about allegations of conspiracy with Putin, I would guess that is the breaking point for Trump's support in the Senate.
In which case the classified information provided to the Congressional Oversight committees from the counterintelligence investigation is the only thing that matters to Trump's political future. Stuff that will never be released to anyone that doesn't have a Top Secret Clearance and a need to know. Unfortunately because of the high secrecy, the Republican Senators could ignore even treason without the public ever knowing, and Democrats being unable to go public with the facts.
2
I support all efforts for the entire report, with an absolute minimum of redactions be made available to the public.
There are members of both parties, in the Senate and in the House, who have the necessary security clearances to have access to the highest levels of classified material. Every redaction should be reviewed by this bi-partisan group. If ANY single individual in this group believes the redaction is without an adequate security basis, that redaction should be put before a panel of 3 judges for review, similar to what is done by FISA. The determination of the panel should be final and supersede any decision by Barr.
2
@J Jencks - clarification to my last sentence...
"The determination of the 3-JUDGE panel..."
From the editorial:
"But the Trump administration — based on its pattern of dishonest conduct in office — simply cannot be trusted to be straight with the nation about what parts of the report need to remain concealed from public view. At the very least, Republicans and Democrats in Congress deserve and are right to demand to see the full and entirely unredacted evidence amassed by Mr. Mueller and his team, which runs to more than 400 pages (exclusive of tables and appendices)."
The editorial board does not trust the president, claiming he is dishonest, but yet trusts the congress with the unredacted report.
How incredibly naïve. Congress leaks like a sieve and the media is salivating knowing that they will get their hands on the report if that happens.
2
@philipe
"The editorial board does not trust the president, claiming he is dishonest . . ."
"Claiming?" Trump lies pretty much every time he opens his mouth, and has surrounded himself with lackeys who lie for him as well. Would you trust anybody who lies as much as Trump and his minions do?
2
I think short of finding the president in bed with a live boy or a dead girl, there is no way the Senate would impeach him. It is of course, all about politics. And Republicans will tolerate anything the base will. However, that doesn’t mean you don’t create a record of the obstruction case evidence, which is replete with instances of deceit and poor judgment.
Right now, as is typically the case, the economy is driving the president's re-election prospects. However, if we head into a recession in the next year, voters will be far less likely to look past the character issues and the obstruction evidence will be seen in a very different light.
1
@Glenn Gould In Latin Nemo Est Supra Legis. Nothing in the US Constitution and forget the lackey FBI and DOJ hacks, that says that any president cannot be arrested and indicted and jailed immediately. What are we waiting for already?!
When there is NO trust in a person or in a government everything is a question mark.
This president, this Cabinet, and this group of Republican enablers don’t even hide their hatred of American values, ideals, or justice. With their “teams of lawyers” always seeking to find ways around the law is it any wonder that the majority of Americans do not trust the trump administration.
There is a public record of the thousands of lies and mistruths that this administration has told to the American people. They are openly trying to destroy the environment. They are practically giving away public land to oil/gas interests. They continue to attack affordable healthcare, destroy the national safety net, and stay silent as U.S. born hate-groups cause havoc and pain across the country.
When the lies, vengeance attacks, conflicts of interest, issuing of executive edits that circumvent the legislative process, and a general air of lawlessness surrounds an administration...then YES...we need to see the whole Mueller Report and not some political lackey’s fantasy interpretation.
7
The Trump administration hasn't "earned the benefit of the doubt?" Put another, much more accurate way ... it has well earned and amply deserves the onus of not merely popular doubt but disbelief concerning virtually all its stated motives (exterior and ulterior) and resultant actions at every turn.
6
Let's not mince words: President Trump engaged in repeated actions that overwhelmingly implicate him of having obstructed justice. The American people deserve to have him brought up on charges as soon as he leaves office.
3
If the Trump Presidency were a TV show no one would believe it.
There is a reason Trump and the Patriots top brass and owner are good buddies--they will turn on its head any rule or line or custom in order to win. And in Barr Trump has hand picked his own referee, which allows Trump to keep Americans fighting as if we were on opposing sides of the Superbowl.
1
This isn’t as much about Trump anymore as it’s about intelligence agencies trying to overthrow an election and using massive propaganda and lies and illegal actions to do just that.
There was no Russian interference.
The DNC emails were leaked not hacked.
Even this report proved that they have zero evidence of Russian involvement.
Ambassador Craig Murray knows who leaked and has offered to testify under oath and he is banned from the country.
But so-called liberals (NOT progressives) just cling to their conspiracy theories since it’s all they have now.
A new Cold War and possibly nuclear war isn’t enough for you?
The J.Edgar Hoover-period was scary, and bad for democracy. The Mueller-Report-period is evidence that - whatever precautions may have been taken to protect America from another Security agency taking over the country from elected institutions - they are not sufficient.
It's past time for the Democrats to admit what everyone else knows. That HRC, with the full support of the DNC, the hierarchy of the FBI, CIA and with a complicit accommodating liberal media, conspired to remove the POTUS from office with a phony dossier and subsequent FISA's based on nothing but garbage.
Democrats started another Cold War with Russia based on nothing but lies and propaganda, and cheered the FBI being used as a political weapon .
I’m sure Republicans will forget all about that when and if a Democrat gets elected.
6
It is terribly irresponsible for the NYT Editorial Board to write this. Barr has a fine reputation. He is considered a lawyer's lawyer. For you to impugn him this way because of your animus towards the president is borderline malfeasance.
Shame on the Editorial Board for allowing itself to get sucked into this pettiness.
9
Shame on those that do not know that the Attorney General is supposed to serve the People first and foremost. Barr serves only Trump.
3
He may have had that reputation before. Not now.
1
@AACNY
Billy Barr's actions have ruined his "reputation".
even more so than his universal pardon policy for Reagan's Iran/Contra treason.
He is dishonest and shill for the Trump Crime Family.
He is the Tom Hagen of American history.
2
What a shock! The NYTimes and its readers refuse to accept an outcome that doesn't support the conclusion they reached long before there was any evidence to look at. They begged for the report to be released, despite there being laws against the sharing of such a document, and then when the AG takes the unprecedented step of releasing it, redacting those elements that 1) the law says he must and 2) common sense likewise, everyone at the NYTimes, deploying their consequentialist ethics, screams bloody murder. Just admit it --- you created this story, you need it to be real, and you will not accept anything conclusion to the contrary. This is why you cannot be trusted with the responsibility of informing people.
7
Beyond laughing at the notion that the paper can’t be trusted but Trump can, all the editorial says is that Congress needs to have a look at the whole report.
Whoop-de-do.
6
Indeed. This is what needs to be said. Thank you for saying it and for saying it clearly and directly. The time has come to begin the political process of hearings, fact-finding, and, what clearly seems like the need to impeach a President who has sullied his office just as he has sullied everything he touches.
2
Ah, William Barr. Trump finally got “his” Roy Cohn.
4
I trust Barr about as far as I can throw him.
4
Barr is running for the Supremes.
Barr did his best Bill Belichick imitation at the podium, saying nothing of value and berating members of the press, especially female.
On to immigration detentions.
1
As a Republican (but, not a fan of Trump!) and scared to death of the "Loony Left" (a.k.a. Democratic party of today), I have only one wish: start the impeachment process! Trump will win 2020 in a landslide!
2
@Sasha
If you think the entire Democratic Party is composed of the "Looney Left" -- it may be time for you to switch your news sources ... and open your mind.
2
@N. Smith
You are right! I am cancelling my NYT subscription!
Tiring of reading about, hearing about, and ordering copies of the redacted report, I turned to a word game in the Times crossword section. The first seven found in the Spelling Bee: comp, complicit, copilot, limp, pilot, plot, politic. Brilliant!
After graduating from law school, I spent six years as a Justice Department prosecutor under Meese, Thornburgh, and Barr. I was a non- political hire charged with prosecuting fraud cases. The understanding was that line attorneys like myself had virtually complete discretion to handle our dockets. Meese was widely viewed as a political hack. And the professional staff were always wary. Most of us were comfortable with Thornburgh and Barr, though Thornburgh seemed more qualified for the job. As for Barr, he was no hack and herespected our independence.
More recently, before he was reappointed Barr expressed controversial opinions and his 4 page summary of the Mueller report was unimpressive. Still, I believe, he is a principled professional. His redacting of the Mueller report is controversial and needs to be reviewed. But his record is more than adequate and he has a proven history of professionalism.
The AG and the President are virtually always from the same party. And the AG’s work needs to be viewed in light of that fact. But my assumption is that Barr is a straight shooter. Those who assume that he is a hack need to account for the fact that in his previous term as AG, few considered him to be anything like Meese.
1
His actions in this matter have shown Barr is exactly like Meese. It just took longer to come out.
Trump did not like Jeff Sessions because Sessions did not run interference on Trump's behalf with the Mueller probe.
Barr essentially campaigned for the job by writing an unsolicited memo titled "Mueller's 'Obstruction' Theory" prior to Trump, not surprisingly, nominating him for the AG job.
The supine GOP-controlled, led by the spine-less McConnell, let Trump have "his" Attorney General and the result is what we now have: Barr doing what Sessions refused to do, running interference for Trump, releasing his own "summary" of the Mueller Report that allowed Trump to shout "no collusion/no obstruction" ad nauseum and essentially refusing to give Congress an unredacted report.
If Barr wants to represent Trump, that is his right but he should do it by signing up to represent--and getting paid by--Trump, instead of the US taxpayers.
The US taxpayers paid for the Mueller report and the elected representatives of said taxpayers deserve to examine the Mueller report in its entirety and not be hamstrung by an Attorney General who is beholden to Trump.
4
@RK
We also pay for the military, doesn't mean we can walk on to any base without clearance; same with CIA, FBI, any government agency. It's appropriate to redact whatever is required by law.
1
@Robby
I wasn't saying we, the public, should see the unredacted report, but that our elected representatives should be allowed to see it.
While not the smartest man ever to become president, Trump's clearly one of the most sly and anyone who thought he'd repeat the mistake he made when he chose Sessions for AG was sorely mistaken. Barr is clearly a much more polished person than Sessions, and his patrician accent can lead one into a false sense of confidence that Barr's life's work should certainly not validate. It seems to me that his letter debasing the Mueller Report, which he submitted prior to his being chosen for AG, should have disqualified him immediately from being confirmed, but anyone thinking that Trump's Republican enablers care one iota about truth and justice....So it seems to me that we will have to put the issue back to the American people in 2020. IF they vote to reelect the charlatan then he will have served out 2 terms that he won with the tainted assistance of criminals. If he loses, we will have a new leader of the Justice Department, Trump will have become a private citizen clearly subject to indictment and Barr? History has already concluded what sort of character (or lack thereof) he has.
1
U.S. Attorney General Job Description:
Duties include world class spin doctoring, black sharpie redaction, staunchly defending the indefensible, and repeating enemy of state dogma incessantly. Requirements include complete lack of morals, lack of shame, and lack of patriotism.
3
Why is there so much energy spent protecting this man, Donald Trump? Why? Why? Why?
3
Exactly. Barr is an old school “Bush man” and as such he should loathe Trump. So you’re right; Barr’s shielding of Trump is utterly illogical.
4
Nobody is tarnishing Barr’s reputation except Barr and Trump. Together they are making a fool out of Barr. No need to blame anyone else.
2
Try this: he’s angling for a Supreme Court appointment.
Where is AUH2O64 when we really need him?
I will never forget the news footage of his driving himself right up to the White House in his own car... no limo, no chauffeur...then wrangling his way past the guards and going straight to Nixon to tell him to resign.
3
Barr has performed well as an attorney for Trump.
Unfortunately he is the Attorney General. He disgraced himself and the DOJ.
4
@Rita
Really??
And the Dems act like models of civility.
Please. How disingenuous.
What in the world does civility have to do with this??!!
Dems aren’t perfect, but repubs took a big dive with Newt and continue with McConnell and company. Can you really equate the Carter and Obama choir boys with the dirty tricks of repubs?
1
Attorney general and VP need to be independently elected with no ties to the president.
We need an independent council to verify the work of the independent council. That says everything about American politics right now.
4
Barr has been used in the past to obstruct and shield the first Bush from his legal problems. trump knew who to pick to protect him from the truth. Barr is a useful tool...No truth seen through him!
4
The headline is worth a thousand words: Don’t Trust Barr. Verify His Redactions.
Because the Trump administration has proven, time and time again, that it cannot be trusted.
9
Very sad say for the United States of America. We have been reduced to being banana republic.
2
"The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in a sweeping and systematic fashion."
Therefore: The Trump presidency was over before he was sworn in. The entirety of the actions taken by Trump and taken during the Trump presidency are hereby null & void. As soon as possible we must remove Trump, Pence, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and all federal judges installed by McConnell and the Senate Republicans. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi will be sworn in and serve as President of the United States until January of 2021. My thanks to special counsel Robert Mueller for sneaking the truth past the sycophant AG William Barr.
6
Let me stipulate that Donald Trump is a incompetent, narcissistic, conman. The results of the 2016 election disappointed me. The media has lost credibility over attempting to overturn the results with a non-story.
I can't get over the tearful disappointment of the NYT editorial board. Mr. Trump may be unfit for office but he obviously didn't conspire with the Russian to defeat Hillary Clinton. Her inability to find Wisconsin on a map did her in.
5
The House should now initiate impeachment proceedings, without consideration of the outcome nor the effect on either Party. Trump’s obsfucation throughout the Mueller inquiry, his multiple lies regarding its efforts, and in particular his refusal to testify openly and under oath, leave no other means of determining whether we have a legitimate President.
4
Perhaps it's time for a true patriot in the Justice Department to pull a "Pentagon Papers" and supply an unredacted copy at least to the House leadership.
3
Don't just verify Barr's redactions. Demand that all underlying evidence be turned over to the two Congressional Intelligence & Judiciary committees. It was not Ken Starr's summary report that the Republicans used to draw up Articles of Impeachment against Bill Clinton, but the actual underlying testimony & documentation (enough to fill a truck). Through some hair-on-fire hand-waving, the Republicans are focusing attention just on a redacted report of Mueller's decisions & attracting attention away from the hundreds of thousands of pages of testimony & recovered documents, emails, recording tapes, & other paper & electronic evidence. That, apparently, will be denied to any Congressional investigator so the House won't have the evidence needed to decide whether or how many Articles of Impeachment are needed. The House Judiciary and Intelligence Committee Chairmen must subpoena all of this & be willing to take it to the Supreme Court. NOTE: in Watergate, the Supreme Court was unanimous in rejecting Nixon's attempts to keep his White House tapes secret. With the extreme right Federalist Society judges now making up a majority of the Supreme Court, the chances of a non-partisan decision based on the Constitution and stare decisis has shrunk considerably. How ironic that, in his first ad for re-election, Mitch McConnell is bragging about how he stole a Supreme Court nomination away from Obama. I fear for the shreds still left (if any) of our democracy.
3
It seems the golden boy of at least six of the seven deadly sins will slip and slide along, never seriously called to account for his ruthless destruction of democratic ideals and democracy itself.
1
I am always appalled by the fact that any person orbiting Trump would eventually lose in a way or another credibility.
Today Barr showed how his impartiality was compromised by giving a speech more consistent with a political campaign for Trump reelection than a sober explanation about the investigation report.
1
The House should now initiate impeachment proceedings. Trump’s consistent obfuscation during the Mueller inquiry, his multiple lies about its efforts, his repeated attempts to suppress it, and in particular his refusal to testify openly and under oath leave no other option. Considerations of the likely outcome and the benefit or harm to either party are not now legitimate. No other means is available to answer the question of whether we have a legitimate President.
Funny! Your AG role is as political as it is in Canada. We are starting to question it and looking at separating the justice minister (or secretary) from the AG roles following a recent scandal ... The AG role should not be political and strictly report to judicial branch as oppose to the Justice secretary which is an executive role so ok to follow the lead and views of the president!
I'm an employee of the State of California. The people who hired me are also employees. However, I do not "serve" the people who hired me, I serve the public that they hired me to serve. It's that basic. That's how government service works in a free society.
Barr was hired by a public employee to serve the public. But he's shown his Republican party mettle; loyal to party first and foremost.
4
@Gustav Aschenbach
Total nonsense.
Barr performed his duties.
YOU (and the Dems) just don't like the fact that the outcome of the Mueller report doesn't support your (their) hatred for our President.
The dems lost in 2016 - no collusion. They ran a horrific campaign with a hated candidate.
Its been 3 years....my god...move on!! (actually please don't - keep your focus on attacking our President - this will guarantee a reelection win in 2020!)
Granted, Trump has some wiggle room here, but the Trumpbots see exoneration where there was none. Mueller made that point perfectly clear! What is wrong with these people?
2
“Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
3
This is beyond a cover up. What Barr is perpetrating is an in your face, middle finger to the rule of law. Donald Trump gets away with his criminal behavior, because others allow and enable him. The Republican party, in this case, is guilty. Mueller failed to PROPERLY execute his job, and the question is, whether he did it to spare a fellow Republican, or he was pressured by Trump and Barr. There's a foul, rotten stink to this whole affair, and it smells like Trump corruption. The Democrats need to grow a spine, and Nancy Pelosi needs to step up and support the tough actions that need to be undertaken, yes impeachment, regardless that the corrupt Republicans in the Senate will all bend over for Trump. Impeachment is the moral alternative to correct what we're being subjected to by the lawless Trump dictatorship.
4
Barr said in his letter summarizing the Mueller Report: "The Special Counsel's decision to describe the facts of his obstruction investigation without reaching any legal conclusions leaves it to the Attorney General to determine whether the conduct described in the report constitutes a crime."
The truth is that Mueller was following, and expressly said so, the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel opinion saying that "a federal prosecutor" making a federal prosecutorial decision of a sitting president would violate the separation of powers in the Constitution.
Since Mueller as a federal prosecutor cannot make a decision without violating the Constitution, then his supervisors, who are also federal prosecutors, cannot either.
Barr would probably say that the statement is his opinion so it cannot be a lie because he wasn't stating a fact. But his deceit attempts to cover up that his "decision" clearing Trump is illegal, unconstitutional and outside his authority. Furthermore last June, Barr went on record saying that in his opinion investigation of the President's alleged obstruction of justice was barred by the constitution. (Barr's 8 June 2018 memo, part II.B). So he himself has said the Attorney General doesn't have the authority to clear Trump.
See Mueller Report pages 1-2 of Volume II; and Barr's March 24, 2019 letter, page 3, 2nd paragraph.
2
Trump told Comey that he demands complete loyalty. Barr, Pence and nearly every Republican serving in the Administration, the House and the Senate show that they have willingly sold their souls for the sake of party loyalty. History will condemn them all!
8
Hillary wasn’t indicted for the same reason yet right wingers aren’t satisfied with that decision and still want to lock her up. Trump wouldn’t have been indicted in any case but he can and should be impeached.
5
We do not have an Attorney General but Trump has a lawyer.
13
What is so remarkable is that William Barr is so willing to destroy his reputation and family name as he stitches new clothes for the emperor.
Mr. Barr should have know that by writing his unsolicited 19 page love letter / job application to the President in which Barr translated Trump's lunatic claims of innocence and unjust accusation into bloated, serious-sounding legalese, that even if he did get the position of Attorney General, he would be rightly regarded as a partisan clown masquerading as law enforcement authority.
The truth will come out, Mr. Barr, despite your ham-handed and transparent attempts to spin, disguise, and confuse.
Barr is trying to rehabilitate Trump. Trump is beyond rehabilitation for the majority of Americans. Barr's sleazy attempts to defend the indefensible were never going to succeed. You do have to wonder why then he was so willing to casually destroy his reputation in the process.
I guess in Republican circles, the lack of principles or any moral code is feature and not a bug. Still, I can't help but think that Mr. Barr and certainly his family, will not be haunted by this decision for generations to come.
6
Even a fully unredacted report is not enough. When Ken Starr finished his years-long investigation of Bill Clinton, he not only released the fully unredacted report directly to the Democratic and Republican members of Congress, but he sent a full truckload of the underlying evidence (including Grand Jury testimony - which Barr could have left unredacted if he had merely asked a judge to okay it as Starr had done) to the Republicans & a duplicate truckload to the Democrats. The unredacted report was put on the internet less than 2 days after Starr finished it.
Vive la Difference! It is the difference between a democracy (albeit one in the process of being compromised) and a tin-pot dictatorship in a banana republic.
4
Like many of us (most), I hoped Barr would take his job as AG for the America people to heart. I knew about the unsolicited memo (job application) and his work on behalf of The Bush I White House but I wanted to believe what he said in his confirmation hearings.
His actions have proved how wrong I was. First, he should never have given a press conference about a report no one had seen. And what was that description about Trump being so upset about the hearings - was I supposed to weep for him.
And ‘no other President has faced that’. Well, Mr Barr - no other President has maligned our intelligence service, no other President has laughed with Russian operatives because he ‘shut down the Russia thing’, no other President fired the head of the FBI because he wouldn’t do his bidding, no other President has lied about his connections to a foreign government, no other President has refused to release his tax returns in the past 40 years ....
Excuse me if I can’t find any sympathy for Trump, especially as he spent FIVE YEARS questioning the legitimacy of President Obama. Since Mr Barr wants to investigate stuff - how about investigating the Birther movement.
9
So Mueller goes from being the potential savior, with all the hopes and dreams of the NYT readership riding on him, to the goat.
Because he did not bring home the result they wanted. Facts got in the way. From being worshiped to being despised after two years of dedicated hard work.
And if he testifies before Congress it's almost guaranteed to be disappointing to those same readers because there is no way a man with Mueller's character is going to say one thing in the report and contradict it during testimony.
It's over.
5
The more I see and hear from William Barr, the more I am convinced he is a man who craves the spotlight--so much so that he is willing to sacrifice his good reputation ( except of course that time he was unwilling to appoint an independent counsel to look into Iraqgate) by misrepresenting the truth to the American people. His untruthful summarizing of the Muller report (5 times) for no reason other than to hold center stage explains why he was called 'Cover-up General Barr' years ago and why it stands today.
4
@jak
Good reputation?
Where have you lived during the Bush years?
2
Hoover:
A chicken in every pot. A car in every garage.
Trump:
Two families in every garage. No collusion in every pot.
2
Barr lied.
Impeach him.
5
Yes. Barr already agreed the Congressional leaders would get the contents that were redacted, and those should be carefully checked.
The one exception to Barr's agreement was the Grand Jury transcripts. The courts have recently ruled very clearly that those must be kept confidential unless a released by the judge who impaneled the grand jury. Congressional leaders should apply to that judge, immediately. Don't complain that Barr acted correctly, just go to the judge who has control.
This should all be done. I don't think, from my review of the placement of the redactions, that they will be revelations. However, they should be checked, by the bipartisan leaders who've already been promised the entire report.
"Trust me," has no place in any of this, on any side. Check it all. That is not the same as really expecting a big change in the outcome, but check all the same, and do it carefully.
3
If AG Barr was a potential jurist who had espoused impartial views on obstruction in an obstruction case he would be excused during voir dire. If Barr was a sitting judge in an obstruction case and similarly espoused personal views on obstruction, attorneys would petition the court for the case to be reassigned to a different and impartial judge. The fact Barr wrote an 18-page memo that a sitting President can’t be indicted, prior to oversight in a case of potential indictable offenses of a sitting President, and he was allowed to continue is the ultimate in hypocrisy and evidence of a grossly tainted judicial process, irrespective of his or anyone else’s ultimate conclusions.
6
Unfortunately, The Times and many Democrats will never believe that Trump is not guilty of something, and they will destroy this country looking for something, anything to hurt Trump and this nation. Maybe that is the real Russian collusion.
7
And the GOP is tripping over themselves congratulating each other. As if the American people were a collection of imbecilic stooges...
7
What is preventing the House Intelligence Committee from calling Mueller to testify now? We had multiple, ongoing investigations compelling Hillary to testify about her involvement in Benghazi. What are Dems waiting for?
212
@AlNewman -- Barr agreed, and Nadler scheduled it. So it is being done, already. It should be. I'll be very interested to hear what he has to say.
18
@AlNewman
Democrats now have to get through both Mueller and Barr to get to Trump. They are getting further and further away from their target.
4
@AACNY
Time to get beyond that "get Trump" narrative and recognize this is about nothing more than getting at the TRUTH and all the facts that are being carefully redacted by Attorney General Barr.
Besides -- if Trump is as innocent as he maintains, there should be no problem...right???
29
Much like the English the American elite is feeling schadenfreude even about themselves. How divine is justice!
1
The US is officially a banana republic.....again.
8
The guy in our White House finally got his Roy Cohn and his name is WILLIAM BARR. Enough said.
9
I look at the pedigree and stature of past attorney generals. And then I look at this.
6
@Peter: "I look at the pedigree and stature of past attorney generals. And then I look at this."
Forget about Barr. Read the report that's been released. Congress can get Mueller to testify if they are that convinced there is something Barr is deliberately hiding.
4
Hopefully, it's more than just you and me.
It seems that at this point that the Mueller report and its continuous coverage is helping Trump big time.
4
Perhaps the Trump admin can't be trusted to be straight with the nation. But to infer that the NYT and the media can is entirely comical. There's only one reason media wants congress to see the whole report: because they know the inevitable leaks will come soon after and enable media, conservative and liberal, to make $$ selling papers, drive traffic to their websites(ad dollars) and keep alive an issue that most Americans are sick of and wish to move on from.
7
Just because the issue makes us sick is no reason to stop until we have the truth.
2
@Glenn Thomas
Perhaps Glenn. But what would benefit the country more: A. Expending democratic energy into trying to impeach Trump which would only be ceremonial, no chance of happening and would embolden his base of B. putting their time and energy towards a bi-partisan plan for immigration reform that we desperately need? Maybe neither will work, but can't we ask our legislators to do something that might have a chance to benefit the entire country as opposed to satisfy the whims of one side of the aisle.
1
The biggest difference between Richard Nixon and Donald Trump is that Nixon ultimately wasn't willing to drag the rest of the country into the abyss with him, whereas Trump, with enablers such as William Barr, simply doesn't care. From this president, newly emboldened as being above the law, we can assured of at least one thing: The worst is yet to come.
27
@Dotconnector
"assured" = "be assured"
Doesn't Robert Mueller know what's in the Mueller report? Wouldn't he come forward and say something if he felt AG Barr made inappropriate redactions? Of course he would. So what's all the fussing about?
5
No need to fuss. The subpoena is already authorized. Just apply it!
1
@Timothy
Please, you're making way too much sense Timothy. Mueller's going to testify before congress also! But congressional liberals have to fuss and yell 'collusion, collusion!' or else they'd actually have to do their jobs and legislate for the good of the country. Anyone out there think we need comprehensive immigration reform? Hello?
1
@Timothy
They are so far gone they are now going after Mueller.
2
“At stake is citizens’ faith in free and fair elections“
Faith is already out the door. Hope is the slippery rope we’re left with to hang on with.
1
The NYT continues the charade. I read the report. Barr was 100% correct. The investigation concluded there was zero evidence Trump, or his campaign committed any crime. The un-redacted report will not change that "FACT".
I can understand the NYT, as well as others in the media of being upset that Trump was cleared of any wrong doing. Why ? Because that report exposed all the published NYT, and WaPo stories as false. The media has a lot of egg on their face.
Now we need a special prosecutor to investigate how this investigation hoax got started, and who started it.
7
What Mueller found was that there was insufficient evidence to indict OR exonerate. Those words are what he said and those are the facts. So the sleaze ball squeaks by in the same way some known murderers get off scot free on a technicality.
2
Oh, please. Give it up already.
The only ones profiting from this Russia hoax are the people in Washington and in the media who want the public's attention diverted from the real world criminal behavior of the ruling elites of both parties.
The apparatchiks of both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, in cahoots with their stenographers in the media, have made millions pushing McCarthyism 2.0
The Mueller investigation has always been an in-house fight between various sections of the intelligence agencies, and as such turned out to be contrived and misleading.
Too bad the Democratic Party leadership hung their hat on something so reactionary and didn't spend the last two years denouncing Trump's faux populism, fighting against each and every policy enacted and every piece of legislation that was deregulated which benefited a small cabal of billionaires.
But despite of zero collusion, zero evidence of Russian hacking, that won't stop the Russiagate dead-enders.
Rather, we will be fed a never-ending stream of further conspiracy theories
However, we now do have another Cold War with nuclear-armed Russia based on lies and propaganda and zero evidence.
And Democrats and the Editorial Board think Trump is dangerous?
8
"... zero evidence of Russian hacking..."? HUH???
3
Trump managed to Barr the door and not let the truth out. It's early days. The truth will out.
2
I read the report
There really is nothing of any REAL consequence there.....
32
@There
You read it, you say, but clearly you failed to understand it.
I suggest you read again in particular the introduction to Volume 2.
There, Mueller explains why he felt unable to indict Trump for obstruction, while setting out all the ways in which Trump did indeed obstruct and try to obstruct justice.
70
@There - ah, but did you see the mountain of evidence collected during the investigation? It was the underlying evidence, not Ken Starr's report, that led to Articles of Impeachment being raised against Bill Clinton. The same is true of the Watergate committee. It wasn't Jaworski's report, but the underlying evidence, like the smoking gun tape, that led to Articles of Impeachment against Nixon forcing his hasty resignation.
32
@There
You mean you read the Attorney General's redacted version of it -- that's why there's nothing of any real consequence there.
37
The bottom line for me is that I'm quite sure Trump knew the Russians were invested in influencing the election to his benefit, and he was perfectly okay with it. The fact that he was clever enough to leave air between what the Russians were doing and the multiple relationships and meetings with them by his staff does not forgive his ignoring an attack on this country's elections. My question is what is he planning to do to prevent Russian interference in 2020? So far I haven't seen much activity on his part or the part of Republicans to prevent similar attacks on our institutions. The difference is that we know it is coming, and this time Trump has sworn to protect the constitution and the laws of the United States. Sitting back and doing nothing in 2020 would be tantamount to collusion in my book.
5
The matter now rests with the Speaker of the House. Ms. Pelosi must now decide, in light of Barr’s effort to protect the president, and the inculpatory findings of the Mueller probe, whether we as a people are “worth” Congress to perform its constitutional responsibility to inquire into impeaching the President even if he “isn’t worth it”.
2
It became apparent today that impeachment will again be seriously considered.
It should not be limited to Donald Trump.
William Barr has demonstrated a willingness to subvert his office to partisan politics.
We hoped, it seems, that he would conduct himself with honor, as befits his office.
However he appears to be cut from the same soiled, crooked material as the president.
What a stupid way to destroy an entire career.
Sad.
7
What is most unfortunate is that the Democrats believed at Barr’s confirmation hearing that he would act impartially, and not behave as the apologist for Trump that we are now seeing. People say that Republicans in Congress who support Trump’s corrupt presidency are spineless. The same thing might be said of the Democrats, who supported Barr ‘s confirmation.
3
All true. But people will sadly believe what they want to believe and will not give truth a chance. And that goes for both sides who have different visions for America. Trump was a protest candidate and there was reason for Americans to vote that way even if the protest choice wasn't the right way to go. What we have seen is a blowback by Middle America who, I think, saw the coasts exercising too much media power. I was in Indiana this week and every where you look there are American flags and churches. The prevalence of those symbols needs to be understood by those who run for office and hope to win.
4
We waited a long time for a bunch of nothing. Trump is incompetent. His top advisers are incompetent. If there was evidence of criminal wrong-doing it would have been found.
It was not found because it does not exist.
Of more concern to me is the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants the Democratic Party is allowing to enter the nation every month- how that is going to effect our environment and how the Democratic Party seems to be in collusion with human traffickers and groups with ties to foreign governments.
Trump, supposedly, got help from Russia in getting citizens to vote for him. The Democrats are importing people to create an army of future voters.
8
It's really sad that people are upset that the President of the United States is not guilty of conspiring with the Russians.
Think about that for a moment and let that sink in.
Innocent until proven guilty has been abandoned out of pure partisan hatred.
We must do better as a nation to move forward together instead of widening the divide.
43
@Norville T. Johnson The President believed Vladamir Putin's word over the United States Federal Bureau of Investigations, the Central Intelligence Agency, and Department of Homeland Security.
Think about that a moment and let that sink in.
Partisan hatred has nothing to do with it.
238
@Norville T. Johnson - How anyone can read this report and come to the conclusion that trump is not guilty, is unfathomable. You must essentially deny what you've seen and heard with your own eyes and ears. I can only assume that when you're informed by the filter of Fox and talk radio, both the picture and sound have been edited for your consumption, all in furtherance of an agenda that has nothing to do with us moving forward as a nation undivided - in fact, just the opposite.
130
@Norville T. Johnson
I suggest you actually READ what was written. Mueller found lots of patterns and evidence, but he felt that it didn't rise to the level of beyond a reasonable doubt and the definition of "coordination" they used required an express or tacit agreement, more than just acting towards a same goal, they had to be doing it in concert.
A single page of this report would have been enough to impeach Obama, yet here we sit with 400 pages of evidence and apologists saying we should just "move on."
As a citizen of this country and someone who actually cares about democracy, I believe we should absolute not move on until we are satisfied that Trump did not break the law or unduly influence our elections.
179
As nice as it would have been for Mueller to bring Trump to us in handcuffs, let's not miss the fact there are many ongoing investigations that sprouted from Mueller's work and that he provided enough information to pursue obstruction of justice charges. I wouldn't recommend Dems take that path, but if the roles were reversed Republicans wouldn't hesitate to beat the drum of impeachment based on the level of information provided in this report.
Even though it feels inadequate, Mueller did what he was hired to do.
2
Impeaching Trump brings us Pence. Yao you want that??
Trump was right. He could shoot someone in broad daylight on Fifth Avenue and walk away scot-free. This whitewash is being carried out in broad daylight. Barr to the American people: " Move along. Nothing to see here." The best AG money can buy.
Now it's up to the American people in 2020 to throw Trump and his brazen GOP enablers in the trash can where they belong. If we don't, then Heaven help us, we deserve what we get.
9
You have allowed your hatred of President Trump to obscure your investigative skills. Apologize to our President and the American people for misleading them. Be happy our president was cleared! Move On.
5
@Sue Mee He was not cleared.
It's past time for the Editorial Board to identify Trump as a bona fide mob boss running an organized crime enterprise out of the White House. Barr is just as much a hack as Michael Cohen. What he did this morning was a gross breach of duty to us - the American citizenry, to the country and to the Constitution.
Nancy Pelosi needs to reconvene the House by Monday and emergently commence open hearings so that we learn in a timely fashion, what crimes have been and are being committed against us by Trump, his aiders and abettors, and the Republican party apparatus.
Rep. Nadler sent a letter to expect Mr. Mueller to testify no later than May 23. This time frame is entirely unacceptable and amounts to fiddling while Rome burns. He needs to convene his committee no later than Monday of next week.
The House is the only organized governmental body which is still functioning - and it's on life support.
8
For people like me, who care about the rules and who care deeply about children dying at the border, the rising risk of global warming, and the rise of white supremacy as a seemingly acceptable way of being—He's as corrupt an individual as ever walked. Leave Russia out and just focus on the children at the border folks. C'mon. Who are we? What country are we becoming???
3
@AT
What country are we becoming? One in which spoiled children cannot accept the outcome of an election, want to eliminate our electoral system because it doesn't give them what they want and who ignored the fact that an investigation was initiated to thwart the will of the voters.
If you don't like our country, you should take a good hard look at yourself. Believe me. We all see what you are doing to our country.
2
What we have is a dispute of fact and law, between
the Rule of Law and the Continuity of Government.
Suppose, for a second that we all took a good look
at what happened on 9/11/2001, and stopped waging
war on people who had nothing to do with 9/11/2001.
Corporations that bid and win contracts to wage
endless war need to be audited, for potential fraud
and waste. Qui Tam it!
My biggest disappointment is not with AG Barr but with Deputy AG Rosenstein.
In the early days of this scandal former FBI Director in his musings said he didn't trust Rod Rosenstein. He was a go along to get along kinda guy. Remember he was the one that drafted and cleaned up the letter firing Comey under the pretense of Comey's poor handling of the Clinton email investigation.
When Trump became too difficult to work with he was painted as moral compass and sounding board of the DOJ. I was skeptical of that portrayal of him. I see he is back to his old way of conceding to the powers that be even in the face of corruption.
I thought he tendered his resignation, why is he still at the DOJ and receiving fawning accolades form AG Barr? Something doesn't smell right.
3
Casting aspersions at Donny's HPL! (Hand Picked Lackey). How far we have fallen (I don't mean the aspersions, I mean that we are expected to trust Donny's Hand Picked Lackey).
2
Mr Barr supports Rudy’s popular GOP saying . Truth isn’t the truth. Us Dems believe Trump is guilty of coollusion asking during a campaign stop for Russian help in finding the emails. Then the Trump tower meetings and Mr Bannon’s own book said it was treasonous. The White House is the corrupt house when the GOP are in charge.
1
Barr will prove to be the con man’s biggest con. As for those scratching their heads about his motives and reputation look at all the other “adults in the room” who had served their country admirably and did the same thing.
2
Enough is enough. There's nothing here. Stop.
28
@Michael Livingston yes there is nothing....... nothing Trump has in his head. It’s blank.
8
@Michael Livingston There is everything here necessary to convict Trump of obstruction of justice. This,if not impeachment, will certainly lead to a sealed indictment.
15
@Michael Livingston
Nothing here? Step away from Fox News for a couple hours and dig in. There is a rats nest of here here. As a jurist I say there isn't a prosecutor in America who wouldn't relish the kind of case they could build for obstruction of justice off of what Mueller found.
Why won't Trump be prosecuted? Why didn't Mueller recommend prosecution? Because DOJ regulations (not
the Constitution) forbid it and because Mueller is clearly taking the traditional route by clearly tossing the ball to Congress.
Were the criminal standards of proof the same as civil standards, Trump could and very conceivably would be chargeable for conspiring with a foreign power to defraud the American voters.
Nothing here. Geez.
20
William Barr is not the Attorney General for the American people but is instead yet another personal attorney for Donald Trump.
Barr is a hypocrite, and just as Trump lies any time he speaks, so Barr's work as Attorney General is a sham and not trustworthy.
The entire and unredacted Mueller report must be released to Congress and to the public. Until then there is no reason to trust we are being served with the truth.
2
Nothing makes sense. Why would Trump be scared all this time of Mueller unless he was eagerly anticipating help from the Russians and was sending his people to collect damaging information on Hillary, or making promises to the Russians through emissaries like Manafort, Flynn, and Stone, or creating conditions for his Russian real estate business, or whatever else he needed from the Russians...
Obviously Trump will not "officially" conspire with the Russians...even he is not such a big fool. But he did conspire "unofficially", and Mueller could not prove that, that is all...
Why would Trump try to obstruct if he was not guilty of this "unofficial" conspiracy that he was afraid would be proved...
Madness, our justice system, which misses the obvious...
@SP:"Obviously Trump will not "officially" conspire with the Russians...even he is not such a big fool. But he did conspire "unofficially", and Mueller could not prove that, that is all..."
And your evidence is what? As Ben Shapiro once observed, Trump isn't smart enough to collude with his left foot.
1
@hm1342 It’s clear from the behind the scenes negotiations carried out by his people. If I had hard evidence I would not call it “unofficial”
Many of the commenters have
obviously not read the report. Perhaps we could wait a few more hours to read the report before determining that Mr. Barr deserves the vitriol.
4
April 18, 2019
This Mueller report is as much an analysis of America's adult voting age culture and how to distort and profoundly abuse the hyper electronic 'global affairs ' for opportunistic leveraging the voting process and indeed hiding in plain sight the flirting with adulterated politicians that are either unwilling and under -staffed to navigate electioneering with honor and for the historical annals to guide the purity of the STATE for now and for all times......
One thing that was always a bit comical to me was that despite Trump's comments about Mueller's conflicts of interest, it was Mueller's former firm that represented members of Trump's family.
Trump seems to be one of the few people I know of that can look up at a sunny day and tell everyone around him its raining, and then have the media fight about the meaning of truth.
When the democrats stop focusing on Trump, and start focusing on the rule of law and our democracy, regardless of outcome, they just might get somewhere.
2
I wonder what ethical Republicans think about this charade.
1
@Oliver: "I wonder what ethical Republicans think about this charade."
I wonder how many ethical politicians exist in Washington. I also wonder the same thing with regards to the media.
2
@Oliver So, my definition of ethics is the public display of morals, or how you choose to do the right thing, based on your position in society. You must continue to wonder as there are no "ethical" republicans. Haven't been for a long time.
1
Any ethical Republican would have departed months ago.
Today we have great tremendous clarity that Mr Trump is incapable of governing, that his instincts are awful and his judgment is terrible. He is still in office because of the "sacrifices" of government officials who defied the President and quit their jobs just to save our country.
Now I see John Kelly in a different light. Very suddenly...
1
One of the startling things revealed in the Mueller reports is:
Russian intelligence personnel began trying to hack multiple email accounts involving Hillary Clinton within FIVE HOURS after Trump said from a public podium:
“Russia, if you are listening, I hope you're able to find the 30000 emails that are missing”.
2
" At stake is citizens’ faith in free and fair elections . . . "
If that is correct then what should those citizens make of the 2016 primaries being rigged against Bernie Sanders by the DNC. How could that faith be retained in anything the DNC does ?
2
It is obvious that any of the Democrat mouthpieces in the media and Congress will never be satisfied with any findings that might in any way absolve the President. Fairness seems to have been a casualty of hatred.
4
I have stopped believing in US justice system. The lies, cover ups and sheer incompetence of Mr. Mueller ( didn't want to delay investigation !!) tells it all. They are all registered republicans after all.
4
Barr is the Collusion.
Barr is the Obstruction.
Collusion, but “not criminal enough.’ Really!?
Obstruction, but “not with a criminal intent.” Really!?
With his “Game Over” tweet, using the Game of Thrones font, Trump obviously believes he is sitting on a throne too.
He has lied and cheated to usurp our democracy, all of it: the election itself, his attorney general, his Supreme Court, his senate
Dethrone him.
Tar and feather him, and run him out of town on a rail.
2
If Barr and Mueller are truly friends, I would love to be a fly on the wall at their next poker night.
1
William Barr committed a blatantly political act this morning. Why hold an additional "briefing" on a report that had not yet been released? This was a clear attempt to get ahead of the news and tamp down reaction to the Mueller report. His prior four page summary wasn't enough?
The result is likely that the national evening newscasts, still watched by millions, will play Barr as part of the release of the Mueller report, mudding the waters both of public understanding and reaction.
This act shows starkly what those who believe that Trump is a radical, uneducated and reckless president are up against. Barr has signed on as one of his enablers, trying to confuse the public about the president's actions.
Keep this in mind, however: in this long and unfortunate drama, the Mueller investigation and report is a side show. We have a man in the White House who was chaotic in his personal life, in his business dealings, who is "truth challenged" every minute of every day, a man who made virtually no preparation to serve as president and who tries, with every minute, to reduce the functions of the presidency and the government to his own ego needs and very limited outlook on critical problems.
The Trump campaign tried to coordinate with the Russians. Trump himself tried to obstruct justice in the form of the investigation but, ultimately, that is not the main concern. The safety. security and future of the America people and of the American democracy are under constant threat.
3
@Doug Terry: "William Barr committed a blatantly political act this morning. Why hold an additional "briefing" on a report that had not yet been released?"
To control the narrative. It's what politicians do. Had the report been released to Congress last night, how many Democrats ( i.e., Schumer, Nadler and Pelosi) would have been the first to go on camera to establish their own narrative?
1
@hm1342
Excuse me shouting, please but BARR IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE A POLITICIAN. He is supposed to be a public servant with the law and its values, and our Constitution, as his ultimate master. He works for us, the citizens, and is, or was, thought to have higher values that the survival of Trump. Besides which, as scholars in the law have noted, the Special Counsel is outside of the political system intentionally and is not supposed to be political, yet Barr, a recent Trump appointee, steps in to try to "clear" the president and confuse the public. Shameful.
1
This morning I tuned into NPR to hear Barr's press conference. I thought someone had hacked the stream and replaced it with Fox News.
Barr's statements about the report is clear evidence that he is guilty of malfeasance, if not a specific statutory crime. He is acting more like a shill for Trump than the Attorney General of the United States. He is clearly not to be trusted.
6
Barr should have played the theme from "Perry Mason" when he walked out. He acted like Trump's defense attorney and main apologist. The only thing he forgot was his MAGA hat. Now we have to listen to Trump crowing that "they couldn't prove it in court so I couldn't have done it". A lot of defendants are released because a District Attorney may know someone did something wrong, but knowing and proving aren't the same. Trump was a shady, mobbed up real estate hustler and golf cheat before the report but I can't prove it. The truthiness of it feels right.
2
Wait......
Tom Hagen ISN'T the attorney general?
Fortunately, the release of the actual report eclipses RICO Don's attorney's presser.
It will be a footnote that taints Billy Barr's reputation for all time.
"Don’t Trust Barr. Verify His Redactions."
It's not just Barr you're criticizing - it's also Mueller. As we were told, Mueller was working in conjunction with Barr on the redactions. Have any doubts? Then ask for Mueller to go before Congress.
"At stake is citizens’ faith in free and fair elections and what needs to be done ahead of the 2020 contest to protect our system of self-governance from interference."
Nice try, but not convincing. The main reason you want the whole (and un-redacted) report is to spend the foreseeable future trashing Trump with whatever you can find. What you should be talking about is why the Trump campaign was targeted by officials of the Obama administration. That is a bigger threat to "protect our system of self-governance from interference" than an imaginary Russian collusion. I am hopeful Barr will get to the bottom of that.
3
After Barr's blatant bias in parroting Trump's talking points, I wouldn't trust him to sell me an uncontaminated chicken leg. He has shown himself to be nothing more than a political hack ala Sarah Sanders or Rudy Giuliani. The Economist got it right when it called him Trump's "executive assistant" the day he became AG.
1
"The Mueller report described Russian election interference as 'sweeping and systematic.' "
Wow.
"Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump encouraged that help and, at one point at least, sought it out."
Wow.
"In office, Mr. Trump tried to impede the investigation numerous times, ..."
Wow.
You work for us, Mr. Trump. Congress must see everything, and so should we.
3
So President Trump was justified in his obstruction because he "sincerely" believed the investigation was undermining his presidency? In other words, a president is justified in influencing an investigation into whether he committed a crime if he believes it might undermine his presidency. That extraordinary assertion, if applied to any other American trying to avoid prosecution, would collapse our criminal justice system.
3
Barr was acting on behalf of the Republican establishment, not Trump. This is bigger than Trump.
It's about having absolute control, which the (new) Republicans have been striving for for decades. It's no longer the party of Lincoln.
8
Barr’s press conference pre the Mueller Report release was aimed at Trump’s base, a political act. I suspect they, largely, will look no further.
3
Barr’s redactions May yet prove to be a problem but the immediate concern is his presentation of the report.He waited to release it until Congress was out of town and the news cycle would be lighter because of the holidays.He then released it as he would were he the lawyer for the defendant, declaring that there was no “ collusion”, not a legal term and no substantial obstruction of justice.He absolved Trump of all wrong doing and then released the report which is full of behavior which ignores the law.Trump is all about branding and today he is pleased because the Attorney General of the United States is branded as his lawyer-the citizens of this country now have no Attorney General who works for them.
5
The NYTs has spent a lot of time on the spiral of allegations that never materialized into an actual case against Trump. Mueller didn't rescue them. Trump doesn't inspire thrust. In fact he is a deplorable liar. Many in his administration are nothing more than special interest shills that clearly are working against the safety and progress of the USs citizens. That said Trump won the electoral college legally in 2016. Mueller stated that Russia had no material effect on the outcome. But Mueller got his digs on Russia in. Claiming they hacked the DNC and Hillary Clinton both of which are unproven and are more partisan slurs than evidence based accusations. The anti Russia hysteria pitched by the news media and primarily Democrats is along side McCarthyism a dangerous affronts to democracy in the US.
1
It's impeachment time for Trump and his co-conspirator Barr. Bring it on.
3
Putin set out to undermine confidence in the American Sytem. Boy did he ever succeed!
4
“Everything Trump Touches Dies”—R. Wilson
As so many have already learned, when Trump touches you and you touch back, your reputation is embarked on a death march.
Bill Barr entered office with his reputation pretty much intact. Then his present actions led researchers to dig up his starring role as “Attorney General Coverup” in both 1989 and 1992. Now, with the release of the Mueller report, Barr is again reprising his earlier star turn.
How far will Barr’s reputation march before gurgling it’s death rattle?
1
Redactions are Bone Spurs Camouflage.
Sad. And sleazy.
2
Disbar Barr!
Dear Barr,
WE DO NOT BELIEVE YOU.
Sincerely,
The American Citizen
1
Maybe Trump is just a compulsive liar.
Evidently, even though he apparently is a decent golfer, he still cheats and lies about it.
But...we can not have a compulsive liar running this country.
Who should we trust? Omar, Nadler, Harris, Pelosi etal.....
Are these the virtuous ones ? Is Maxine Waters above reproach ?
Is this a sequel to "Game of Thrones" or "House of Cards"
Me thinks we are watching too much TV.........
Maybe we need a One Party System ? And we can cast stones at people we don't like.
Grand Jury testimony in ongoing cases and the need to protect covert intelligence sources and methods, both in the United States and contributions made by foreign allies' intelligence agencies are the only justifiable redactions from the public report. However, like in every special counsel's report, including Watergate and Ken Starr's report, which had NO redactions and was made available to both Houses of Congress along with all supporting evidence the minute Starr had completed it. 40 hours after Congress got it, the entire report was put online for the American people to see it in its entirety.
Imagine the deranged howling and hair-on-fire hand-waving of the Republicans if Starr was forced to give the report to Clinton's Attorney General, Janet Reno, for censorship, early release to Clintons legal team, and to try to craft a pro-Clinton spin before she released a redacted report to Congress!
The House Intelligence Committee has full clearance to see anything, including the raw intelligence data. There simply doesn't exist a reason to redact anything from them except, possibly, Grand Jury testimony in ongoing investigations, as is the case with Roger Stone. NONE. NADA. NO WAY, NO HOW!
1
Why Barr should be behind bars?
He including himself is trying to protect the people who have hurt America. Is that a treason?
2
Barr abhors transparency but I can see right through him. If history doesn't repeat, it at least rhymes.
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1992/10/13/Barr-urged-to-resign/2248718948800/
This is what happens when you set such a low Barr....
2
I spent the morning scrolling through the Mueller report. The redacted pages were few and in context of little import to the report itself. The problem we have is art predicting life (recent Homeland season). Our intense interest in mass released minutia without regard to its source is the problem. Unfortunately for all of us, Barr's summary was accurate in copying Mueller's own conclusions. No easy "I didn't have sex with that woman" and all that followed.
Its time to have an organized opposition that can stand on a debate stage with Trump (the great entertainer) and convince the majority of states that this show is over. Having the 20 dwarfs running around is entertaining, but not effective. Jolting Joe Biden with a decent running mate could do it. Otherwise the show must go on.
Don't trust Barr, don't trust Rosenstein, don't trust Muller and don't trust any official until you get the answer you want.
3
How bitterly ironic those who want to read the entire report can't, while our President who won't' bother, can.
I am more than ready to elect a different President in 2020.
5
It appears that Trump did everything he has been accused of doing. His spokesminions are simply attempting to spin the reticence of the DOJ to prosecute a sitting president into claims of exoneration.
3
@WeHadAllBetterPayAttentionNow: "It appears that Trump did everything he has been accused of doing."
The reason for the investigation was for alleged collusion of Trump or members of his campaign of colluding with Russia to alter the election. In that regard Trump is innocent.
As to obstruction, Trump isn't smart enough legally to keep himself out of trouble. That's why he has some extraordinary people to keep him out of hot water. Those people are owed a debt of gratitude for keeping Trump from destroying his own presidency.
@hm1342 - "Collusion" is not a crime in the United States. The reason for the investigation was to look for Russian interference and conspiracy between Trump and Russia, which was found, although not with sufficient "admissible" evidence for an indictment. Sufficient evidence of obstruction of justice, which is a crime in the US, was found, but indictments were not issued per US DOJ policy. The evidence, however, was "preserved" for use after the end of the Trump presidency.
Yes, it is not only important to see the full report to get the real story, but it would also give all of us a chance to see what the Trump cover up machine believes it's most important to hide. That said, it seems to me that all commentary about the important events of today is ignoring the elephant in the room--Trump's efforts (probably still going on...) to get Putin's buy in on the Trump Moscow project. Knowing what we know about Trump, his greed and venality was likely more what motivated his behavior than anything else. Also, Putin is a sophisticated enough handler (probably the most sophisticated ever, anywhere) to understand this. The Russians and the Republicans want Trump in power for their own ends; Trump wants more money. My guess is the reason Mueller didn't find sufficient evidence to charge conspiracy is because Trump himself wasn't so much committed to becoming President as he was to advancing his business interests. He went along with those efforts...but was only committed to them to the extent that he needed to placate his handler.
1
AG William Barr's performance this morning, in advance of the release of the redacted Mueller report, certainly did not conform to the legal profession's definition of admissable behavior--in fact it was pathetic.
It's difficult to get into the heads of true believers, but their capacity to be duped--whether by religious leaders like Jim Jones or by con artists like Donald Trump--is both dangerous and sad.
William Barr just threw his reputation down the drain, and while he may feel rewarded by Trump's approval, he has done himself a serious disservice professionally. His reputation will not recover in his lifetime or thereafter. He may believe in "the Rapture", but that won't be waiting for him, either.
4
The irony is that Barr’s performance on the Mueller report form the 4 page summary to his news conference is so obviously biased that no one who is not a Trump loyalist will ever believe him on anything when there is even scintilla of doubt.
5
Trump is guilty of attempting to obstruct a legitimate probe into his campaign's connection with Russia. Russia offered; Trump welcomed it; Russia interfered. This is clearly a betrayal of the United States of America. The wrangling of lawyers over what may or may not constitute a prosecutable offense, and the President's legal vulnerability to such charges if brought while in office are secondary. Donald J. Trump is immoral, unscrupulous, and manifestly unfit for office. If that does not ultimately matter to a majority of citizens (enough to compel them to vote for a decisive end to this administration's corruption) America is finished. Its moral illness is terminal. I have prayed with all my heart that this will not be the diagnosis, but the moment of clarity is breaking over us. If it reveals the worst about our nation, I won't grieve because the judgment against it will be just. I will pray only that the just who must live in it manage a timely escape from its ruin.
2
Of course, there was no direct collusion.
Putin just told trump to let him handle everything.
2
Trump got his lapdog. It seems like Barr has declared that the president is above the law (wonder if he would have said this about Obama). And in case he's not . . . he didn't do anything wrong--he was just upset.
As far as reading between the lines goes, on the Mueller report and beyond: Why would someone, late in his professional life, subject himself to a pretty shameless transition from public servant to partisan hack?
Why indeed. Maybe he, like the president, was just upset. Perhaps the 'personal anxiety' defense will transform courts and criminal justice around the country.
1
Plain and simple: Congress must act and first act against Barr. Use all the powers vested to Congress, especially when Barr is abusing the powers vested to him. Let the fight for checks and balance begin!
William Barr will go down in history as an unethical political hack. Fair minded people who withheld judgement about interference and obstruction awaiting his report have been insulted by his unseemly performance.
2
please tell us more about Barrs history of muffling Republican misbehavior. I know very little about the Attorney General and I bet I'm not alone.
2
I now trust Attorney General William Barr, as much as I trust Donald Trump: not at all, not so much as a phrase of what comes out of their mouths. They will both replace Benedict Arnold, whose peers were stunned when his treachery was discovered. Arnold was a patriot far longer than he was a liar and deceptive turncoat -- throughout the French and Indian War(s) and most of the Revolutionary War. History should leave him alone for awhile, because the Trump-Barr duo have a leg up Arnold's treachery and deception. While abhorrent, Arnold's behavior was at least understandable. Trump's and Barr's behaviors are not.
Personally, I can't get beyond that the man who is the penultimate law enforcement officer in the United States of America, lied to Congress, lied to the American Press, lied to the American People (who ARE the nation) -- and by extension, the whole world. The Arrorney General of the USA LIED. He even put the lies in writing. That's mind-blowing, that's hard to fathom; it is, however, one more disgusting turn of events in the most lawless presidency in U.S. History, and so, it's INFAMOUSLY shocking and disgusting.
2
Mueller must come forth himself before House committees because Barr has proven himself to be a henchman for our wannabe dictator in the Oval Office. This report absolutely must be made available to the public--all of it. We are "the people" still who elect our representatives to represent "us," not Donald Trump.
1
So much of Trump's horrible ways and means are hidden in plain sight--including his constant mention of Roy Cohn as if the infamous lawyer was a fine man of good repute. Evidently, Trump believes that no one will notice that Roy Cohn went down in history as one of the most dishonorable, indecent, thoroughly corrupt practitioners of law who ever entered an American courtroom. Look it up if you find it hard to believe!
I cant believe the unredacted report has not been leaked. Where is Wikileaks when you need them?" Russia, if your listening, we want to see" the unredacted Muller report.
1
Very suspicious that Mr. Barr, retired and age 68 with a clean background would volunteer and stick his neck out for an amoral Trump.
Has the media checked Mr. Barr thoroughly. Any chance Trump or the Russians have something on him or his family? Sounds crazy, but it is a strange world.
1
House file Articles for Presidential Impeachment and ‘others’. Let The Senate proceed with public trial(s) to acquit or remove ‘some persons’ from public offices. Do the Constitutional process as Ordered and establish the Public’s Record in this matter.
That’s the legal and righteous way to resolve our Federal Government crisis! If the ‘House’ fails to Do Their Duty than sadly all U.S. Citizens can only be left with one conclusion. The USA is governed by fraudulent actors!
2
We can look forward to post-president Trump hawking a (ghost written) book on Fox called "If I Did It".
2
I 100 percent agree, Congress must be given the full, unredacted Mueller report. Anything less is absolutely unacceptable.
207
@Margaret: "I 100 percent agree, Congress must be given the full, unredacted Mueller report. Anything less is absolutely unacceptable."
Then you should ask Rep. Nadler why he voted against releasing the entire Starr Report in 1998. Back then the Special Counsel's report was given directly to Congress and not the Attorney General. Of course, Republicans are just as guilty of hypocrisy because they voted for releasing the entire report.
2
@hm1342
Nadler voted against release the Starr report to the public after reviewing the report without redaction. The situation here is different. At the very least Congress is entitled to an unredacted report with evidence.
12
@Margaret Barr is Trump's man; his personal attorney; his protector; his Roy Cohn. NO to Barr. Ray Sipe
9
I am disappointed in the Editorial Board suggesting that Congress -- presumably all its members -- are entitled to see the unredacted report.
Those folks are, first and foremost, politicians. There are no penalties from their leaking parts of the report -- particularly ongoing investigations and grand jury proceedings -- and some will do so if they believe that enhances their political career.
Allowing all of Congress to see the unredacted report should not happen unless there are criminal penalties available for such disclosures. They write the laws; there will be no such retributions.
2
For our system of government to properly function, the bedrock of the total system is based on a most basic set of concepts: Trust, Fairness, and Justice System's adherence to the rule of law. Think about it for a brief moment. Everything else matters not one scintilla if people have no faith in a government where the rule of law is NOT meted fairly to ALL citizens, regardless of social standing, ethnicity, wealth status, and political/religious affiliations.
In AG Barr's actions, clearly coordinated through Trump's legal team and at the behest of Donald Trump, America has witnessed a total trashing of the rule of law by the most powerful elected official - POTUS Trump. Using the reasonable man concept, there are no explanations which provide faith in how the Justice Department has conducted itself of late. And for that matter, the same can be said of each and every Cabinet Secretary's department in auctioning off parts of government in the most naked manner possible. Simply put, rampant corruption, abuse of power, and flagrant disregard for rule of law and governmental norms are the hallmarks of the Trump Administration.
Why should American citizens obey the rule of law when the highest office in the nation flagrantly defiles it using the legal system to shield their crimes and misconduct? If the tables were turned, average Americans would never have been given the legal oversight by AG Barr. In short, Barr wouldn't care because he only reports to one: Donald Trump.
One might say that Trump originally founded his popularity, which led to his candidacy and presidency, on THE lie - That being the utterly counter-factual conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not a US citizen. Since then, presidential prevarication has virtually become the hallmark of his substance-less style. Now he - and far more disingenuously and disturbingly, what passes for GOP leadership - assert that we should believe that he and his campaign are guiltless and fully exonerated in the matter of collaboration (note I do not say collusion) with Russian operatives during his campaign. In other words, despite two years marked by some 5000 proven, personal lies, he asserts that he has earned our faith and trust. Our best response to that awaits the 2020 election.
1
@Jerry Farnsworth Well said! Furthermore, after that spectacular betrayal of public trust, Republicans seek retribution against those even daring to investigate the appearance of evil, thus validating the lie of "witch hunt." They are officially the party of American dictatorship.
I'm reminded of Justice Stevens' memorable dissent in Bush v. Gore:
"Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year’s Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation’s confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law."
Trump unfortunately reflects a large share of public opinion in this nation when he views our justice system not as an "impartial guardian of the rule of law," but strictly in terms of loyalty. To him, and to many Americans, investigative and judicial decisions are viewed through the lens of advocacy, not the rule of law.
This is a dizzying spiral in today's culture: the "my side/your side" view of the justice system promoted by the Trump administration furthers our partisan divide, and our deepening partisan divide adds fuel to the argument that Trump and his cronies are promoting: that any decision or conclusion that does not support Trump is by default motivated by political enmity.
I don't know what the solution will be, but I have deep, deep concerns. Until and unless we all stop viewing this matter through a strictly partisan lens, we are headed toward very dangerous waters.
2
People...enough, already.
Whatever crime you're looking for? You're not gonna find it.
This election is the Democrat's to lose. Cut your losses on this and focus on what has been the goal all along - getting Trump out of office. Impeachment is no longer the way; you must beat him in the election. Let's focus on that.
1
We all need to be very worried about the future of our country and our democracy - no matter what side you are on. Regardless of who's fault it is (left, right, media, facebook) - the trend is for much more distrust in our own country, in our government, in our fellow Americans. Whether or not Russian is at fault or not, whether or not they are our enemy or not is not relevant. Whoever our enemy is, they are facing a weakened, less united, USA - a distracted and unfocused advisory. If we were in a fight, this increases our probability of losing. Instead of striving to show unified strength as a nation - we are bickering with each other, don't trust each other, don't support each other. If the country were a football team, the coach would be fired. But instead it is really about political parties above country and that's why none of the coach are getting fired (politicians). It does ultimately highlight the need for a true American leader - where is our next Lincoln? (#killthe2partysystem - #Singletransferablevote)
2
When reading the material on obstruction, I don't get it. If a suspect interferes in an investigation by lying or attempting or forcing others to lie, ok, obstruction. Bill Clinton tried that. How does one obstruct by speaking the truth in one's defense?
8
@TD
"How does one obstruct by speaking the truth in one's defense?"
You'll need to provide an example of Trump telling the truth. Otherwise, just hypothetical.
3
@TD
It's quite obvious. You're not actually reading the report. When Trump instructed his minions to lie or interfere with the investigation, that's obstruction.
However, Mueller did not want to indict the president (as is stated in the report) and instead instructed that Congress has the power to police the presidency in that regard.
So, again, the answer is quite obvious, if you take off the blinders and actually read.
2
Oh the spin
Now they have to undermine public trust in rule of law and the Attorney General
He has clearly offered to show it to Senators on the appropriate committees with appropriate security clearance.
Don’t trust the media !
6
@Joe Yoh,
Who are " they?"
Here's a history lesson Joe: neither Clinton or Reagan or Nixon got to read the investigation report beforehand. Trump and Barr are cutting a new path through the traditions and rules established to protect the Constitution and it's very illegal and certainly unethical.
As for Mueller's report, he failed to indict the president; he failed, despite clear evidence outside of the investigation of obstruction and spying for the Russians. History will judge Mueller harshly.
2
Barr is trying to carry off the slickest whitewash job since Tom Sawyer’s fence. He should not be allowed to get away with it.
18
@Thomas Saunders,
A seldom used legal arm outside of the reach of AG Barr is the House Sergent of Arms. The Sergent of Arms is connected with the DC police. He should march over and arrest AG Barr on lying to Congress, obstruction of Congress, and a list of other crimes committed in broad daylight.
@Rocketscientist Amen. Just as the FBI should have hauled the traitor off in handcuffs after calling for an attack (collusion, conspiracy and aiding and abetting all in one!) on our nation from a hostile power (known to be attacking us by the traitor).
@Rocketscientist: "The Sergent of Arms is connected with the DC police. He should march over and arrest AG Barr on lying to Congress..."
If lying is your standard, how many members of Congress could be arrested for lying while making speeches?
Rosenstein’s body language told a lot.
13
@pbrown68: "Rosenstein’s body language told a lot."
If Rosenstein is convinced that Barr is lying or engaged in some sort of cover-up, he should go and testify before Congress.
What is abundantly clear from the report is the fact that we, as a country, have placed too much power in one individual and have left decisions of criminality by said individual to the political whims of Congress. It doesn't matter if the report is redacted or not, the Republican Congress sold its soul to the devil for a bit of power, and would not act upon it regardless. I lost faith in the judicial integrity of this country on the day the Supreme Court halted the 2000 elections. It is run by money and political ideology.
25
Even Trump knew what he actually did and he almost openly admitted it. Yet, the Republican Congressmen and Senators helped him to remain in Presidency. A very sad day for American Democracy that most Americans used to be so proud about!
Let's see what more aggressive Democratic leadership can achieve to defeat Trump and force him to face the full force of that proverbial "American justice" that many American Blacks and other minorities routinely face even when many of them never did any crime, leaving alone something of this magnitude that affect the whole country and also future generations. No, I'm not a supporter for impeaching Trump only to enable him to get Presidential pardon by next GOP president and allow him to evade any prosecution and punishment.
7
@bonku - Trump blatantly demonstrated, albeit not intentionally, that he knew exactly what he did. He also continues to show such inexplicable submission & deference to Vladimir Putin, even as Putin makes warlike statements about his hew hypersonic missiles' capability of penetrating US defenses & hitting us. Russia is expanding its influence all over the world while Trump sits on his rump braying about the invasion of terrified women & minors from Central America. Russia is gobbling up control of the melting Arctic for example. NATO & Australia are so worried that there is a multi-national exercise underway in the Arctic to teach troops how to function in Arctic warfare. Trump has decided not to participate. The Russians now have over 40 Arctic icebreakers, the US has 2 with no plans to build more. Russia is now working on the ability to totally isolate their segment of the internet to allow no traffic in or out of Russia - hardening their internet from reprisals in a cyberwar. Trump has done nothing to counter what we already know as Russian penetration of the American internet (not just political, but threatening all of our infrastructure, like the power grid & our nuclear plants). Trump ignores our vulnerability - most likely because he benefited from Russian penetration of our net in 2016 & hopes to do so again in 2020. When have we ever had a president who continues to take his marching orders from our major rival & enemy?
1
@Beartooth, that's a great big bite of truth you've got in those jaws.
For decades, before putin Russia was attempting to create internal chaos and division, deligetimizing democratic institutions all over the world. Their goal in 2016 elections was to create internal chaos, mistrust and division within the USA to weaken USA domestically and internationally.
Whether or not trump formally acted in colluusion with Russia or not it makes no difference, the behavior of trump created the same result as the intent and goals of Russia and as if tr2ump were an agent of Russia.
Wherhter trump did this in collusion or not, trump has behaved as an agent of Russian interests and if not in collusion then he did this as his choice. trump has seriously weakened the abliity of the USA to influence world affairs, to influence the global economy and trump has defended the politics of hate and dictatorship to the loss of principles of the United States of America and has created hateful divisions between Americans.
If there was no collusion then trump did the bidding of Russia all on his own, and Russia could not have asked for a better agent for their cause than trump.
5
@steven "Trump has seriously weakened the abliity of the USA to influence world affairs, to influence the global economy" - well, the vast majority of the rest of the world's population might well consider that to be no bad thing!
1
@jayeff Except when they pause to consider who is already filling that vaccuum.
WE THE PEOPLE need to read the entire report. MSNBC is doing a fantastic job of reviewing the Mueller Report thought by thought, fact by fact and engaging a number of articulate and knowledgeable experts to discuss the revelations of this report. Having just read several of the redacted sections I have a key question that I sense ALL American Citizens need to reflect upon.
I have read enough of the report to understand.... Trump may not have actively facilitated the Russians in their obstruction of the 2016 Election but he and key members of his staff were clearly aware of what was going on. Trump may not have technically committed a crime he can be tried for but he was clearly but irresponsible and dishonest. His behavior is absolutely unacceptable and unethical. I no longer trust him. He has not been serving the American People. He has been serving himself. 2020 can't come soon enough.
13
@Leslie374 "I no longer trust him" - you used to trust him? Right up to now you used to trust him??? TRUST Trump?
2
All the anti-Trumpers are very sad today to find that no Americans colluded with the Russians.
5
@Robby What's sadder is that some folks believe it.
2
@Robby, they are all sitting in jail, the ones who did collude and were sniffed out.
@Robby As a certifiable there is no republican qualified to be POTUS, I can honestly say that sadness is not in the cards. The dismay and disgust that there are so many aggrieved, racist, losers that are happy to have released their hate for democracy and enjoy watching our nation stumble as its institutions crumble has not diminished one iota since the first howling rally of the deplorable horde of miscreant, misogynist, pedophile racists cheered their god. No reconciliation without truth.
1
April 18, 2018
We either learn from this report or we use it as a opportunity to engage in election management with this path studied and given to the world, i. e. democratic worlds states. Yes the brilliance as Editorially states " verify his readactions."
Campaign affairs has unfortunately achieved a low that is beyond the historical and yet if we allow this report to be misused and not embraced to the fullest then our political contest and the greater good to serve our constitutional expectations will be high crimes and misdemeanors to further litigate for the good of our own governing politicking house we live for and with.
1
That press conference was really priceless. The guy at the podium won the job in an essay contest with the theme that a President cannot be indicted for obstruction. The guy to his right had a look that said, "please don't take away my pension and don't ask me to say anything." And then there was the 'bearded heavy' on the left who must have been included to intimidate the press, which seemed to have worked given the shallow and tepid questions that followed. The only valid question left is what will the House do?
25
Barr is the classic Republican/Trump stooge.
31
@BC
John Mitchell, Jr.
@BC and there is such an abundance.
1
The two most significant aspects of this moment in our nation's history are lost in the firestorm of partisanship, emotional reactions, and media frenzy...
That Russia interfered, actively, in our elections; they did so to support President Trump. And, Russia...is our enemy.
And, what level of honesty, integrity, and character do we require from the person who sits as the President of the United States, leader of the free world?
14
@Kelly Grace Smith
Unfortunately, it seems that Republicans have voted into office their own reflection in the mirror. It hurts me to say so, but I'm afraid that this is America.
4
I have no interest in Barr report part deux.
Publish:
Individual-1's taxes.
Mueller's report.
Barr has a track record:
1) see Bush41 AG.
2) Barr report: 4 page 'summary'
3) Barr extremely bogus 'spying' conspiracy
4) Barr report part deux
25
At what point does the NYT apologize to its subscribers for leading us on a more than 2-year wild goose chase with its discredited collusion and obstruction narrative?
8
There is evidence of collusion, even spying for the Russians. Trump's handler is Putin himself. Even now, Kim Jong is taking tips from Putin in Moscow on handling Trump.
If Trump were a mafia don RICO statutes would allow us to tap Trump and Putin's phones. Too bad, Putin has better security than the average don.
Read "House of Putin, House of Trump:" Trump has been working for the Russian and Italian mobs for decades --- just like dad. He launders money for them. Trump may not be very smart but he knows to do most of his spy work 2nd and 3rd hand and word of mouth. Small wonder that Mueller couldn't achieve the 99% assurity needed to indict.
1
Congress should begin by impeaching Barr, then move on up the ladder.
21
The Times Editorial Board has long lost any credibility on this subject. They should be embarrassed to write about it.
Adam Schiff?? He makes Trump look like George Washington.
10
@Daphne
Adam Schiff makes Trump look like Aaron Burr.
7
From what Barr has said about the report, which strays far from candor or proportion, why should we believe the redactions are as he labeled? In fact, why should we believe release of any “unredacted” report is actual.
If an unredacted version is released, we will need Mueller’s testimony to be reassured that all of the report is there.
16
@John Brews. ✳️✳️✳️
Even if Mueller confirms the unredacted report is actual, why should we believe Mueller's report either. They should be made to provide all the evidence they gathered...ad infinitum.
To paraphrase Joseph Welch: "Mr. Barr, let us not insult the intelligence of the American people any further. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?"
34
Oh the odorous spin
Now they have to undermine public trust in rule of law and the Attorney General
He has clearly offered to show it to Senators on the appropriate committees with appropriate security clearance.
2
It's all so sickeningly clear - what are we all pretending not to know? Trump and his campaign's activities don't measure up to the level of a crime? The 2016 election was definitely interfered with, and it wasn't by the Democrats.
Trump's Republican Party is the most openly, in-your-face corrupt entity in my lifetime. Barr should be disbarred. Trump should be removed, and the cesspool of cronies in his administration and party that have enabled this unprecedented scope of abuse of power should be banished to Russia, where they belong.
The full, unredacted report must be seen. If Trump has nothing to hide, why all the stalling and hand-wringing and debate. Release the full report.
56
I believe Mueller will be testifying and I believe Barr will make the document available un-redacted to congressional members.
I'm tired of the tin-foil hats believing in a conspiracy with no evidence. This is like a crusade to prove there are no such thing as unicorns. Trying to prove the absence of a thing is difficult to prove because by definition, its NOT THERE !
If the press has any concern of salvaging their credibility, they need to stop with their witch hunt and go back to real journalism. Present ALL the facts, and not just the ones that fit the conspiracy. Admit to unverified sources when they are so. Move on !
3
"Yet, while some information may indeed be too sensitive to release publicly, there’s no good reason congressional overseers can’t see it. "
Ha! It should be noted that the infamous letter that then FBI director Comey wrote to a Congressional committee advising them that the FBI was reopening an investigation into Hillary Clinton just days before the election was not sent with the intent that it be immediately released to the public. The only reason the NYT editorial board wants the full report sent to Congress is because they have contacts in Congress that would send the report to them.
1
I would never trust anything Trump did or said; nor would I trust any of his many sycophants.
13
Trump-Barr is a perfect match. Some folks long to be tyrants, others to be dogs at the feet of tyrants.
17
Republicans need to step up or in their case, man up (since most of them are men) and start representing their constituents (all their constituents, Democratic, Republican, Independent). They seem to think that they represent the President and the President thinks he only represents the people who voted for him. All Americans deserve to be represented fairly and for Trump's part and most of the Republicans, they don't care about that -- they are happy to thumb their nose at all of us. He does not deserve to be in this office --he cheated, lied and bullied his way in. He's a dangerous and extremely pathetic human being. Sad day for America and the American people.
14
What to expect when you’re expecting the imminent collapse of America’s Republic...
Special thanks to Citizens United, and the Republican Party, for the grotesque legislative coup d’grace.
6
I think AG Barr's behavior and distorted, unlawful presidential insight proves the point on just how corrupt the Bush administrations were. Really even more so than Trump because they got away with all of it and poor Trump is toast.
5
Barr is a hack. The spectacle of him tarting himself up with his immunity memo, passing through a sham confirmation hearing, then acting as the president's personal lawyer, is sickening. He and Trump are doing lasting damage to the rule of law in this country, and no one seems willing to stop them.
25
Both Rosenstein and his associate look like victims of the Stockholm Syndrome. The other subtext expression is they are both trapped in a room with a walking talking septic system.
10
Trust Barr? Who would trust Barr? Oh, wait...
3
Anyone with half a brain already knows the corruption, incompetence and lack of character or ethics of Trump and this abhorrent administration. We did not need Mueller’s report.
The question is, how soon can we undo the damage done to our country?
17
Oh the odorous spin
Now they have to undermine public trust in rule of law and the Attorney General
He has clearly offered to show it to Senators on the appropriate committees with appropriate security clearance.
1
My main conclusion: Barr lied in his letter summarizing the report, and in his conclusions about the report today.
Barr agrees with Mueller that Russia intervened in the 2016 election in an attempt to help Trump. This is indisputable.
However, Mueller did not conclude that there was "No Collusion." There was obvious open collusion between the Trump campaign, and Trump himself, and the Russians. But this did not rise to the level of criminality because the applicable charge is Conspiracy, which has to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Mueller decided not to charge Conspiracy.
Barr also falsely concluded that there was no Obstruction of Justice. This is a charge that, according to Department of Justice policy, must be made against the President by the Congress in impeachment proceedings. Conviction in Trump's case cannot occur due to the hyper-partisan nature of the Republican-controlled Senate, which will not consider the evidence, no matter how damning.
It should also be stressed that this is far from the whole and complete report. There are massive redactions. For example, whole pages in the Wiki-Leaks section are blacked out. It will all come out eventually, and when it does, criminal charges will be made against Trump, and others.
And, of course, there are over a dozen ongoing investigations, including investigations started by Mueller that are still proceeding. Finally, Mueller needs to testify -- immediately.
5
You must absolutely not trust Barr, a Trump loyalist hired expressly to defend his well known iniquities that began with Russia's 'faithful' assistance in catapulting such an ignorant beast to the highest office. and his dog-gone lies and insults ever since, within his unhinged misrule...and the installment of a klepto-plutocracy clueless of the need to tackle our odious inequality. We are living an institutionalized violence. This must end. Justice demands it, but Barr is the wrong guy for sure.
10
I believe Donald Trump is William Barr's nuclear football...and he is about to go off in Barr's lap.
3
Credibility. Mr. Barr says his "feeling" is that there was spying on the Trump campaign. Now, would this feeling be based on something factual, or is it more like a tingling in his big toe? Enquiring minds want to know because no one, including president Trump, expected him to win, so what would be the point of spying?
8
Oh the spin
Now they have to undermine public trust in rule of law and the Attorney General
He has clearly offered to show it to Senators on the appropriate committees with appropriate security clearance.
QUOTE: “Don’t Trust Barr. Verify His Redactions. The Trump administration hasn’t earned the benefit of the doubt from the American people. Both parties must see the uncensored Mueller report.”
That’s right…and after you've gone through that additional exercise and fail to find anything objectively & impartially erroneous, you’ll just keep searching…until you get the RESULT you’re looking for, yes? And lo and behold, this is after more than two years of a painstaking and extremely costly Mueller investigation that the DEMS rested all their hopes and prayers on…only to come up empty-handed. Oh, how sad this is! Could it be that “the truth hurts”?
Having said that, is THIS what we elected our legislators in Congress to do? Congress should be spending their precious time and taxpayer dollars on fixing our woefully ineffective immigration & asylum laws...dealing with DACA, etc., w/o continually kicking the can down the road, or forcing the POTUS to take "Executive action" in order to finally get things done.
But no! Congress just wants to keep investigating alleged "Russian collusion" and "obstruction of justice". I'm sorry, but this has absolutely nothing to do with TRUTH and TRANSPARENCY, and everything to so with POLITICS. Plain and simple, this is sad...very sad, indeed!
IMHO, a healthy dose of introspection and honest soul-searching might do us all some good!
5
Why don’t I trust the TrumpBarr spin on Robert Mueller’s report? The WP has verified that Trump has lied nearly 10,000 times in his first 2 years as POTUS. The NYT has presented evidence that Trump and his siblings committed tax fraud in order to increase the amount they inherited when Fred Trump died, evidence so compelling that Trump’s sister, a federal judge, retired in order to quell an investigation. How could anyone believe Trump/Barr? Fox News.
12
Amen, Editorial Board. It is looking fishier and fishier, and Barr appears to be intent on destroying his own reputation, "representing" a president who lies as often as he breathes. So - the president's own private Roy Cohen - let's keep an eye on his wardrobe. Will he begin coming to work wearing ostrich leather jackets (a la Manafort)?
2
SO. MUCH. IS. REDACTED.
2
Imagine if Eric Holder did this stunt.
4
Nothing will satisfy the Editorial Board of the NYT.
4
@NYT Reader, is it not their role, as free press, an arm of checks and balances, to question everything, from our President to our lawmakers?
Barr's press conference was as ridiculous and as full of holes and as far from the truth as was Colin Powell's presentation at the UN.
Disgusting. Unbelievable.
10
@Abhilash, don't forget before Powell presented to the UN, it was Mueller who made the case listing Iraq as one of the countries harboring terrorists. And we still trust Mueller!
1
Talk about lowering the bar.
It cannot go any lower.
5
From now on, can we expect presidential candidates to travel openly to Saudi Arabia, Russia, Brazil, and other illiberal countries to get advice, money, and free sabotage in favor of that candidate? Can they openly send their sons and daughters? Can they openly receive money and favors from other countries? If what Trump has done isn't illegal, then Pandora's Box is open. It was so wrong of Gerald Ford to pardon Richard Nixon, and of Congress to give a pass to Ronald Reagan. The precedent has been set, and will expand itself..
15
@annabellina
It's a tough call not to pardon a president.
I could forgive pardoning Trump ( you know Pence would ) only because NY would go after him like a junk yard dog.
He'd probably have or feign a heart attack anyway. But hope springs eternal.
1
No, Barr is untrustworthy. He had a predisposition to the investigation, before he was appointed AG. Rose stein almost appeared catatonic during the entire Barr presentation.
I hope the House doesn’t think extending the investigation is time consuming.
6
There is much to absorb within the Mueller Report, even as redacted and now available and it will take time to assess and analyze all of the information it contains. However, it is clear that DOJ, at least at this time, plans to bring no criminal charges against any further members of the Trump campaign or administration related to the Special Counsel's investigation.
It should be pointed out however, that it is the responsibility of Congress, not DOJ to make constitutional judgements about any "high crimes and misdemeanors" that may have been committed or not by the President. While I do not myself favor an impeachment proceeding, I do think it is important for Congress to at least consider via the House and Senate Judiciary Committees a Censure Resolution for President Trump in view of his contemptuous disregard for the Rule of Law and Constitutional Norms. While his behavior may not rise to the level of a prosecutable crime, it has more than flirted with the red lines associated with those criminal statutes related to obstruction of justice according the Report. A Censure Resolution would allow for an expression of disapproval and, properly worded, express a strong warning against similar future behavior by others.
I would also like to see legislative focus on the issue of preventing foreign interference or influence in future US elections. This issue has received virtually no legislative attention and it is a real shame that it continues to be unaddressed.
4
Reading this article, and especially the comments (80 as of now), I'm led to conclude that in a sense Donald Trump -- or, more accurately, the individuals behind him and manipulating him, such as Bannon, Miller, Gorka and their ilk -- have succeeded in their disruptive aims. Within two years, the credibility of the administration, and of the entire political system, has been destroyed. None of us trust the people on the other side to act in good faith; but without some degree of such trust, a democracy cannot function.
I hope that in time,and with a great deal of effort, that trust will be restored and our democracy will recover. At the moment, however, I'm not feeling particularly optimistic.
14
Given the many criminal charges and convictions involving Trump aides and officials including his personal lawyer, and with more likely to come, how can we not be skeptical of Mr. Barr's characterizations of the Mueller Report? I find Donald Trump's willingness to let the Russians interfere on his behalf in our election processes, and his son's glee at the prospect ("...I love it!"), abominable and unacceptable. Political dirty tricks are one thing, but this matter, as the Times' editors noted today and previously, is extraordinary in our history. Barr's handling of the Report fails the smell test.
342
@Mark Hugh Miller
Is it really extraordinary in our history? It wasn't even unique to the 2016 campaign. HRC funneled money to a man peddling a dossier full of Russian misinformation.
2
@TD
Sorry, but that lie has been thoroughly debunked.
10
@Mark Hugh Miller
Barr is Trump’s “Roy Cohen”. We pay his salary but he works only and 100% for Donald Trump.
11
People who worked on the Mueller team will also read the redacted version of the full report they helped to write. If any of these people find that the conclusions of the released, redacted version differ significantly from their original version. you can be certain that the full report will be leaked.
6
The day the Republic died...
4
Amen!
1
"The Trump administration hasn’t earned the benefit of the doubt from the American people."
This may be the most ridiculous sentence ever published by the New York Times in its 168 year history.
1
What is indisputable is that Trump has something deeply unpleasant to hide. Moving for a moment beyond the Mueller investigation and the collusion / obstruction allegations, and with the 2020 campaign now underway perhaps it's time to ask whether a man so manifestly corrupt, debauched and incompetent should hold any public office; let along the presidency. That anyone would defend this man; try to protect him and prevent the truth from getting out is simply amazing to me. It really shakes my faith in our system - if not in human nature.
23
@Agent X Start with the republican-led Senate.
3
A picture says a thousand words. Just look at those faces and grim expressions on those guys. Like they used to joke about Nixon, (and I now miss him) would you buy a used car from anyone of those guys?
3
Of course don't trust Barr. Why would anyone trust him to do anything except reliably cover up for Trump? Review: Trump fired Sessions because he wasn't sufficiently dishonest and partisan; Trump said repeatedly he wanted an AG who would "protect" him, he wanted a Roy Cohn; Barr went out of his way to advertise that he believed the Mueller investigation should never have taken place and speciously asserted that the president cannot obstruct justice; then Trump picks Barr as AG, aided and abetted, as ever, by the Republican Senate. Trump got his Roy Cohn. Why would anyone give Barr the benefit of the doubt and assume he might be honest? He was obviously put there precisely to whitewash the Mueller report and turn the DOJ into the president's personal political tool. Point is, this was all obvious before Barr's recent chicanery. Now everyone is acting like "oh, my, Barr may not be an entirely honest broker in this ..." Well, duh.
10
We are in a position of allowing a president and foreign countries, Russia in this case, influence and conquer our country without firing a single shot. While 'the pen is mightier than the sword' we are now in a situation where corruption, collusion, and basic dishonesty is mightier than the American people and Democracy as we know and respect it. Barr is just another agent of Trump and is just as untrustworthy acting as a judge and jury by himself. Congress needs to demand the whole report and at least the Democratic Party needs to expose the underbelly of this corrupt president.
4
Barr's performance today just confirmed that he is really not the Attorney General of the United States: He is Donald Trump's Attorney General.
11
Regardless of the constitutional questions relating to the legality of charging a President and the nuances of what constitutes intent, there appears here a crisp, clear depiction of the character, or lack thereof, of Donald Trump, and his many criminal associates. If this is a character that you wouldn't invite into your home for Sunday dinner, then I'll thank you not to put him in the White House, thank you very much!
8
Just imagine if this were President Obama! Republicans would never trust at face value the word of his second Attorney General (the first having been humiliated and then fired for recusing himself).
6
Great. America has just learned that Trump and his minions weren't criminal enough. Just short of being indictable. Guess we will have to go with that. Oh, and that AG Barr told us that the heart of Trump is pure as the new fallen snow.
5
This is the last hurrah for this story, of which I, and most of the country, is sick of hearing about. Let's move on, please.
2
@DRS. Sorry to say, but, like you, I’m sick of hearing and reading about this story. While I’m not at all happy about what is or isn’t in Barr’s report and letter and am totally convinced Barr is John Mitchell redux, I don’t think the electorate will learn much more before 2020. With that in mind, get your act together Democrats so we have something or someone who win.
The words in the headline are out of order. It should read JUST DON'T TRUST BARR.
In this matter, his coverup was not worse than the crimes, but it was just as clumsy and obvious.
The hair splitting on perloining vs disseminating stolen campaign data was particularly subversive of justice.
3
A not just unreasonable, but flat out irrational and heavily biased, editorial board with yet more mud-slinging. You have to be kidding, you have thoroughly disgraced yourselves and all you can do to avoid admitting it is pretend we should all have access to classified information.
And because they can't give that up, you will continue to inflate the conspiracy, enlarge it to encompass ever-increasing number of govt. functions, and competely destroy what is left of your reputation.
1
@Dan
1. You do realize that the job of editorial boards are to write opinions, yes?
2. You do have some understanding of how our three-part government works, yes?
3. You are cognizant of the facts that we had a decades-long Cold War with Russia, and even after it supposedly ended, they and the US have never truly been friends, yes?
1
Reading Mueller's justification for bypassing a face to face under oath interview with Trump that it would take too much time, is unbelievable... ....and the June meeting between Trump Jr et al and Russians at Trump Tower was not cooperation, coordination, collusion, or whatever word one might choose, is also unbelievable.... What was Mr. Mueller thinking???? How many of his team agreed?
4
Barr is a shill for Trump. No serious official tries to explain Trump's victimization mentality while dealing with a legal case.
He meddles into everything: it's his interpretation of the report rather than Mueller's; he enters into the mental state of his boss. He wants a central role that is not called for. He is not there to give interpretations, he is there to make public what the special investigations found. Trump may be totally unprepared, but he recognizes a dependable loyalist when he sees one. Whatever Barr's reputation was, he has lost it...and for whom?
6
Simply said: Attorney General Barr cannot be trusted. His rose-colored rendering that Trump's "sincere belief that he was being unjustly investigate renders him innocent of any obstruction of justice charge that relies on intent" shows he is not a neutral arbiter protecting the rule of law. Instead, he has sacrificed the whole of his career to the abject narcissism of a morally, politically and financially corrupt man: Donald J. Trump.
What a travesty! What a missed opportunity to stand up for the American people and our understanding of what this President and his campaign have done. Nadler and Schiff need to issue a subpoena (or sue) to get access to the FULL UN-REDACTED report.
3
Just on Barr's close interactions with the White House prior to the release of this report, and his messaging strategies to clear Trump, you can't Trust Barr. Period.
The con man who soils the Oval Office has always had a knack for getting away with a lifetime of cheating, stiffing creditors and contractors, tax evasion and of course lying every time he opens his mouth. This vile individual has not changed his behavior from the time he managed to wind up as president. It would be obscene if after all is known about his association with low-life advisers and lawyers, and the numerous contacts with Russians and his obvious attempts to derail the Mueller investigation, trump gets away once more. This cannot be the end of this stinky affair; therefore, it is the duty of the members of Congress to continue to probe into this man's complete activities. Specifically, it is incumbent upon the Democrats not to back down or be intimidated by trump's bullying tactics and the sleazy attacks of the right-wing media.
6
Would you buy a used car
from William Barr?
4
“but Mr. Mueller established no criminal conspiracy between Mr. Trump’s campaign and Russia.”
The sad thing is that too many people thought that the Trump team had the sophistication and intelligence to pull something like this off. Look at Don “I love it” Jr. – a lightweight performer on “The Apprentice”. And there’s Paul “I buy my suits at Alan Couture” Manafort – who never rose above the level of someone groveling in front those interested in the Ukraine while claiming that he was worth a gig as a consultant with ties to power in the US. He couldn’t even file his taxes correctly.
The actions by many on the Trump team were reprehensible and have been brilliantly summarized by those such as Adam Schiff. But that’s as far as this all goes.
And now – it’s time to vote – and do what Mueller could not.
3
If we aren't supposed to trust Barr who are we supposed to trust?
The NYT?
2
In trying to fathom why William Barr behaves as the President's attorney, NOT the attorney for the American people, I see a possible explanation: if Trump is re-elected & an opening occurs on the Supreme Court, Trump has agreed to nominate Barr. And, the toxic swamp deepens.
6
The report detailed dramatic conflicts within the White House. When Mr. Trump learned of Mr. Mueller’s appointment, he slumped in his chair and said: “Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my presidency. I’m f###ed.”
Don't read this in any other context other than what Bill Clinton likely said when an Independent Counsel was appointed to investigate his shenanigans.
Only difference is that in Clinton's case, what he did was illegal..therefore any actions he took to demonize the Counsel would have been obstruction just asserting executive privilege (as he did 100's of times) is obstruction.
Turns out that in America if you are truly innocent and cooperate with the investigators 100%, you can trash them publicly all you want to defend your reputation and beat back a Corporate Media hellbent on destroying your Presidency.
God Bless America.
As per the Mueller Report, Trump's own words regarding this investigation, "I'm f*****." If the GOP believes they now have a short-term win, they may. But the GOP should not rest, their chickens will come home to roost.
2
The report tells us what we need to know, not about collusion, but about corruption, and ultimately about fitness for office. It also points up the ways that this president has abrogated his sworn responsibility to uphold the rule of law: to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. His disdain for the most sacred trust we place in our chief executive renders him unfit for the office he holds. This report could lead a reasonable and responsible Congress to the removal of this cancer from our government. But will it?
7
AG Barr’s press conference was clearly, once again misleading. He should resign immediately.
9
I find it a horrible slap in the face by Mr. Barr to the American Public and the Congress. He shares the report with the White House (was that redacted) before presenting it to the Congress?
Why would anyone believe Mr. Barr has the best interest of the Country at heart. It is his job to put the Country before any other interest. He took an oath to do that. How does he get away with it?
The American public at this point cannot trust Barr or anyone else in the Administration, including Trump.
Barr should be dis-barred.
40
There's a tipping point out there somewhere. We won't find out exactly where until we encounter the consequences of passing this tipping point. We get no do-overs after we pass this tipping point.
We're close.
We cannot tolerate the continuing lies and criminal behavior of Attorney General William P Barr.
He must resign or be impeached.
We cannot tolerate the continuing lies and criminal behavior of President Donald J Trump.
He must resign or be impeached.
We will ultimately encounter a catastrophe that can only be avoided if Trump resigns or is impeached.
We don't know where this tipping point is.
We'll find out only when we encounter the consequences after passing this tipping point.
We're close.
4
@S Butler, if you're in print suggesting Barr has committed crimes, that could be perceived as libel.
please provide documented evidence of your claim
Most of us understand the prior Attorney General's were actually also appointed, but were given the benefit of the doubt that they were above politics and would justly uphold the law.
The media keeps repeating that he was appointed by Trump, undermining the public trust in him, and thereby in rule of law.
Trust the Attorney General, not the media that misled us for two years, they were so very sure that there was a Russian Conspiracy monster under the bed. They have yet to issue mea culpa, but now spin the next conspiracy theory.
2
@Joe Yoh
The media mislead us for two years. Yeah, it has three letters; FOX.
4
@Joe Yoh Obstruction of justice.
Live on television, this morning. Accompanied by a redacted report designed to obstruct justice.
People go to jail for this.
I just now broke away from MSNBC's ongoing analysis as well as that of the Times' re the Mueller report. Please let me vent, Editorial Board. We are witnessing long excerpts in context pointing to evidence against Mr. Trump and his campaign and transitional teams. Mr. Barr, most likely at the behest of a ranting and raving boss, has made a fool of himself concerning his actual weak defense against the indefensible. What is more obvious is that although not "legally" lying, this Attorney General is attempting to spin the facts of this 22 month investigation and to manipulate the American people. The truth is that he is incapable of exploiting thinking Americans, and he is insulting of and condescending toward our intelligence. Let us face it. Even if Trump were to be found "colluding/conspiring" with the Russians, MAGA supporters and weak-spined, self serving congressional Republicans would dismiss the findings as a witch hunt, accusing Mueller as the betrayer of justice. Returning back to Mr. Barr, he is a disgrace of an Attorney General whose central mandate should and must be justice for us Americans. He needs to go...along with Donald Trump. Think 2020, my fellow citizens.
39
It is very concerning to me, and should be to all Americans, that Barr is, as has been pointed out, behaving as if he is Trump's personal attorney. For instance, why have a press conference, before releasing this report to Congress? Trump's demand for unwavering loyalty, has created, in my opinion, the deceitful protections for a growing dictatorship. The fact that there is no absolute proof of illegal activity on the part of our President, from Mueller's report, is not proof that Trump did not do anything illegal. The only truth is that Mueller realized it would take far too long to receive Trump's testimony, and that the public would benefit now from the information Mueller was able to gather that can help the public begin to understand the intricate web of lies surrounding Trump and his cronies.
251
@K.M
"The only truth is that Mueller realized it would take far too long to receive Trump's testimony . . . "
But today Barr claimed that "The White House fully cooperated with the Special Council's Investigation." Yeah, right.
13
@Dawn Barr is washed up as a public servant. He has lost all credibility and should resign post haste!
16
@K.M - there is plenty of proof of illegal activity in the report. Don't let them trick you into believing otherwise.
5
Why did President Trump express such exasperated dread of the Mueller investigation? Maybe because he a) encouraged Russia to hack Democrats to get Hillary Clinton's email, b) knew that Russia had a pro-Trump position and was making attempts to help him, c) falsified the reason for his son's meeting with Russians to get dirt on Hillary Clinton... and so on.
There may not be enough to identify a chargeable criminal act, but that's only one half of the equation. The other half is ETHICS. On that front Mueller made no judgement, and yet, it's pretty clear there are seriously problems with ethics when it comes to Trump.
10
I can't imagine a criminal who would not be angry and frustrated when being investigated.
10
I simply can't understand Barr's motivation here. What has he to gain by becoming yet another sycophant to this erratic president? He had a good reputation among his peers; why jeopardize that? For what? He's not running for office, like the other see-no-evil, hear-no-evil Congresspeople are…
The only answer I can see is that someone Very Influential, and certainly larger than Trump, wants to keep this president in place.
Wish we knew who was really running this country.
12
@myasara I guess he sees telling the truth as more important
I noticed during the press conference, Barr returned repeatedly to 2 terms: 1) 'No collusion' even though this is not a legal term, and I'd expect an AG to be lawyer first, a press secretary second. 2) 'Hacking' as the only thing Trump (personally according to Barr) or his campaign being investigated.
Given all the lying, cover ups, and general sleaziness of this administration, there's just way too much stink for anyone to buy into the AG's line that nothing happened.
Even Mueller's report states that there were numerous contacts between the Trump campaign and the Russian government (though likely indirectly) but none of those contacts rose to the level of a crime. This is NOT the same thing as exoneration. It just states that (prosecutorially) while a crime may have been committed, it can't as yet be proven, and thus indictments cannot be made.
For charges of conspiracy and obstruction, it would have been necessary for Mueller to talk to Trump in person. Anything else could be dismissed in court as hearsay, indirect or circumstantial, or 3rd party narrative. Any halfway decent defense lawyer could get any of that dismissed as evidence - even if there was an actual crime committed. This is how Trump has stayed out of jail for 40 years; not because he's innocent, but because he's been able to skirt just on the edge of the provability of his actions or provide plausible deniability. Any decent person would see such actions as criminal. We should look at Trump the same way.
13
We have the self-serving Trump/Barr version of the full Mueller report. Let's get the full unredacted report to the appropriate Congressional personnel so that Congress can exercise its Constitutional duty of oversight.
6
Collusion, Collusion, Collusion! The bigger story and undisputed fact is that the Russians Interfered with the 2016 Presidential election. What is being done to prevent that from happening again?
291
@J Stuart I agree 100%. At the very least now that evidence has been presented it is the duty of Congress and this President to implement sanctions against the Russian for this interference. Excuse me if I don't hold my breath waiting for them though.
20
@J Stuart
There is very little that can be done to prevent that from happening without fundamentally destroying the freedom and openness that makes us any different from them. An educated electorate and a diligent press that earns it’s trust.
1
@J Stuart
Just like nothing was done to prevent another Fla. debacle in 2000 when a conservative Supreme Court gave the election to GWB.
14
There are many questions raised by the Mueller Report. It would be good to have Mueller and his teams testify in public before Congress. Why not let Mueller and his team speak for the Mueller Report?
The attorney general is not the personal lawyer for the president but he is acting like he is by stepping in and attempting repeatedly to strongly influence the way the Mueller Report is perceived. Barr is not acting in an independent and separate way from the president, the White House, and the Trump Administration. It is not Barr's job to put his own spin on the Mueller Report but he seems to be showing definite partisanship in his approach both in his Mueller Report summary, his contacts with the Trump administration about the Mueller Report before it was released, and his press conference today.
2
Most of us understand the prior Attorney General's were actually also appointed, but were given the benefit of the doubt that they were above politics and would justly uphold the law.
The media keeps repeating that he was appointed by Trump, undermining the public trust in him, and thereby in rule of law.
Trust the Attorney General, not the media that misled us for two years, they were so very sure that there was a Russian Conspiracy monster under the bed. They have yet to issue mea culpa, but now spin the next conspiracy theory.
@Joe Yoh umm, the report conclusively states that the Russians actively interfered in the 2016 election. That, even AG Barr had to admit.
3
As I feared, Barr lied in his letter summarizing the Mueller Report: "The Special Counsel's decision to describe the facts of his obstruction investigation without reaching any legal conclusions leaves it to the Attorney General to determine whether the conduct described in the report constitutes a crime."
The truth is that Mueller was following, and expressly said so, the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel opinion saying that "a federal prosecutor" making a federal prosecutorial decision of a sitting president would violate the separation of powers in the Constitution.
Since Mueller as a federal prosecutor cannot make a decision without violating the Constitution, then his supervisors, who are also federal prosecutors, cannot either.
Barr would probably say that the statement is his opinion so it cannot be a lie because he wasn't stating a fact. But his deceit attempts to cover up that his "decision" clearing Trump is illegal, unconstitutional and outside his authority.
See Mueller Report pages 1-2 of Volume II; and Barr's March 24, 2019 letter, page 3, 2nd paragraph.
2
The fact that the Trump campaign expected to benefit electorally from overseas influence--and arguably did so--casts a long shadow over every subsequent act made, including the appointment of this Attorney General and the subsequent editing of this report.
There is an obvious need for oversight, and I find it difficult to see how arguments against this are in any way in the interests of the country.
5
It doesn't make sense that a political appointee like William Barr has access to the full Mueller report while our elected representatives in Congress do not.
35
@Whole Grains, ,it is his job.
Most of uns understand the prior Attorney General's were actually also appointed, but were given the benefit of the doubt that they were above politics and would justly uphold the law.
The media keeps repeating that he was appointed by Trump, undermining the public trust in him, and thereby in rule of law. Trust the Attorney General, not the media that misled us for two years, they were so very sure that there was a Russian Conspiracy monster under the bed. They have yet to issue mea culpa, but now spin the next conspiracy theory.
2
Congress can't fulfill its Constitutional responsibility of oversight of the Executive branch without having complete, non-redacted information and evidence in the form of the full Mueller Report and its supporting details. That's the heart of the Constitutional issue/conflict and eventual Supreme Court case(s) about Congress getting the full Mueller Report.
6
Was this written before Barr’s press conference?
Because I thought I heard him say that he would release an unredacted version (except for grand jury testimony that is illegal to disclose) to a a bipartisan group in Congress.
3
@Steven Roth
Barr has proven in the past that he lies in his "Summaries of Principle Conclusions" .
Why in the world would ANYONE trust Barr now wit his job literally on the chopping block if he does NOT vociferously defend and cover up the truth about his new boss, Donald Trump.
1
@Steven Roth
Dear Steven,
You are correct, Mr. Barr has offered to provide an unredacted version to Congress except for grand jury material.
That seems like a fair outcome. I am sure some staffer will leak this to the press. I am sure it will be worth a pretty penny to the media.
So the Attorney General is not the attorney for the American public but rather the private defense attorney for the President. Nice way to run a kleptocracy.
39
Corruption, cover-up, collusion -- all right from the highest office (s) of the land -- all of it right in front of our eyes and right in front of cameras.
And still nothing can be done. Nothing.
What a country.
21
The President has built a Great Wall of lawyers around him to obfuscate, misdirect, mislead, and otherwise stand as a barrier between himself and the Constitution, the Congress, and the American people.
It is a sad, sad day for the American legal profession to which Mr. Barr is a complete embarrassment.
It will be up to the American people, as long as Republicans control the Senate, to take this country back from the President and his fixers who mascarade as lawyers.
13
‘Trust but verify’ is hardly a new concept to Republicans.
61
@NM
That's a Russian expression, by the way. Reagan did not invent it.
10
@NM, NY: Esteemed daughter of the Cairene scholar: Quick question: Does AG Eric Holder or his president (Barack Obama) survive in office if one line-just one line—in this report is true? Can we not imagine either John Boehner or Paul Ryan not instituting impeachment proceedings? Or Mitch McConnell dripping with the lust of gleeful racism? “Or,” as the evil warden in “The Shawshank Redemption” cynically asked the Tim Robbins character in solitary, “am I being obtuse?”
7
@Red Sox, ‘04, ‘07, ‘13, ‘18
NM daughter of Cairene scholar? You speak in tongues my friend. Unless Naguib Mahfouz had a daughter with the same initials as himself, I don’t get it.
1
Here it is, the beginning of AG Barr's infamous sentence fragment:
"Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts..."
SOME EXONERATION....
25
How can one expect the WHOLE report to be released? Grand jury testimony needs to be redacted, Innocent third parties who testified under the promise of anonymity need to be protected and finally anything with national security needs to be protected. You know if an unredacted version is sent to congress it will be leaked within a day. Just because the president does not follow the absolute rule of law does not mean the rest of us and congress can ignore it. But some will continue to jump up and down like someone not getting there way.
2
@sailman9
1) Congress (with the same level of clearance as Barr and Trump by the way) may see it unredacted.
2) Of the 4 categories for redaction Barr cited, the 4th one about "impacting the reputation of peripheral 3rd parties" is the only one not required by law. The 4th Amendment (which is typically used to cover information of private citizens) does not cover embarrassments, only protection of property and personal information. You can hide a lot of mountain behind that category.
@sailman9
The Congressional Intelligence committees see highly classified information all the time.
1
The Mueller report explodes two fallacies commonly reported in the press:1 . "Mueller did a good job." He did not. He failed to interview Trump under oath and he failed to recommend prosecution for obstruction. Both major failures by any standard for a respectable investigator. 2. "The report clears Trump of collusion" It does not. This is Barr/Trump spin. The report clearly shows ample evidence of "collusion" as an assault on our elections and a civil offense against our American democracy and perhaps even conspiracy. Worst of all, the Mueller report reveals different standards of justice for citizens and Presidents. Mueller would have thrown the book at you or I for such behavior, we'd have been in jail a long time ago.
12
@MTDougC You are asserting Mr. Mueller did not do a good job simply because he disagreed with you? Mr. Mueller is above reproach, and we are lucky to have many like him in service of our country.
3
@MTDougC It’s very helpful to read the DOJ’s Rules on Special Councils. Very enlightening re your concerns.
1
@NYT Reader Dude. I'm not saying he's a bad guy. He just didn't get the job done. By giving the Prez special status, he provides further evidence that we live in a country with two sets of rules, one for the wealthy 1%, and one for the rest.
Watergate, from the President's perspective, was about the coverup. And that is what we are seeing unfold now. Barr is in on the coverup. Grand jury materials can be shared with others in government involved in law enforcement. I'd say the Judiciary Committee qualifies. Congress has been given grand jury material in the past and, if there were any doubt, a court could authorize its release to Congress.
Further, the unwillingness to commence a criminal prosecution, especially where the intent witness has clammed up because he's too great a liar, has nothing to do with the standard of proof in a civil proceeding or in the court of public opinion. Citing the Special Prosecutor's hesitation at charging Individual No. 1 here proves next to nothing as to his exoneration on the issues of obstruction and attempted collaboration with a foreign power.
17
Why is it not a crime that when trump found out about Russian interference in the 2016 election he failed to report it to the FBI — and in fact, encouraged it?
After he became President and swore to uphold and faithfully execute the laws of the United States, Trump repeatedly denied Russian interference in our election and was working on quid pro quo policies to benefit Russia in response to Russia’s help in electing him. All of this seems to be clear and verified in the Mueller report. Why is that not a crime?
25
Barr created a standard of measuring conduct with a hostile foreign government that would be the envy of every disciple of Benedict Arnold. I've read about 50 pages so far of the redacted document and cannot fathom how a lawyer, public official and man sworn to high standards of citizenship could have uttered those gushing words of exoneration on behalf of Trump and his cronies.
Even Rudy showed more restraint.
19
It's beyond obvious that Barr is using HOM -- for Harm to Ongoing Matter -- as his blanket excuse to black out page after page of Mueller's report.
This is purposefully vague.
The Democrats need to get an unredacted report by any means necessary, as Daniel Ellsberg has suggested.
There is absolutely no reason that a small House committee couldn't see an unredacted report, since Barr has a history of writing summaries that obscure the truth.
And, after comparison, if they find Barr has redacted things simply because they were detrimental to the president, he should be impeached immediately.
9
Truth be told, now the search for the real truth can begin. Is there an echo in this room? What are the point of ears when all we want to hear is what we think?
1
Maybe, and this is a big maybe if this case makes it to the Supreme Court, then hopefully the Justices will not succumb to the political pressures that Trump is hiding behind but to the idea that our Constitution and its rules and laws are bigger and more profound than one person.
Trump is perhaps trying to put in place judges that share his ideology.
But this is NOT ONLY HIS COUNTRY BUT THE COUNTRY OF ALL OF IT'S CITIZEN.
We have seen the evidence right in front of our eyes.
We're heard what this president has said.
We know him to be a liar.
It is my hope that the courts, should such a battle takes place, separates itself from the idea that if the president says or tweet it, it's a truth.
It is my hope that for once, prayfully, all nine Justices can for once vote to repeal Trump and his style of governing, using our laws to protect himself.
I don't think this is how it is supposed to be.
I so hope and pray that the Supreme Court would put an end to such shenanigans by any person who becomes president of our country, regardless of party affiliations.
Four years is a long time for our laws to be twisted by one such person or party.
Nip it in the bud.
3
@marriea Actually this is how it is supposed to be. One person's opinion or even a mob, cannot overthrow an elected president that has been so, democratically.
Hurt feeling do not superseed laws of which Trump has not broken. (No how much you dream of it, or have delusions on TV about). Talk to a friend that is right of center, to question : what real laws are, what laws have been broken, what (if any) real proof is out there.
Also understand that the constitution is exactly what the supreme court defends - not tyrannical presidents, or a tyrannical delusional mob that sees conspiracy every where. The laws and rules allowed to the presidency are applied to all presidents equally. I believe the left has a difficult time comprehending this when it does not fall in their favor.
Maybe you should read some books concerning the past , specifically McCarthyism.
4
Heavy hitters with brains like Barr moving in to support Trump are indicative of something terrifying underfoot and furthering the great sell-off of our country as we know it. So much of what is happening now is rushing us into a future where our population is profoundly vulnerable. We need to dig in and find out who profits from this and turn the story on them.
10
This piece is spot on. I wonder how Mueller, whose professional and personal conduct has been beyond reproach, must have felt as he watched Barr so obviously do his boss and patron's bidding.
7
It became obvious that Barr's version of The Mueller Report would be a sham when the report's release was turned into a spectacle: Advance announcement of a release date, to insure plenty of suspense and enough time for that suspense to distort opinions and maybe facts; to sow seeds of confusion; but above all to distract people from the Report itself by staging a dramatic, camera-ready "release event." It's all SO Trump. He's got something he needs to keep hidden, definitely.
6
Agreed and well said this exercise we have all been watching has been a shameful attack on the rule of law. I don't think anyone should be surprised that Barr has passionately embraced the kinds of obstructive posturing that is apparently well-documented in the Mueller report. I feel it is legitimate to ask how does the Times explain what I would characterize it's own "excessive willingness" to accept the Barr synopsis as evidenced in Mr. Baker's reporting of last month?
19
"...The Trump administration hasn’t earned the benefit of the doubt from the American people...
From the Electoral College - a somewhat different matter...
Suggest we put the question to them a second time, and see if any different result...
4
@W in the Middle
If the Dems won in 2016 by the 270 majority of electoral votes and not the popular vote, the Electoral College would be a "main tenant of our Democracy"
But since the Dems lost (and got out played by Trump) of course NOW the Electoral College is "outdated" "unfair" etc.
And as far as a "second time"...you will get that chance - another losing chance in 2020!!
2
@W in the Middle I just read the report.
Sounds like Bernie Sanders needs to send a thank you note to Putin, as well as Jill Stein..and Trump...even though Putin didn't think any of them would win.
As should the rest of America..who he saved from 8 years of Hillary Clinton.
Proving once again that there is a God.
1
Barr's conflict of interest is quite apparent and he will be remembered not for the decent things he has done, but for this heinous defense of a horrible president. Not sure why he would put his lifelong reputation as a law maker into the dumpster and then set it on fire. Love is blind, but in this case justice isn't. So, on the bright side, this isn't over and Trump & Crime Inc. continue to live in the cross-hairs of personal and political doom. But by the grace of Barr.
27
@Loud and Clear
What decent things has Barr done other than to obstruct investigations into corrupt presidents. He's done it twice now.
1
@Obonne You're probably right, but I thought I should throw him a crumb...maybe when he was a kid he helped a blind person across the road...
1
Never happy until you can get the answer you want
11
@bored critic
I assume you are referring to Trump and his process of selecting Attorney Generals.
5
@bored critic Read the report in full. It’s all there ...the facts in black and white. Quite a departure from Barr’s disingenuous remarks this morning, I might add.
1
"Don’t Trust Barr. Verify His Redactions."
So when in the NYTimes going to call the President what he is, a liar and a racist? Don't trust the NYTimes either!
3
Nader and other members of his committee are entitled to an unredacted version of the report. The Special Counsel is supposed to deliver his report to Congress, not to the AG so he can scrub it clean of facts and names which may cause distress to Trump. Nailer should subpoena Barr for an unredacted copy of the report to be read only by members of the committee. If Barr refuses, Nadler should hold him in contempt of Congress and file the appraise pleadings for an expedited hearing by the Supreme Court.
34
Barr took an oath to defend the constitution, as did trump, although he probably forgot about it. Neither is living up to that obligation. There is nothing optional about that responsibility. I hope that Congress can start proceedings against both, but start with Barr to clear that department.
86
There are so many reasons to be leery of William Barr and his redactions that one hardly knows where to start.
This has nothing to do with the desire to indict Donald Trump or charge him because of his questionable activities as much it has to do with getting to the real truth of the matter, and whatever that may be, but that will never see the light of day because we are forced to make do with the Attorney General's personal summaries and redactions.
If anything, his reluctance to release the entire Mueller report to Congress and the House Judicial Committee raises eyebrows as to the real reason why.
The American People deserve better than this.
We need to know the truth.
45
PLEASE. Your pretense of wishing no ill to the President in your simple-saintly search for truth is a dog that won't hunt. Of course you want to see Trump brought low -- as does the New York Times -- and as much for partisan and ideological reasons as for any genuine concern about the truth of collusion with the Russians or obstruction of justice. You might also get your facts right so long as you're indulging in such sanctimony. The Attorney General is indeed handing over the WHOLE unexpurgated version of Mueller Report -- with the exception of the evidence heard by the Grand Jury evidence which would be a violation of law and a serious ethical lapse as it would forever place a cloud over people who were not criminally charged.
The American people certainly deserve to know the truth. They will -- though the Democratic Party's leadership and members will never be willing to recognize it if it indeed -- as I expect -- exonerates the President.
2
@Dr. Svetistephen
Au contraire. I make no "pretense" of anything.
I just happen to believe that there's more to this picture than what meets the eye.
That said.
IF there is nothing incriminating in this report about this president, then that's all the more reason why it should be released in its ENTIRETY -- at least to Congress or the House Judicial Committee.
Another thing.
Both Robert Mueller and Attorney General Barr stated that the report does NOT EXONERATE this president.
Got problems with that? -- Then take it up with them.
3
Because the left (which includes me) and many media outlets do not like the conclusions of the report and the AG’s handling of it, we are now attacking it and all but saying that Mr. Barr is not an honest broker. This approach could inadvertently help Trump win re-election. All our supposedly righteous indignation will be fresh meat for his campaign. I think Democrats should shed the morally superior attitude and find a candidate with with actual ideas. That’s the only way we have a chance of getting the current awful resident out of the White House in 2020.
8
@Mark Siegel
We can do that AND get a fair reading of the report. It needn't be one or the other.
12
@Mark Siegel
Congressional oversight is not optional, and without it, future elections and the functioning of our tripartite government are jeopardized.
5
@Mark Siegel I think that ship has already sailed...
1
I was among those who were prepared to give Barr the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps Congressman Nadler and the talking heads were over-reacting? Perhaps their reaction was too partisan?
Then, I saw Barr's too cute by any measure performance, using selective quotes, overgeneralizations, and other techniques to spout the President's case and set the narrative. Getting to watch how uncomfortable the Deputy AG looked standing next to him throughout offered perhaps the only clue as to how most of us are going to feel knowing our AG is willing to twist facts and the law in service to a President who does not deserve it.
374
@T. Schultz. I totally agree with your comments. I was hopeful that Barr was going to function as a straight shooter. No pun intended. But now it appears he is anything but. Such a disappointment on so many levels.
32
@T. Schultz Like you I was willing to give Barr the benefit of doubt. But clearly, I mean obviously, his characterizations were dishonest.He LIED over and over again..
Like Justice Kennedy I'm left bewildered why these intellectual elitists are supportive of a Trump presidency.
10
@T. Schultz
Better that you see the truth late than see it never.
4
Thomas S. Kuhn coined the term paradigm shift in his book The Structure Of Scientific Revolution, a book about the history of science. Its publication was a landmark event in the history, philosophy, and sociology of scientific knowledge. I recently exercised a change in approach and outlook during a business ethics discussion that asked, “How do you account for justice in cases where all parties are guilty like Donald Trump, The GOP, Democrats and the media. Donald Trump and the enabling Republican party have been an aberration, an outrage, but most of all, a great big fraud. Voters who thought President Trump would at least try to fulfill his populist, America-first campaign promises are still waiting. Trump placates these supporters with rhetoric, distracts them with cultural warfare and encourages them to seek refuge in cultural chauvinism. Whereas, unequal results of human achievement conjure up simplistic notions of injustice for Democrats. Democrats most often learn these harsh truths through self discovery in the pursuit of relative financial sustainability or while soliciting for project funding. Unfortunately, prior to self discovery, human impulse is generally towards equality or generosity. Equality is as undesirable as it is unrealizable. Attempting to achieve equality requires that each of us forego who we are and what we can do in order to create something in which no one ultimately believes - a society everybody is the same or has the same. As for the media...
@José Franco the media enabled Trump’s rise to power and the Democrats pursuit of an equality message. Mindfulness, good intentions and integrity are sexy, but are at a disadvantage with what’s reported in the news by the complicity of the media with advertisers and publicists. Today, even at the local level, the government, corporations, big institutions and personalities know how to play the media game. They know how to influence the news narrative. They feed media scoops, official accounts, interviews with the ‘experts’. They make themselves crucial to the process of journalism. So, those in power and those who report on them are in bed with each other and only pay lip service to individuals who seek “the truth”.
As a result of this, given human’s flawed nature, we’re left with three possible outcomes. One is the sea of mud many think we have today. Another is for actors with coercive power to enforce an allocation policy on behalf of the people. The third is for the commons to break up as village members, fence-off bits they can defend and manage sustainably. These three groups often lack empathy and instead of listening and talking to each other, they opt to talk through each other with the use of prepared talking points. I have a suggested course of action for those of us willing to put in the work. We should seek to make open-source cooperation sustainable similar to what programmers do with software.
1
@José Franco Part of the answer lies in the fact that using software does not decrease its value. Instead, widespread use of open-source software tends to increase its value, as users fold in their own fixes and features. In this inverse commons, the grass grows taller when it's grazed upon. That this public good cannot be degraded by overuse takes care of half of the congested–public-goods problem. Why don't people who know the open-source community exists universally exhibit free-rider behavior waiting for others to do the work they need, or (if they do the work themselves) not bothering to contribute the work back into the commons? Part of the answer lies in the fact that people don't merely need solutions, they need solutions on time. It's seldom possible to predict when someone else will finish a given piece of needed work. If the payoff from fixing a bug or adding a feature is sufficient to any potential contributor, that person will dive in and do it (at which point the fact that everyone else is a free rider becomes irrelevant). Another part of the answer lies in the fact that the putative market value of small patches to a common source base is hard to capture. Being reactive by only sitting on the patch gains nothing. Instead, it incurs a future cost—the effort involved in remerging the patch into the source base in each new release. So the payoff from this choice is actually negative.
@José Franco Democrats have to do a better job of acknowledging and/or recognizing we have to proceed knowing to increase opportunities for all is likely to favor those better able to take advantage of them and may often first increase inequalities. I’m inspired by the words of Algeron Sidney,
“Our inquiry is not after that which is perfect, well knowing that no such thing is found among men; but we seek that human constitution which is attended with the least, or the most pardonable inconveniences”.
The uncensored report must be made available to the House Judiciary Committee (HJC) to provide a perspective that Barr and Trump would prefer was buried in the noise floor and spin.
Let's be perfectly clear, Trump has acted in ways that are strongly supportive of Obstruction of Justice being an offence that he committed. However, without Mueller having questioned Trump, the ability to determine his state of mind - to show criminal intent - is not able to be ascertained beyond a reasonable doubt in the mind of Robert Mueller.
On the matter of conspiring and coordinating with Russia, we know that there is substantial alignment in aim and method with respect to the GRU operation and the desire by Trump to see DNC emails leaked. As we read the report, the time lines and actors should come into clearer focus. Mueller has indicated that for conspiracy and coordination to be true there needs to be more than this, and in the matter of law this is probably true. That said: Never in the history of the United States have the aims of a hostile power and a candidate for President been so fortuitously aligned, with the candidate publicly asking that hostile power to "release the emails".
Those of us who want to know - and we all should - will have to read the redacted report while ignoring the spin of Barr and Trump. We will need to discuss this, consider it, and hear what those who are not vested - with expertise - have to say.
This unprecedented, and should un-Presidented
13
Barr said Muller said there was no collusion. That's a lie. The report says the evidence is "not sufficient", not that there wasn't any, or that Trump and his campaign were exonerated. How is that not punishable?
38
@Dirk I thought the legal standard was assumption of innocent, or innocent until proven guilty. In Trump's case, I guess the standard is guilty no matter what multiple investigations find.
13
@me
Nothing about DJT's actions suggest innocence. Now Barr is with holding the full report. These are not the actions of the innocent.
19
@KB You miss the point; there is supposed to be a presumption of innocence in this country. "Suggesting" something and demeanor don't count.
4
Another point which I have not seen repeated is the President's repeated refusal to look into the election interference or trust his own intelligence agencies on the matter; remember Helsinki.
262
@captain obvious
While the president’s inaction regarding the Russian interference is highly suspect, especially in light of Mueller’s findings, it is not surprising. After all, Donald Trump would never take any action that would de-legitimize his election. That said, the lack of a coherent presidential-driven policy to combat Russian interference most likely could not serve to further the obstruction argument. It would simply masquerade as a “policy decision”, and not a deliberate attempt to thwart an ongoing investigation.
5
The facts stated in this piece are enough to convince me the current administration colluded with Russia to win the election. It is also clear the president tried to obstruct the investigation every step of the way. It is sad and frustrating to hear no charges have been placed on this criminal president and his family yet. My hope is that eventually justice will prevail, facts will be known and come next election, a president who actually cares about the American people and the world will be in the White House.
100
William Barr came to the job on the strength of his (unsolicited) 19-page memorandum that was nothing more than a job audition in which he was of the opinion that a sitting president is incapable of obstructing justice simply because he—as the executive of the government—rises head and shoulders above the law by dint of his title. That did not work for Richard Nixon but we’re far removed from the Watergate era (45 years) and are light years beyond a time when Republicans were anxious to have a government of laws instead of a government of entitlement.
General Barr’s performance today was doubtless applauded vigorously in the White House as it most certainly was in Red Square. What the president’s personally hand-picked “lawyer” accomplished was to validate the activities of a foreign power to—forever more—poison the well of our internal political debates. There was simply too much unsaid that, from a strictly legal standpoint, exonerated the president—much to the contrary—and implicates his 2016 campaign in, at the very least, unseemly and rather intimate collaboration with Russia for the only purpose of installing a Russian satellite in the Oval Office.
This citizen remains deeply disturbed at the obvious whitewashing of the Mueller report. The red fox has clearly been in the henhouse or the rabbit hutch and has dined well. When we can’t trust the nation’s top “law enforcement officer” to be truthful and forthright, we’ve left the path of both wisdom and democracy.
197
@Red Sox, ‘04, ‘07, ‘13, ‘18, I’m sure even the most kind-hearted grieving widow must weary of hearing the same canned condolences over and over.
1
All that was lacking from Barr's performance art this morning was to declare the Trump is the best president America has ever had. Barr might have said this: "Just look at the record. He was able to constantly and publicly interfere with the Special Counsel's investigation and not have it rise to be an indictable offense!"
The purpose of the Barr news conference was to give the appearance on an exoneration before the 400 page report hit the fan. Is this the attorney general's job? Barr has an apparent political motive: to shutdown the speculation about illegality by the Trump administration and allow him, Trump, to finish out his term.
As people with excessive legal training often do, he comes down on the side of order over the apparent chaos of continuing investigations. As people with excessive political concerns and experience often do, he comes down in favor of power over forcing power to answer for its actions.
Barr should, on this crucial day, have kept his mouth closed and allowed the report, which we the citizens paid for, to speak for itself.
71
Attorney General Barr is doing what he believes, no matter what the rest of us think. He believes in expansive executive powers. He believes in mass incarceration (and has for years).
Being a Democrat who believes in tolerance and that no one is above the law, the attorney general is not someone I personally admire--not that it matters. He will go away when the president gets voted out. I do have a concern that significant segments of the Democratic base will not let go. Congress has other things to do.
This is not to say that the full Mueller report should not be examined by bipartisan members of Congress with appropriate security clearance. I hope Mueller testifies before Congress, but who knows where all this will go.
5
@JSK
Democrats can do both ... pursue justice and pass domestic legislation.
3
“The evidence we obtained about the president’s actions and intent presents difficult issues that would need to be resolved if we were making a traditional prosecutorial judgment,” he wrote. “At the same time, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state." This is the crux of Mr. Mueller's report. What he has left unsaid is that, in his opinion, it was not within his purview to make this call as to whether Trump's actions constituted obstruction of justice. Mr. Mueller is not saying that no judgment may be made. He is implying, obliquely, that he did not believe it was within his direction from Mr. Rosenstein to make this determination. The fact that Mr. Mueller did go on to say quite clearly that had the evidence been clear that Trump did not obstruct justice, he (Mueller) would have said so. I've been an attorney for nearly forty years. Mr. Barr's disgraceful display this morning should be seen as nothing more than a defense counsel's closing argument before a jury, wherein he cherry picks the few points which seem to be in favor of his client. But what is outrageous is that we have no one willing to make the prosecutor's case. We are entitled to learn of all the evidence, both for and against Trump. A fair Attorney General, one who actually did represent all of us, would have done so. This is a very sickening day in this country, for all of us.
102
Who trusts Barr? He is Trump's Roy Cohn. The right will love him, the left will be disgusted. He volunteered for this job and I'm tired already of hearing how he should be non partisan as he was hired to be partisan. Before he was hired he wrote a long letter that said a President can't obstruct justice, so it just follows that he would have a press conference where he detailed point by point that Trump did not commit obstruction.
31
I am really tired of hearing about this report and Trump shouting he did nothing wrong while his minions try to keep it covered up. If he is so clean just show the thing so we can move on. Looks like the house will have to impeach him so this can be closed.
47
Breaking News: Trump shoots man on Fifth Ave. AG Barr will hold a news conference tomorrow morning to explain that, technically, the bullet killed the man, not the President, that we take into consideration how frustrated the President might have been with the man and it doesn't matter how many people had witnessed the shooting because Barr didn't witness it himself. I'm not a lawyer but it's clear that Barr shouldn't be one either.
593
@Rick Gage Barr is a lawyer and lawyers are bound to best argue in behalf of their clients. Problem is, Barr is supposed to be US AG not Trump's AG.
55
@willt26
"Sadly our system is not based on your feelings." Indeed. So all the information (including the whole Mueller report) should be made available. Without obstruction.
52
@Rick Gage
Not to worry -- if Barr can keep Trump out of prison, he's headed directly to our Supreme Court.
Quid pro quo?
We'll never "know."
11
As I read and listen to what was released, nonetheless contemplate what was redacted, it is glaringly obvious that there are large discrepancies between the actual report and Barr's biased interpretations and the recitations of the actions taken by this wrecking ball president. If his lawyers think this is any kind of exoneration, they are delusional. The fact that a president who can't be indicted wasn't indicted is hardly a reason for them to cheer.
48
Indeed Barr's appearance should not have been called a press conference, since 'there was no news to share' - it was a media event, just like many other media flacks promote in D.C. daily.
Each day makes it more apparent that Barr's performance at DOJ during the Bush 41 years fully illuminates what can be expected in this 2019 re-incarnation.
32
The Mueller report clearly proves that Trump illegally obstructed justice and illegally conspired with Russia, but it is up to the congress, not the courts..., to impeach and forcefully remove the President of the USA from office!
6
We all must see the report. Barr is not the Attorney General for the people of the United States but the mafia consigliere for "Don" Trump. He is loyal to Trump, not the Country so he will try hard to bury anything in the report that shows Trump in a bad light let alone breaking the law.
6
Absolutely right. It really is astonishing, the way Trump has lauded AG Barr with praise. And the former AG Sessions, who was extremely diligent, arguably more so than any other senior executive of his administration, in enforcing and carrying out Trump's agenda. All Sessions' "good work" meant absolutely nothing after he recused himself from the Russia probe. Sessions was vilified as though he was a liberal Democrat. So it is clear the president doesn't care about policy anywhere near as much as he cares about getting "my Roy Cohn". To all appearances, he got his Roy Cohn.
12
What else is new with this zealot. He is doing the same things now that he did during the Nixon administration.
8
We are witnessing a major cover up orchestrated by the Attorney Genera of the United States on behalf of Trump. He is not a servant of the people as is mandated by his office. This is further proof that Trump and the Republicans are trampling on our Constitution in their boundless efforts to convert our government into a right wing dictatorship
Barr's actions are all the evidence one needs to know full well that Trump has much criminal activityy to hide!!
212
@Jefflz...you just hit the target, dead center. There is not one, not one, member of this Administration who cares a cent about the Constitution.
To them, the Constitution is an obstacle.
2
One thing that stands out is the apparent decision to NOT bolster the cyber-defense of our election process. We seem to be on a path to yet ANOTHER hijacked election, with the "blessing" of the WH. Where is Congress? We know Barr is a shill for the traitor, but Congress should be calling for a full court press to stop russia NOW.
80
Former General Barr: I have demoted you to private. The reason is you have failed to do your job, which is NOT to be a political advertisement for Trump 2020 but instead is to exercise independent legal judgement. You dishonor your office and your law license. Please resign by close of today.
325
@Bruce
With luck Barr will face disbarment either before he leaves office or shortly thereafter.
3
First, thank you for using the correct term - censorship - rather than the odious legal palliative "redaction".
Let's forget for the moment the open questions about Trump and his administration. The report contains something much more important: the much-maligned FBI's detailed investigation of a foreign power's interference in our democracy. The Mueller Report, it's detailed evidence and findings, should be the vehicle to move Congress into taking action to protect us against these insidious and ongoing attacks.
Barr's decision to withhold these facts from Congress is not only a slow-rolling political coverup, it's a jaw-dropping abdication of responsibility in the face of ongoing international espionage.
There is absolutely no reason that the Report in its entirety - which was deliberately organized, written, and edited by the unimpeachably professional senior law enforcement officer Robert Mueller - should not have been delivered four weeks ago to the appropriate Congressional Committees.
And in the face of Russian (and other international) attacks, it is equally unconscionable for the Democrats to have waited an entire month to subpoena it.
35
We, the people, will NEVER see the complete report! Trump has Barr doing his bidding and Barr will not relent. Why people continue to support Trump and his behavior and his lies and his incompetency is way beyond my comprehension. The United States of America deserves better. Prayerfully we will get that in 2020!
13
Would you buy a used car from this man?
No.
21
The New York Times and Congressional Democrats have not earned the benefit of the doubt from the American people, that's abundantly clear.
The NYTimes has already proven that on their front page this morning. They quoted the report as saying that the "catalyst" for firing Comey was his refusal to make Trump happy. A catalyst is just a tiny part of a vastly bigger whole, that's the definition of it. This means that there were other bigger preexisting reasons. Remember that the Democrats had already demanded getting rid of Comey.
Trump has, but he really does not need it.
The NYT wants the criterion to be that of the Salem witch accusers.
6
I would unseat him as AG of the country. or disbar him, if possible.
64
@W Lee
I don't understand all the fuss... According to Mueller Trump did not commit ANY crime. He may have broken every ethical and moral standard known to man, but he won't be wearing an orange suit on that account.
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@willw The "fact" that Mueller didn't come up with a smoking gun of proof doesn't mean that the current occupant is not guilty of corruption or conspiracy ("collusion" is not a legal term). And you don't have to be successful to be guilty of the crime. Only the incompetence of Kaptain Kaos kept him from being totally involved in the crimes. Just the meetings with the Russians in Trump Tower should have been enough to create an indictment.
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What a can of white wash!!
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The New York Times acted all the time as a vocal cheerleader to the witch hunt conducted against Donald Trump since his election. Almost all of the lies and fake news have been proven unfounded. Why should anyone have an iota of faith in your newspaper’s impartiality and truthfulness when it comes to reporting on Trump?
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@vnag The fact that Russia interfered or influenced the election of 2016 by planting disinformation and that that was investigated and proven by the special counsel ,should alarm ALL Americans. Mr. Trump has repeatedly said he believes Putin who told him in Helsinki that _Russia did not interfere. The witch here is Russia and the cozying up that Mr. Trump has done toward Putin-whether or not there was co-ordination between the Trump campaign and Russia does matter, but from what I gather from what Barr said is that whatever happened is not illegal- though it might be unethical. To have an unethical president representing the people of the United States is OUTRAGEOUS!
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@vnag
Nothing of the sort has been "proven."
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@vnag
The problem isn't with the NYT for reporting what's going on -- the problem is with what's going on!
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Trump finally has his Roy Cohn reincarnated in William Barr.
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The "evidence" falls far short of all the facts.
Mueller's investigation of Trump, his family members and now Barr has been obstructed with lies, non-answers, withholding evidence, divergence and threats. Of course, all enabled by McConnell and each member of the GOP.
We could empty our prisons, if each accused what's allow this defense by Barr.
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I have little doubt that the Mueller report, even with redactions, will paint quite a different picture than that offered by Barr's initial 4-page summary, especially when subjected to detailed and intense scrutiny by people who main goal is not to make Trump appear innocent. Even without the Mueller report, we all know what he is, and have fairly clear idea of what he's done, and will do.
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Of course both parties must see the uncensored report, that is common sense. But when has common sense, or any version of the truth, ever been present since Trump has been in office.
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One good thing about Barr's acting as a shill for Trump: the House will be completely justified in punishing contempts on its own rather than referring them to Barr's DOJ. Each house of Congress has the inherent power to try a person for contempt of that house and have the person imprisoned. It was last used in the 1930s, but it's certainly appropriate to use this power when the DOJ has become the President's
personal law firm. The question is, do the Dems have the guts to do it.
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@Pam. Why would it take courage?
Doing nothing should strike fear in the hearts of the weak willed. Proceed apace. Try Barr for contempt, a word that aptly describes what most of the bad actors here have for their country and for us as well.
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@Pam
"Do the Dems have the guts to do it?"
In a word. YES.
That's why Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and head of the House Judicial Committee, is going ahead with filing a subpoena in order to gain access to the entire unredacted version of the Report Mueller report.
And this is only the beginning.
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The answer is, “no.”
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