I suspect that there are a lot of Americans like me who, up until very recently, were opposed to (or at least very wary of) impeachment.
Then came the absolute blanket refusal of the Trump administration to cooperate. At all. Under any circumstances.
This is completely unacceptable. Congress (who works for the people) must make EMPHATICALLY CLEAR to the administration that they also work FOR THE PEOPLE!
Anything less is a complete failure on all parts of our government.
24
"Barr is not so much the attorney general as the minister of information. "
America , you are better than the Trump-Kushner crime family and their abettors...………...aren`t you ? The world is turning away and you must quickly right your ship of state. FYI, mutiny is not illegal when the captain & a few other criminals threaten the ship & its crew by driving it on the rocks.
14
William Barr is a hero. He knew he would be dragged through the mud by rabid Democratic partisans yet he stuck to his guns to uphold the law - and the truth. From Barr’s four-page initial letter regarding the Mueller investigation:
1. “The Special Counsel’s investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 campaign.” (TRUE)
2. On obstruction of justice - “The Special Counsel’s office therefore did not draw a conclusion - one way or the other - as to whether the examined conduct constitutes obstruction.” (TRUE)
Those are facts. Barr reported them truthfully as was his duty. Democrats and Trump haters may not like them, but they can’t change history.
54
Mueller's efforts are a joke
If he never intended to state whether Trump committed a crime he shouldn't have taken the job. That was the job. It was not his job to perform investigations on behalf of a possible impeachment charge. That is the house's job.
To claim he would've stated the president's innocence if he could prove it is also a joke. There is no need to prove innocence in this country. No one is ever exonerated.
59
So if Trump really did shoot someone on Fifth Avenue, he wouldn't be prosecuted because he is President? If that's the case whatever law or constitutional edict prohibits this needs to be changed to allow such prosecution. Relying on Congress in such cases is not the answer. Having a murderous President actually stay in office while Congress dithers over impeachment, I daresay, is not what the founders had in mind.
148
Paradoxically, in a an effort to clarify the main points and meaning of his 400+-page report, Meuller's brief televised statement seemed devoid of meaning. Pundits always talk about how carefully Mueller choses his words. However, in this case, he chose his words so carefully and delivered them so dispassionately and robotically, that the message seemed almost meaningless. Nine minutes of emotionless words resulted in days and days of deciphering and punditry, on TV and in print. Mueller may have chosen his words carefully, but he didn't speak plainly. And it's also obvious that some semblance of human emotion is necessary if one one wants to deliver meaning, along with any message. Actors certainly know this, not that Mueller would have to act. After spending two years exploring the unethical, corrupt underworld of Trump, one would think a true patriot, such as Mueller, would be able to rustle up at least a smidgen of righteous indignation in his delivery. Plus, it seems extremely arrogant of Mueller to say he won't go before Congress, to answer questions. If he doesn't, he is allowing the corrupt Republicans in the House and Senate, the corrupt AG Barr, and the colossally corrupt Trump to continue to lie to Americans and to destroy democracy.
101
The sad part is the timid, wavering response of the Democratic leadership. Vacillation and impotent countermeasures are once again on display. It seems to be in the DNA of the DNC to fight every battle with stern words of disapproval and nothing more.
This is why the Democrats are so often run-over by the GOP and especially Trump. This is not a "turn-the-other cheek" President. All the while the duplicitous Republican leadership gleefully watches you dither and debate each word and action you might take.
Here is my advice: FIGHT.
Of course you should hold hearings and make them count! Get Mueller and McGhan up on the hill. When someone defies your subpoena, arrest them for contempt. When the DOJ refuses to send you the material you requested, get a court order and seize their equipment and hard drives. The GOP NEVER worries that they are coming across as heavy-handed so why do the Democrats always worry?
Every time Trump holds a rally, you hold a counter rally - "A celebration of Democracy" on a nearby college campus with hip celebrities and hot bands. Get under Trump's skin - it is so thin that it is ridiculously easy to do!
Many Trump supporters like that he is a fighter and believe he will "fight for them." Pelosi and Schumer may offer wise old counsel, but they will never punch back. These power-hungry GOP bullies in government need to be held accountable. It won't happen by asking them nicely to cooperate. If you want to win, punch them in the mouth.
157
Mueller capitulated to the president being above the law. In doing so he has empowered the criminal to prosecute the law.
93
Ah Shakespeare, timeless, immortal Shakespeare. Mr. Mueller is classic tragic hero in the Shakespearean mode.
A good man, an important man, a man brought down by his own tragic flaw which, under normal circumstances, would be honorable. However, thru unpredictable and abnormal events this man is betrayed and his virtue is turned again him.
Oh, one more thing: his personal crash brings down the kingdom.
77
Mueller failed in his attempt to provide the American people and Congress an assessment, in terms of possible crimes by the President, that would be IMMEDIATELY understandable and actionable. He allowed Barr to obstruct and co-opt the Counsel. In his blind rectitude, he thought he could be above politics, in this all but non-political environment. Mueller might deserve a medal if he had called his own news conference to deliver his own summary of his Counsel's findings, BEFORE or just after Barr delivered his own perverted views that, of course, quickly took hold and became THE narrative, spread like a virus throughout the media. After so many years in Washington, one would think Mueller would have been more savvy, and given his reputation and legacy, more courageous.
52
Barr is the cultured, albeit unprincipled, word artist eager and willing to create his word paintings in service of his corrupt Medici-president benefactor. Trump’s brilliance in recognizing the prices of the corruptible found Barr’s Columbia U. lit course intellectualism was just right for his needed next level fixer. Mueller’s Marine instincts and honor were too platoon-, not strategic-level to anticipate what was to come of his integrity-filled investigations and expectations of honorable behavior.
26
Like Comey, Mueller is acting a bit too sanctimonious. Comey's idea that he had to reopen the Clinton investigation due to the late discovery of Congressman Weiner using his wife's computer just prior to voting sank Hillary. Now we have Mr. Mueller, a button down, strictly by the book investigator refusing to call overwhelming evidence of obstruction of justice crimes because of some Office of Legal Counsel opinion THAT IS NOT LAW, stating a sitting President cannot be indicted while in office. He had the choice to call a spade a spade, but being the Boy Scout, decided to punt it to Congress so he can claim he is apolitical and above the fray. Amercans will never read 420 pages , especially if it talks in double negatives. Congress needs to dumb it down with public hearings. Americans need to hear from Don McGann that Trump ordered him to fire Mueller, and he refused to carry out the order. That he directed McGann to write a false WH memo. They need to hear from Deputy Assistant National Security advisor that she was offered an ambassadorship if she agreed to write a false letter that Trump had never ordered Flynn to talk to the Russian ambassador about dropping the sanctions. Have Comey testify about being pressured to drop the Flynn investigation, and Trump's demand for loyalty. Play the tape of Trump admitting to Lester Holt he fired Comey over the Russian investigation into the record. Play the movie, don't offer a stultifying 400 page tome of legalise.
82
Since Mueller could not charge a sitting President per Justice Department guidance, the key is merely whether he exonerated him or not. Mueller did not exonerate him. Mueller did say he had the power to exonerate, and did not. So its up to Congress.
If you want an intellectual challenge, put together a Venn Diagram with two overlapping circles: "Muller Could Not Charge President With a Crime" and "Exonerated". I encourage the NYT to do so.
21
I'm surprised Ms Dowd as you are exactly the sort of person of the right breeding who would remember when all Americans spoke and or understood the language as Mueller used it. There was no ambiguity or lack of clarity if you are not afraid of acting on the facts. The thing flumoxing everyone seems to me to be the fact that his words leave the decision making to them. I am sure if we saw the evidence Barr is hiding from us more folks would be less confused.
Don't get me wrong I do not believe for a second that Mueller buys the idea the president cannot be charged while in office and the strenuous stretching of that concept to include not even pointing out he has committed a crime in secret. He is after all a lifelong republican and obviously not as good as his legend. Read Dixon's memo, the conclusion is not justified by his argument. In fact his argument literally makes the opposite case out to be the much more likely correct conclusion.
Jan Crawford is a GOP propagandist. She is much better and cleverer than those bozos at Fox because she has to get past the CBS editors, but she does manage to spin and twist things to a GOP POV no matter how irrational that may be. Ditto Amna Mawaz on Newshour.
We should all remember that he GOP uses "principles" as a code and cover for promoting ideas that cannot stand up to rational testing.
25
For a English Major, not much clarity in Ms. Dowd's the writing. My guess Trump will be re-elected by the citizens in the middle of this great country. It's called the Heartland for a reason.
15
“Republics have fallen because of Praetorian Guard mentality where government officials get very arrogant, they identify the national interest with their own political preferences and they feel that anyone who has a different opinion, you know, is somehow an enemy of the state.”
Thus does Barr accuse himself.
58
"Sometimes it’s hard to know who is worse: devils or saints."
Amen to that. But you seldom go wrong by fighting fire with fire.
20
Mueller was arrogant in his silence. A fraud in his equivocation. He could have said: "The investigation found evidence of criminal offenses committted by the President, but we cannot indict based on the Rules of the United States Department of Justice."
Alternatively, he could have said: "The investigation found evidence of criminal offenses committed by the President, but Congress is the only body in which these matters are to be properly addressed." That was the work the Special Counsel was obligated to perform.
And if the President didn't commit a criminal offense, Mueller was duty bound to say so clearly, and exonerate an innocent President who had been so badly maligned. The President deserved that exoneration, if he were innocent.
Mueller failed at his task. He failed Congress. He failed the President. He failed the Constitution. He failed the People of the United States of America.
And his name will go down in ignominy.
Barr? Just another Shakespearean rascal and dissembler. We know the lot of them. We measure the raiment of his character by the quarter-inch, not feet. Nothing to say in his honor...
72
I agree. Mueller did us no favors with his wishy-washy, stentorian recitation of "facts" without reaching any conclusions. He might as well have not written the report for all the good it has done us. In fact, I wished someone else had been chosen, someone who might have not been so hidebound and hiding behind constipated, convoluted ideas of fairness. Robert Mueller is, after all, a Republican, like Barr. Are the dynamic duo destined to be Trump's get out of jail free card? Looks like it to me.
Our Congress is revealed a paper tiger. I have absolutely no faith in anyone of that body to uphold the rule of law. I think they are all scared of losing their jobs - but most of all, I think they are lazy. They know they can phone it in and nothing they do will really matter in the long run because some criminal will come along and undo their pathetic, puny, and unenforceable laws.
26
Comey and Mueller were cut from the same cloth. Both violated long standing jurisprudence practices by publicly airing a laundry lists of transgressions of the people they were investigating without charging them with a crime. A prosecutors job is to investigate then either file charges or shut up and not have a person "tried" by the court of public opinion. You are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, not guilty until proven innocent. Shameful behavior by both of them.
24
This is an equilateral triangle we have before us: BCM. Barr, Comey and Mueller. What else do we have to learn to discern the order of their political allegiance now? The Presidency, the Republican Party and the Republic.
9
Beyond the classical allusions and mixing of metaphors, Lady Maureen points the prow windward: R.M. let us down, and Barr is Cheneyesque, resplendent in his raven's cloak. Even so ... let US see the report. All of the chat means little. Let us view the document. Seize the crime scene. Why hide it? WE are THE PEOPLE. Give us the report!
15
That Barr is as skilled a liar as Trump is impressive given lying is Trump’s core competency. Barr’s Praetorian Guard analogy describes him in relation to Trump as aptly as it does a “deep State” conspiracy. But only one of those analogies is true. To quote Bob Dylan, “Time will tell who has fell and whose been left behind.” Goodbye Bob Barr.
31
Did Barr actually say “Things are just not jiving?" [jiving, with "v"]
I would guess Barr said "Things are just not jibing." [jibing, witn a "b"]
That is, Barr probably said things (such as facts) are just not in accord.
6
Trump is easy to criticize, even despise, and he has shown that he has no loyalties.
It is no surprise that Barr supports Trump; he did autition for this role. Still, it was shock to watch him undercut his respected "friend" Mueller - and an entire DOJ team- solely to please his new, peroxide blonde, boss. Undercut is an understatement - he maligned him, he suggested he was incompetent and that Mueller had not spoken the truth about the direction from Barr. Barr is almost better than Trump at leveling unsupported Trumpish accusations.
The faint hope that this guy might have a trace of rectitude is gone: he's really just a shill for Trump, and possibly more arrogant than anyone else who ever landed that position.
"Crooked counseling" and "devious devising" - - the words are Shakepeare's but Attorney Barr is more suited to an appearance in Dickens, for his legal pettifoggery.
50
This is why impeachment procedures against Trump must start now. His tax returns, his obstruction, his lawsuits forbidding those receiving subpoenas from complying are all acts to hide his lies, dishonesty, unconstitutional actions. Waiting is not an option. The public must learn these facts well before the 2020 election. Trump must daily loudly thoroughly be called out in press conferences on his lies. Since republicans only care about power, democrats must get aggressive and stop being wimps! Nice guys can come in last.
29
I found it intriguing how undesirables coalesced around Trump from the time he announced his candidacy as everyone was drawn to Trump's multi-ethnic white supremacist bigotry. How appropriate that Trump is the achilles heel of the extremists in America. I wonder if Barr has similar white power inclinations?
25
Welcome back, Maureen. With this column, your journalistic persona of gifted, gimlet eyed Washington watcher, which for years was hiding behind a veil of sarcasm and self absorption, has reemerged. This reader is grateful and hopes it is a sign of things to come.
12
President Trump:
See evil, speak evil, do evil.
Attorney General Barr, Mitch McConnell and the GOP, and Fox:
See no evil in Trump, speak no evil of Trump, do evil.
Robert Mueller:
See evil in Trump, but do not speak or testify clearly to Trump's evil, do nothing.
Nancy Pelosi:
See evil in Trump, speak of Trump's evil, do nothing.
Justice delayed is justice denied.
So it goes in the state of our disunion and the systematic de-democratizing of America.
Is this is how it all ends?
We did it to ourselves--with a lot of help from Big Corporate, Big Polluters, Big campaign donors, corrupt politicians, and an ignorant, uncaring, angry citizenry.
29
I wonder if Barr's "investigation of the investigators" will uncover and expose; "Trumpland"!
" Deep antipathy to Hillary Clinton exists within the FBI, multiple bureau sources have told the Guardian, spurring a rapid series of leaks damaging to her campaign just days before the election.
Current and former FBI officials, none of whom were willing or cleared to speak on the record, have described a chaotic internal climate that resulted from outrage over director James Comey’s July decision not to recommend an indictment over Clinton’s maintenance of a private email server on which classified information transited.
“The FBI is Trumpland,” said one current agent."
*Spencer Ackerman in New York, 4 Nov. 2016
10
As long as Robert Mueller kept quiet during his $35 million investigation, we had no idea where he was going with it. I thought he was smart, intelligent. Same for William Barr until he proved otherwise with Mueller’s redacted report.
The Department of Justice argues that "a sitting president cannot be indicted.” We need to change this dumb law .
A sitting President should be indicted if he/she broke the law. This second stupid law should be revised, too, otherwise, we cannot call our system of government a “democracy.”
Barr says: “Republics have fallen because of Praetorian Guard mentality,” Nonsense. Republics will fall for tyranny such as ours.
14
Barr's chicanery reminds me of that other great Anerican, Dick Cheney who tried to block media coverage of caskets returning from Iraq. An honest man would have said it was sapping support for the war but Dick cooked up a story that the concealment was out of respect for the families. Very slick.
20
AG as spin doctor. That is wrong on SO many levels.
23
Mueller was trying to be Solomonic. He failed to realize that Trump, Barr and Co. were more than happy to butcher the baby.
30
Most reporters and pundits, even critics like Dowd, seem to be shoring up the fiction that Barr had integrity to lose. His facilitation of pardons for those involved in the Iran-Contra scandal was only the first time he happily enabled impunity for those guilty of treason and other crimes.
19
With his 20 pg memo to Trump last Jun, Barr announced in no uncertain terms he wants to become the next member of SCOTUS.
He will do any dirty deed necessary to keep Trump in office until at least Jan 2021, after which his chance to be nominated and confirmed may evaporate.
Trump called Michael Cohen a rat.
No.
That epithet rightfully belongs to Barr.
20
Our nation needs a functioning Department of Justice.
Our people witness a White House Administration soiled by lies.
Our Electoral College reflects the demands of slave owners.
Our massacres with military assault rifles flooding America's streets reflect the dark ideals of the NRA.
Congress needs to censure William Barr with Contempt of Congress. But that would require the Judicial Committee to use its Constitutional Powers.
22
“If Trump did not commit a crime,
Bob Mueller gravely said,
we would have said so”. Great!
“But if he did commit a crime,
(please, do not be misled)
we cannot tell”. What? Wait!
I side with Barr. What he’s to do?
The man has to decide.
If Mueller does not have a clue,
Barr will do what is “right”.
Barr can’t indict. So, he absolves.
He tells the Prez: “Case closed.”
It’s all so clear. Everyone knows:
the public has been hosed.
9
What happened to innocent until proven guilty? We citizens of the United States of America, because of our Constitution which guarantees due process, don’t walk around waiting to be exonerated by anyone prior to a trial. Either bring charges based on provable evidence or go away. If the Left is concerned with openness, then they should welcome AG Barr’s looking into the flossy predicate that was the basis of the FISA warrant that was the foundation of this inquiry and the actors involved in the process. Barr is doing his job: He smells a rat and he’s going after it. Some people see this as a very good thing.
12
Mueller gave Democrats more than enough ammo to go the impeachment route. You can't cry 'Constitutional Crisis' when you balk at using the one tool it gave you to rein in the President.
11
"Barr came into the job, Crawford said, with a good reputation on the right and the left..."
How soon we forget that Barr white washed Iran-Contra. He was referred to as Coverup Barr by the late great William Sapphire of this newspaper.
Read this:
https://www.nytimes.com/1992/12/28/opinion/essay-a-tale-of-three-counsels.html
19
Barr may be too old and greedy to ignore Michael Cohen's ruins as Lying Trump's fixer. Barr and Rosenstein landed the plane safe, but at a wrong airfield or wrong terminal.
The Russian interference will never be closed until the truth is unmasked.
16
In reality — rather than official Washington and its propaganda echo chamber of highly capitalized media companies — Maureen Dowd’s series of puff pieces on Donald Trump during the RNC primary season back in 2015/2016 has far more to do with Trump’s electoral success than anything the Russians did. Our leadership is treating we the people as if we were total amnesiacs, who didn’t recently live through the history they are now so flagrantly revising — and if with such laughable ineptitude — for official consumption. What a farce! Shame on the Times for participating in this grotesquely deceitful fraud, which Barr is right to see as more threatening to our instituons than that much more entertaining farce, the Donald Trump Show. The roof has caved and you’ve been definitely exposed, and now we’re bringing the house down on your heads.
4
I think that your claim that Barr came to the job with a good reputation is wrong. He whitewashed executive malfeasance the last time he had the job when he advised H.W.Bush to pardon everybody - ergo,Irangate was put out to pasture. William Saffire called the move an act of treason as I recall.
23
Any good prosecutor would go after any person in this country for the things detailed in the Mueller Report, of which I am on my second read. It's jaw dropping. Through Barr, the DOJ is just a political machine now whose job is to protect Trump and, sadly, go after his enemies, such Amazon a/k/a Jeff Bezos, who owns The Washington Post. Make America respectable again.
14
Barr is detestable and scheming now as he was when he advocated Iran-Contra pardons. A follower of the cult of PT Barnum, he won't be smeared underestimating the intelligence of the American public.
He and Mueller knew one another for decades and attended the weddings of one another's children, so Barr, with his serpentine incisiveness, figured Mueller would be as polite as Obama was in the cases of Merrick Garland and Russian collusion—a reticence, in the second, which Republicans demanded at the time and use now as a damning indictment.
Polite does not work in a tabloid world. Honor may be admirable, but it's not salacious.
Name all the people who've read the book and didn't watch the movie. TLDR entered the dictionary this year. If Mueller is relying on the reading ability of the average American, I can say, as a public high school English teacher in the age of the iphone—we get four more years of Individual 1.
15
I love Maureen Dowd.
6
Americans are not stupid, they are just not willing to dedicate the time required to read the full Mueller report. Therefore, they require and are willing to accept a brief interpretation of it. Knowing this, Barr and McConnell declared loudly, Trump is safe sliding into home plate before the report was released. In stead of adding clarity, illuminating what went on with Russia, who were the members of the Trump team accused of breaking the law and who is still being investigated, we got muted church fart from Mueller.
7
Barr is a fraud, and a totally corrupt person. He’s a Republican bagman. Period.
18
Maureen Dowd-thank you for putting more meat on the bone.
6
Dowd's lack of respect or understanding that "Under the Big Sky" routine is a slam at our culture out here in Montana.
We are educated people who value self reliance as opposed to depending on government to solve our issues.
Dowd most likely has never had dirt under her manicured nails. She has no right to disrespect cultures she knows nothing about.
I am sick and tired of the press using good people who make up the fabric of this country talking down regarding our way of life.
She has done this before and gets away with it because the liberal press doesn't mind bias as long as it attacks American's they disagree with.
8
The unmitigated gall of this journalist (Maureen Dowd) who did more than any columnist in America or reporter for Fox News to get Trump elected....it's simply breathtaking.
13
Mr. Mueller. By stating that you wouldn't speak to Congress, you're putting yourself above the law the same way you put Trump above the law.
Being president doesn't make him anything real special, despite what he thinks. Same goes for you. You are both, as are the rest of us, citizens first.
It's the law, stupid!
10
Mueller's only fault was the belief that the Attorney General would defend the Constitution. I believed the same thing about Barr and about the Senate. I'm still shocked that either would sell the Constitutional order into perdition, let alone both.
12
Not so sure Mueller is a Boy Scout after all. In a political world the Mueller report ultimately is a political document. It describes dirty deeds, and then covers them up with double talk.
13
As Attorney General Barr pointed out, Muller could have determined that the president committed obstruction of justice even though thenJustice Department is of the opinion that a sitting president cannot her indicted.
But If Mueller had determined the the president was guilty of obstruction, the attorney general and deputy attorney general would still have looked at the evidence Mueller presented and still would have determined the evidence did not support obstruction of justice charges.
8
@William Case
If your supposition is true then why would Barr hide the evidence from Congress?
The thing about republicans is like all dishonest people they always tell you they are lying even as they try to convince you they are not.
7
Mr. Mueller's speech was very subtle but still very loud if anyone stopped to hear.
Everyone says Mueller is a traditionalist and a by-the-book, chain of command kind of person. Therefore, he could not come out and blast his boss in the general sense.
And yet, he made it clear that his report did not find Trump innocent, contrary to the verdict rendered by the Attorney General. Then he seemingly "praised" Barr for releasing a report which Barr was obligated to release.
So why would a man like Mr. Mueller applaud his boss for doing his job? I think the answer is that he would not and, by doing so, he brought attention to the endless stonewalling by our Attorney General.
Mr. Mueller's explanation for his report was very clear and that it was an indirect attack on Mr. Barr is also very clear.
8
Robert Mueller has played the game like a legitimate public official in a democratic government. Barr and Trump use the dictator playbook to inform the public of the reality they have created to control the masses. The Republican party has been edging in this direction for years. Trump and Barr are just the most explicit examples of the power consolidation which has been ongoing with talk radio, gerrymanding, God ownership, and Mitch McConnell. It's now a moral crisis where truth has become irrelevant. And when truth finally emerges, the considerable damage will be everywhere.
21
The solution to the conundrum is simple, Mueller needs to talk to congress in public and speak the truth in simple terms.
Mueller has been involved in politics all his life, U.S Attorney gigs and FBI director are political appointments, he can not be so naive to think himself to above politics.
He is not doing us a favor, he interviewed for the job because he was interested to be in the eye of the storm, we pay him a salary and now the American people are demanding that he testify before the congress.
8
‘Read the report’? The American voter is about as likely to read a 400+ page legal document as they are the fine print on their credit card statement. Was Mueller evading responsibility? Congress must subpoena Mueller.
12
When I was kid in New York, my friends and I played a lot of street games - from touch football to stick ball to a weird game of shooting bottle caps with your fingers around a board on the sidewalk called "Scully."
Arguments over fair or foul, touched or not and other disputes always arose.
No one ever got the better of me in those tiffs. No one.
I was a kid.
So, I either argued the actual truth or I made it up situationally. That's what I did as a kid. If I had to twist things at times I did.
Skillfully.
But, I learned some stuff as I grew up.
About morals and ethics and the teachings of Christ, Confucius, Ghandi, Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King.
And, many others.
And, I learn still.
I studied our founders - imperfect men - who understood imperfect humans and tried to account for that in a setting up organized government and rules.
Barr and his client Trump, are as juvenile and imperfect as I was as a kid.
I knew then and they know now exactly how hone words to advantage. To obfuscate, to turn the accusation around for maximum confusion and benefit.
To twist truth.
Skillfully.
I was young.
I grew up.
I let the greatest, moral voices in history shape me.
These men are not young.
They have not learned with age.
They must be confronted with hard truth.
Aggressively.
Constantly.
Mercilessly.
Like the nefarious brats they never grew out of.
They won't win this game.
28
@Paul King
What an excellent and apropos comment. Thank you.
10
Robert Mueller is an excellent lawyer, and he communicates well with other intelligent lawyers who aren’t invested in a particular outcome like Barr. One of the big problems with Mueller’s approach is that most of the rest of the country does not understand lawyer speak. He can tell us to read his report, but most people don’t have the time to read it or the ability to understand it. One thing he could have said more clearly is that he would have issued an indictment but for the OLC opinion. He should have said that in bold capital letters in language everyone in the country could understand. His reticence has done all of us a disservice. The result is more Trump and Barr spin, leaving the rest of us bewildered. He really must be forced to testify publicly. Closed door testimony with a published transcript would leave us in the same place.
10
@Susan Piper I read the report. I'm not a lawyer. It written is plain language that is easy to understand.
14
Finally, I read the entire Mueller Report. It confirmed to me that Trump and his gang did indeed lean heavily on the Russians to get Trump elected and Hillary passed over.
But the interesting part of the report was in the 2nd section. Obstruction apparently was planned, tested, and executed by Trump, specifically, and his minions. In a concerted effort to be fair, I tried hard to find indications that this was not true--I came up with zero. If Congress does not pursue obstruction charges against Trump, then they have failed miserably in their constitutionally mandated duty, and they have delivered our entire democracy to Trump, to his loyal Republican enablers, and ultimately, to Vladimir Putin.
17
We really don't know what pressures DOJ may have brought to bear on Mueller to limit his investigation. If there was DOJ pressure, it could amount to obstruction of justice. Trump wasn't subject to oral questioning. Trump refused to answer written questions regarding obstruction of justice. Mueller apparently didn't investigate Trump's finances. These were all on Trump's no-go list. We know that both Mueller's Supervisors Rosenstein and Barr sided with Trump. Mueller's investigation ended very abruptly with cryptic findings after the appointment of William Barr. In his nine minute speech, Mueller seemed to seek to head off Congressional inquiry on DOJ inner workings. Congress, you have my findings. There's enough there for you to consider impeachment. I have nothing to add.
Mueller's not the only one tied up in knots. What to do?" There's the indecisive Congressional Democrats. "To impeach of not impeach." It is said the public won't support impeachment, but Congressional indecision and lack of enthusiasm cast a wet blanket of controversy and indecision over moving forward. "Impeachment" is the goal that dare not speak its name. "Impeach." Say "conduct oversight" although the same investigation and evidence is needed for both. It is said If a good portion of Congress is too tied-up and fearful to even mention the word, how can we expect the public to be enthusiastic?
5
It's really very simple. Barr owns Mueller and Trump owns Barr.
The straight arrow Mueller, is bent.
7
We should all read the report, or one of the many accurate summaries that are readily available. Surely we are all capable of understanding a double negative, which emphasizes the trickster Barr's deep dishonesty. He and Rosenstein no doubt let Mueller know he could not indict a sitting president, and are now exploiting the limits they enforced, blaming the victim as the new Republicans are wont to do.
I think it is wrong to insist that Mueller not adhere to the standards of objectivity because the cowardly bully in chief and his allies and enablers are taking advantage of our willingness to let him lie and cheat and steal using the perks of his office. If we are to work together to solve problems, which we must if we are to face reality, civility and honesty will be necessary. Mueller has been an outstanding example of restraint and honesty. And don't forget the many legal spinoffs from his investigation.
If there is a lesson to be learned, it is that the DOJ should stop subordinating themselves to Trump and uphold the law. That is Congress's job, and voters must acknowledge their responsibility to return to reality. This is not a sport; it is reality. We all bear responsibility for survival, and the planet doesn't acknowledge lies.
13
Thank you, Ms. Dowd, You've said this better than anyone I've read and expressed exactly what I have tried to say, when speaking of this terrible dilemma that Mueller has left with the House.
7
That crashing noise you hear is the sound of Bob Mueller's halo hitting the ground.
Like James Comey before him in his infamous, wishy-washy non-indictment indictment (to keep up the double negative theme) of Hillary Clinton, Mueller did not have the nerve to stand up to all the right-wing pressure and make a clear and definitive statement on this matter.
Save for his way-too-late press briefing, which should have occurred at the initial release of the Report, and his cryptic inside letter to Barr, he made no effort (unlike Ken Starr in the Whitewater/Lewinsky matter) to aggressively articulate and defend his Report, thus allowing Barr, Trump and Fox News to successfully frame the report as a "no-collusion, no-conspiracy exoneration" of Trump.
No amount of Congressional testimony will ever reverse Barr's successful framing of the Report. So we can now add the Mueller debacle to the list of failures by our institutions to serve as a check and balance against our renegade, unscrupulous President Trump
24
@John M
Do you want to include Obama and the FISA court to that list?
How about the DNC, the Steele Dossier, and the FBI?
Where to begin?
6
There are so many talking heads on television news. Why not devote a five minute read aloud a night (6:15 and 7:15 p.m.) with a five minute segment of talking heads paraphrasing if the section is open to interpretation? In this way we'll have publicly heard the entire report by election time and the Democrats won't be forced to impeach, but might achieve the same effect of bringing crimes already investigated to the surface? Since Mr. Mueller is now a private citizen, why can't he be subpoenaed?
13
I absolutely agree with Ms. Dowd's conclusion at the end. Mueller, through his reluctance to speak in plain English, has become complicit in Barr's protection of Trump.
Mueller's redacted report and his statement contain plenty of ammunition for a Democratic leader with a spine to move forward with at least an impeachment inquiry. Mrs. Pelosi, however, is not such a leader.
Mueller needs to say more. Barr has given him the opening, simply by having criticized him.
9
Looks like a fair reading of the memos Mueller cited actually encourage a prosecutor to establish a basis for criminal charges, or lack thereof, against a President in order to preserve the record for indictment after the President leaves office or is removed. It is beyond a reasonable doubt that Nixon would have been indicted after his removal had he not been pardoned by Ford.
8
Since Mueller could not charge a sitting President per Justice Department guidance, the key is merely whether he exonerated him or not. Mueller did not exonerate him. Mueller did say he had the power to exonerate, and did not.
Here are the relevant quotes:
Mueller Report, vol. II, p. 2: "Third, we considered whether to evaluate the conduct we investigated under the Justice Manual standards governing prosecution and declination decisions, but we determined not to apply an approach that could potentially result in a judgment that the President committed crimes."
Mueller Report, vol. II, p. 2: "Fourth, 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. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment. The evidence we obtained about the President's actions and intent presents difficult issues that prevent us from conclusively determining that no criminal conduct occurred. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him."
If you want an intellectual challenge, put together a Venn Diagram with two overlapping circles: "Muller Could Not Charge President With a Crime" and "Exonerated".
5
I don't think this is a question of devils and saints. Both Bob Mueller and Bill Barr did what they think is right. They differ on some of it, agree on some of it. People often do think differently -- that doesn't mean one is wrong and the other right. The case is closed. Time to move on.
But I think Bill Barr has the better case. Donald Trump's motive is not hard to discern. There was no corrupt intent to cover up crimes, as there was no crime to cover up. And the evidence of intent Mueller's team found all points to a permissible motive of minimizing political damage to an innocent man.
Congress is free to do what they want with the evidence in the Mueller report, but then they always were. Let them make of it what they will. The Senate will never convict the president. Impeaching him seems to cheapen impeachment, but that's a political judgment the Democrats need to make.
As this ends Bill Barr has stood up for what he believes, making his points clearly and confidently with a strong voice. Bob Mueller has tried to duck out of sight and spoke with a quavering voice. There are reasons for what both men did, but as the present turns into the past, Bill Barr will probably look better, just like he does now.
8
For Mr. Barr, the issue is definitively assessing the presence or absence of a "Resist" movement in government using the Russia narrative to accomplish an objective that has existed since the morning of November 8, 2016.
This is completely separate from the legitimate counterintelligence, deterrence, and censure vs prosecution aspect of the Mueller inquiry.
If - and I definitely say IF misuse of the Mueller inquiry occurred, (given that the outcome of the Barr inquiry is unknown) - the issues are larger than Trump. No president should be subject to the weaponization of our intelligence/Law enforcement apparatus.
The resist movement made the objective very clear on November 8, 2016 -- The removal of President Trump by any means necessary. There is no moral high ground.
4
but you're ignoring some immutable facts. Trump is a crook, and a pathological liar.
10
Mueller refuses to politicize his work or even give the appearance of politicizing his work, because for two years the executive has relied on political criticism of him and his work.
Thus, Mueller gave his enemies no handle to grab in support of their "witch hunt" and "hoax" theories.
You cannot defend against a propaganda machine that lies in plain sight, but knows that its false narratives and conspiracies will be swallowed whole by their "I love the uneducated" base/movement.
Mueller was working and speaking for history, hoping that Congress would do its job as part of the tripartite balance of power in the constitutional republic. Failing that, Mueller was working and writing for history, if and when we emerge from
the Trump takeover of the GOP.
Rectitude is the defense of the rule of law in the face of a broadside attack against the law and the abuse of power.
We should imitate it and follow with an impeachment inquiry, employing the same rectitude.
7
Alan Dershowitz said: The statement by special counsel Robert Mueller in a Wednesday press conference that “if we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said that”. Mueller went beyond the conclusion of his report and gave a political gift to Democrats in Congress who are seeking to institute impeachment proceedings against President Trump. By implying that President Trump might have committed obstruction of justice, Mueller effectively invited Democrats to institute impeachment proceedings. By putting his elbow, on the scale of justice in favor of impeachment based on obstruction of justice, Mueller has revealed his partisan bias. He also has distorted the critical role of a prosecutor in our justice system.
No responsible prosecutor should ever suggest that the subject of his investigation might indeed be guilty even if there was insufficient evidence or other reasons not to indict. Supporters of Mueller will argue that this is not an ordinary case, that he is not an ordinary prosecutor and that President Trump is not an ordinary subject of an investigation. They are wrong. The rules should not be any different.
Special Counsels, are by their very nature one-sided. They hear only evidence of guilt and not exculpatory evidence. Their witnesses are not subject to the adversarial process. There is no cross examination. They are not in a position to decide whether the subject of the investigation is guilty or is innocent of any crimes.
7
I understand your argument for either an indictment or silence, but I have come to understand and now support Mueller's deliberate course of action. Because Trump is President and there is a DoJ finding that a sitting President cannot be indicted, Mueller was/is in the completely unique position of not being able to do what prosecutors do: seek an indictment. Further, he could not ethically state that there was sufficient evidence to indict but for DoJ policy because that would leave Trump accused but unable to defend himself in a court proceeding. I now appreciate the ethical and legal majesty of Mueller's course of action in passing his findings to the political and popular arena.
7
Prosecutors do not DECIDE whether someone committed a crime; they decide whether to CHARGE that person with a crime. If the charge cannot be made, there is nothing to be announced regarding the criminality of the conduct. (If anything, Mueller went too far in explicitly not exonerating Trump.)
How would it have sounded if Comey had said "HRC committed a crime, but we don't believe a jury will convict her, so we're not indicting? That's how it would sound if Mueller said "We think Trump committed a crime, but aren't allowed to indict him."
Barr is the professional miscreant here. He should not have announced that Trump committed no crime. What happens when Trump does something else that even Barr can't pretend isn't a crime? Does Barr say what Mueller said? How can he do that, now that he's shown his willingness to declare Trump's innocence when there is no provable guilt? Silence would amount to accusation.
"Did the President commit a crime?" has only one answer as far as the DOJ is concerned: "It's not for us to say." Mueller rightly gave that answer, mostly. He recited the facts he had learned and referred the matter to the political branches to deal with. That was his job and, vis a vis the President, that's all ANY Federal law enforcement officer can do.
I do not understand why anyone who knows how to put a shoe on the other foot can demand more.
4
Mueller is no saint. He was prominent among those who enabled W to attack Iraq, although it was the Saudis who actually attacked US - Osama, most of the bombers, & the financial backers. He also never apologized for his participation in the war against Viet Nam, a country which had never attacked US.
5
I can't help noticing the parallel between Trump's upcoming visit to Britain and Barr's Mighty Mouse intervention in the reveal of the Mueller report. In both cases, malevolent forces are using the attachment of the rigidly correct to protocols and traditions as cracks within which to slither in and create havoc, threatening to collapse any remaining boundaries between civil society and unrestrained pillage and plunder.
Helping with this endeavor of subterfuge, an elaborate maze of smokes and mirrors funded by crackpot right wing billionaires, the media and political echo chamber of patently false narration. I wonder if there has ever been a more concerted effort to protect a facade devoted to one mission, papering over a leaking, toxic waste dump filled with piles of rotting ideological conceits, mindless autocratic ambition and widespread corruption.
Sadly, as Ms. Dowd ably argues, the very people who might help mitigate the ongoing carnage by separating themselves and telling, not showing by protocol, appear unwilling to call a spade a spade, so to speak. To wit, Trump is an ongoing disaster, a threat to our democracy and the world where he is not feared for his strength, but contagious insanity. Where one stands on specific political questions is beside the point.
7
And the fact is that Russia, a hostile power, did intervene in our election process which is why the FBI began its investigation in the first place.
11
@pixilated Dear Pixilated, Thanks for your eloquent summary. You've nailed it. It's like we're in one of those "lethal virus" movies. The "contagious insanity" is a right-wing-propagated public health crisis. But it's up to us ordinary citizens to push "the very people who might help mitigate the ongoing carnage" to take decisive action to stem the epidemic that threatens to wipe out our democracy. Daily phone calls by many of us to our reps in Congress don't seem to be working. How about a national strike by citizens of all stripes who want to force our elected leaders like Pelosi, Schiff and Nadler to find their spines and use the power we've invested in them to make a full-throated attempt to stop the monster virus in its tracks.
4
Contrary to the chatterers, I had no trouble whatsoever understanding Mueller's conclusions. And it's clear as day to me how Barr is intentionally out to cast doubt on them in order to protect Trump (and ultimately, I suspicion darkly, to get for himself a lifetime judgeship appointment).
We Americans are being set up to have Barr (as sole evaluator) declare the Mueller investigation based on illegal grounds and thus not valid.
It was disgusting in the "brilliant" Barr interview to see Barr allowed without challenge to throw out dark hints of wrongdoing in the Mueller report without any evidence whatsoever. Fat chance he will be impartial into the investigation of "origins" that he and Trump have engineered to show what they want it to show.
14
I remember when the appointment of Jeff Sessions seemed like the worst possible pick for AG, and now he seems relatively good compared to Barr.
And it seems that every Republican Administration continues to be more horrific than the previous one, leaving us longing for things like the “good old days” of an unnecessary war that cost us an unbearable amount of blood and treasure.
I never thought that “W” could ever seem anything but horrible.
When it seems impossible for it to get worse, the Republicans come through like clockwork.
They ARE all horrible, and the bar keeps going lower.
19
I'm wondering if Mueller had a flashback to his military experience which reminded him how important 'chain of command' is. And once Barr became his boss, his dedication to the Constitution and Rule of Law became subordinate to orders from Barr, his commander. His two year Special Counsel position did seem to wear him down. Nader's committee should seek to hear from the staff members of the Special Counsel.
6
The fact is Mueller wasn't necessary all along--Trump corruption is in plain view. His taxes should've been subpoenaed--yesterday. That exposure should incite impeachment...........
16
The simple fact that Mueller refuses to testifies on the bare pretext that a sitting president can't be indicted is the proof that the content of his report is enough to indict him should he be a regular civilian.
7
I am not a criminal lawyer but am still aware , as are most people of the burden of proof in a criminal case. Remember innocent until proven guilty? So where did Mueller get his standard of not enough evidence to prove Trump guilty? And if Mueller is saying he cannot indict a sitting president, what was he doing the last two years? Then why not say so and instead waste the country's time? Sorry but Mueller doesn't fit the image of St Robert.
The effort to canonize Mueller and to crucify Barr comes not from the law nor the report but from the desire to rid the country of this president by whatever means available even if it means turning criminal law on its ear.
6
I believe that something else might be at play here. Mueller did not want to be the man who brought down Trump. Why? Perhaps he simply feared for his life and that of his family.
Remember Henri II when in a stupor and speaking about Thomas Becket said "will no one rid me of this turbulent priest"? And sure enough four of his henchmen took the words seriously and killed the man.
I believe that that would have happened had Mueller indicted Trump. The bikers, 'fine people' would have done it. Trump already has blood on his hands.
Mueller did not want to become a victim!
Seemingly Mueller is telling us; Let Time rid us of Trump!
3
What a disappointment: we hoped Mueller would provide clarity to what occurred. He did not.
Mueller’s legacy and reputation will be forever marred by this failure.
10
The French, I believe, have a term for our paralyzed justice system: Guillaume Barr Syndrome.
10
Well put, Ms. Dowd. It's therapeutic for us to hear some reality.
Here are two thoughts of mine.
Rather than Mueller's difficult to understand double negative on exoneration or not, how about a statement on what he would do if a crime was committed. After all, wasn't that the central task put to Mueller. So Special Counsel, If you had confidence the president clearly committed a crime, would you have said so?
The other thought is even smart, educated people can be blindly narcissistic; that trait is not limited to the uneducated and not so smart. So Barr dismisses his foul play as insignificant because he doesn't care about his reputation after death. But Mr. Barr, many of us will outlive you and, hopefully, our nation will also. It is we who will have to live with and cope with the distrust you have heaped on our judiciary. Does that worry you at all? Have you even considered the damage you leave behind for us to clean up?
8
As "Walter Dellinger, an acting solicitor general in the Clinton administration stated: “Everyone agrees a president can be indicted ONCE HE IS OUT OF OFFICE. That (in addition to impeachment) is a reason to gather the evidence now while docs are available and memories fresh.”
It appears that We The People will have to wait a little longer to finally witness the prosecution and jailing of the most despised, ridiculed and corrupt head of state in the history of Pluribus Unum. I can wait!
9
Don't worry. Obama's day is coming.
3
And to think, me and all the other unhinged liberals went to those candlelight vigils for Jeff Sessions, and watched the poor cast members of Saturday Night Live embarrass themselves singing a carol to Saint Santa Mueller.
Yep, that'll cure the illin'.
Keep it up, guys: the overreaching hysteria and conspiracy
-mongerimg concerning Russiagate has inoculated Trump against accurate reports of what he actually has done. All you need to do now is go for broke on impeachment, and you'll guarantee his re-election.
I'm not a big fan of Nancy Pelosi, but she seems to to be one of the few players who understands that this dog can't hunt anymore (it's doubtful it ever could). The McResistance cynically wagered everything on a fundamentally preposterous Russiagate conspiracy theory (which is what the Steele Report was) and lost. Everything concerning it redounds to Trump's political advantage from here on in, and it's long overdue that people start waking up to that reality.
You want to get rid of Trump? Defeat him politically, and don't engage in magical thinking that the FBI and spooks like Brennan and Clapper are going to bring back that status quo ante we all so fondly remember.
8
I often disagree with Maureen Dowd, but today I totally agree with her. Our institutions--here the DOJ--are letting us down as we try to deal with a lawless, immoral would-be king and those who support him. Democrat leadership had counseled us to be patient and wait for the Mueller Report and then they would do something. Crickets and nothing. Then they counseled us to wait to hear from Mueller and we did. Crickets and nothing. Trump--through Barr--is not waiting for anything. Barr and Rosenstein cleared Trump because of Mueller's reticence in speaking plainly about what evidence he and his team had gathered really showed. Mueller in fact opened the door to Barr clearing Trump And then Barr, sensing Mueller's desire to walk away from his report and the Dems desire to do the right thing for their own political success, has begun an investigation of the the FBI, DOJ, and other individuals on the origins of the Russia Investigation. There will be an investigation, clear conclusions reached to satisfy Trump's desire for revenge on his enemies, indictments, perp walks, show trials, some or many convictions and jail sentences. It's coming and no one is challenging the autocratic, dictatorial, imperial dishonesty and corruption to achieve it. I wonder where Trump will put his throne in the White House and will Barr sit next to him.
11
This appears to be a remake of the morality play involving Sir Thomas Cromwell and Sir Thomas More. Cromwell was Henry the 8th lawyer who bent the laws and facts to allow for the establishment of the Church of England, Henry's divorce, and the eventual beheading of Anne Boleyn. Sir Thomas More stood on principle against those things. However, when dealing with the mad king, both men eventually lost their heads. As it seems that Barr is shameless, and Mueller is the very epitome of rectitude coupled with Law and Order, Mueller and those of us who support the rule of law are at a disadvantage. Unless things change, the constantly shifting ground of the amoral Barr, will always place those who seek to promote justice at a disadvantage.
8
Larry Johnson a former CIA analyst, so somebody who knows how the intel services work, lie and leak argues that US intel services wanted to stop Trump and worked with foreign intel services (no, not Russia, mostly the UK). It is also known that Brennan and Comey are at loggerheads concerning the inclusion of the Steele oppo file masquerading as intelligence in the January intel assessment.
So one should be very wary in stating something definitive about Barr and Mueller. They might work to reinforce Comey against Brennan who seems to be deep into subterfuge (after all the guy lied to Congress) and Mueller cannot be a hero to anyone who remembers that he pushed the conspiracy theory of Iraqi WMDs. Long memories and a flair for multiple lying are in order here.
2
I can’t help feeling that Mueller, the former Marine, decided to sit this one out in the landing craft when he should have been taking the beach.
11
Barr will be fine. He'll remain safely ensconced in the DC establishment after his term in the White House ends.
Dowd unwittingly shows us why he'll be fine when she writes, "Barr came into the job, Crawford said, with a good reputation on the right and the left."
Barr, lest we forget, was the point man for some of the dirtiest behind-the-scenes dealings in the Iran-Contra affair. He suffered no consequences, and his position in the DC establishment - especially among our power-worshipping media - is unscathed. I wager the same will hold true for Barr (after all, the people behind the Iraq War and the 2008 crash remain establishmentarians in good standing, oftentimes seen in the opinion pages of this very paper).
The CBS interview is a good example of why: Softball questions disguised as probing. No real follow ups. Even the way he is framed is flattering, with the soft fireplace in the background. It would be great to see a side-by-side comparison of how the press in the US treats those with power, and how other countries with a free press do the same. Our press is supine and timid, hence why people like Barr (and everyone behind Iraq) remain a Serious Person in Good Standing in DC.
11
It's awkward when the results of an investigation don't support their premise. We've moved beyond collusion, are now fussed about obstruction, of what no one has figured out, but darn it, we simply don't like the guy. And why in the world would we investigate how this all started, anyway? Then it becomes a politically motivated attack on democracy, unlike everything else that has occurred in the past two years, ever since the Designated President Clinton lost.
2
Think the Mueller investigation ended in a shambles?
Imagine how impeachment proceedings would end.
6
Let me just say as briefly as possible.
First, Most Americans are NOT in a position to read, or even obtain, an un-redacted version of the Mueller report.
Second, my individual reading of the report will mean what exactly? That I should initiate legal action against the president and his team of lawyers?
Third, Who in the room really thought that Barr would not support the president's position when the time came given Barr's own opinion writing exactly on this subject??
My head spins from this administration's criminality which is in plain site and my heart breaks that many Americans and GOP congressional members accept and even emulate this behavior as normal.
They all have to be voted OUT!
11
Dowd sums up the whole 2-year affair in one sentence: “If you believe Trump committed a crime, even if you can’t indict him now, why not say so?” This is the best reason to have Mueller testify before Congress. Why did he think fairness, or whatever it was, should be extended to a man whose whole life has been devoted to using any means — legal or illegal — to secure his own advantage and benefit?
6
In a country so deeply divided, Mueller, like Comey, understand the wrongs that have been committed against the nation, but are unable to simply state the facts, one guesses, for fear of being labeled partisan.
In the absence of a spine, they have made things worse. It was so deeply unpleasant to watch AG Barr’s CBS interviewed where he once again defended the indefensible with the body language of a guilty pyromaniac.
Maureen Dowd is so on point with her analysis, literary allusions and all. However, the problem is money in politics which is preventing the Democrats from acting more decisively on the investigations. All signs are that besides the so-called Trump base, other special interests also need this president re-elected. Netanyahu needs him to complete the land grab of the occupied territories. Putin needs him in power to continue destroying NATO and the EU. The Saudi Crowned Prince needs him to continue his idiotic wars in Yemen and he and Netanyahu need him to declare war against Iran. Domestically, all crooks need him to continue the destruction of the country’s institutions for yet another buck. It’s never enough for these corrupt, amoral people - both, foreign and domestic. There are no saints in this saga.
9
The Warrior fell flat. Mission was not accomplished. A boy scout is not a captain. It took 50-years to reveal this.
8
Let us assume that Robert Mueller will indeed end up testifying before congressional committees. No one can say that he is eager to do it or that he has an agenda of his own. If he goes beyond what is in his 400+ page report, no one can say he wants to do so. No one, that is, except Donald Trump and his defender William Barr. They will continue to demean and belittle him, but it won't work very well. I think that Robert Mueller is playing his cards very well. His testimony, when it comes, will be devastating for Trump. The Republicans on the various congressional committees will look silly.
6
Here’s the question a House committee needs to ask Mueller: if Trump were not president would you have indicted him?
5
Mueller's a Republican, right? I think that explains a lot about his otherwise incomprehensible behavior.
3
Yes, no doubt Consigliere Barr has conducted himself in a manner that would make Tom Hagen beam with pride... however... the REAL question that continues to bewilder is... what is it with American voters that 40 percent of them will abide the likes of DJT as their president??
8
"Otherwise, what was the point of the investigation?"
Indeed!
3
So many people said "Just wait until we get the Mueller Report". I thought that was wishful thinking.
If there were a 'smoking gun', it would not have stayed hidden while Mueller investigated and collected data. Too many smart people followed every detail of Trump's actions,down to the ground. We would have known.
What I knew is that Trump & Co. are soulless, evil people, and that Trump obstructed justice. We could see and hear him do it time after time.
But not there was not enough to impeach, and not enough easy-to-understand 'bad stuff' to convince his loyal minions that he broke the law. Actually they don't care if he breaks laws. In fact they applaud what he does, as far as they understand what he's doing.
Now all my friends are saying "Wait until Trump is soundly defeated in 2020, and then he'll be indicted on several counts of obstruction."
Trump may well be reelected. Heaven help us. Maybe he'll manage to crash the economy, which would bode ill for him...but if all he does is take the market up and down with his volatile tariffs, well his minions don't care. And 81% of Iowa Republicans approve of Trump, even while he's cutting off their income from trade exports.
People vote against their own 'self interest' because they are blinded by jingoism.
Mueller is a wimp, no doubt. But it really was not his job to indict the President of the United States.
3
Reputation will follow his kids, grandkids, great-grandkids.
"Your name is Mudd"
Comes from the assassination of Lincoln Mr. Barr. People still say it as an insult to this day.
History will forever treat the name Barr as an insult.
4
If Mueller had been investigating a Democrat, the outcome would have been absolutely conclusive and proactive. Mueller is not an "imperfect hero;" like Comey, he's a effete partisan.
Despite overwhelming evidence of criminality, Mueller offered his report as a script for a ventriloquist doll, to say exactly what his party bosses want it to say. If I believed any individual in the trump party had an iota of shame, I'd wish him a lifetime of it, but they don't. So, like Comey, he'll write a couple of books and be lauded by timid Democrats who bend over backwards to appease extremist republicans.
5
Ms. Dowd,
I would sell my soul to Trump to be able to write like you! Truly excellent piece.
2
The president is largely a four year limited dictator who can start a nuclear war in theory if he so desires. This one is supporting mass murder on the Southern Boarder and Yemen. With Congressional Oversight Largely a sham because it exists at the pleasure of the executive. we muddle on. The situation would improve if we legislated Congressional Oversight with much more teeth. At least we have limited Press Freedom which helps. Be thankful for what we have, it's likely to get worse.
Mueller has been and is acting cowardly in the face of unprecedented partisanship and corruption on the Republican side.
5
Devils and saints, heroes and villains. Homeric epithets.
Barr’s thought that immortality comes not from “having odes sung about you over the centuries…”
Trump and his players are not enduring. For every flash of brilliance, they most often come off as grifters and dodgers and cheaters and delinquents.
Our national dilemma will not be fixed by a few dozen investigators and prosecutors, or by a hundred senators or by all the members of the house of representatives.
It will be fixed in November, 2020 by one hundred thirty million voters.
5
Please. This was an inside investigation of the current administration, of itself by itself. It's what the people asked for.
Like Poe's purloined letter, the most heinous public travesty is being ignored, as mere part of the scenery - namely, the preposterous notion, seemingly unquestioned by both the press and the Democrats, that a president cannot be indicted. He is immune, he is above the law, god forbid we should even whisper an accusation! If we can't see the inherent absurdity of this preemptive attack on justice, we simply don't deserve a democracy.
4
Direct condemnation of Trump will never come out of Mueller's mouth.
Mueller is a lifelong Republican who doesn't want to go down in history as the guy who brought down the Republican President. No Homeric odes.
4
Wonder if Barr, at age 68 and nearing formal retirement, as has been reported, gave even a greedy little thought (you know they do come up from time to time with all of us) to accepting the role of attorney general with a view to being a significant enabler to trumpski so that he is in first place for consideration for associate Supreme Court justice, should an opening occur, heaven forbid.
5
More Opera Buffa than Homeric.
4
When Mueller started to read his report, he was speaking to congress and the media. There are the accounts of obstruction. Why can’t the media grab any elected official at any time and ask “Do you think asking McGhan to fire Mueller and then lie about it is obstruction of justice” or “do YOU interpret this other instance as obstruction?”
Of course their answers may be that they aren’t a lawyer but aren’t they sort of responsible for at least understanding laws considering they are responsible for writing them? They may also state they haven’t read it to which any cub reporter could ask “ Isn’t your job as an elected official to read the report and understand if there was obstruction? Do you read the laws you vote on, the classified information from the military? And if you’re not reading or writing laws and are not reading reports regarding our elections and our president’s possible commissions of crime, what exactly do you do to be paid but the American people?”
1
The Teflon Don escapes once again. As the song says “ How long has this been goin’ on”?
It will go on until they hold people in contempt and PUT THEM IN JAIL.
4
Mueller was Nervous. Had he been threatened? Tight-Lipped -we will never know. What we do know is he spent an awful lot of time on this report. Different than "High Noon" he did not get his man--but he may still throw down his badge in disgust---if Congress punts on responsibility.......
I wonder if Mueller resigned from the state department in order to tell the truth to the American people.
1
I have only contempt for this entire carnival plus a maximum degree of same for the grubby “public servants” who participated in this county fair. Is this their only calling?
1
I think I speak for most on this thread, where are you Socrates? Hope you are well. We miss your written word!
1
"Barr backed up all of Trump’s deep-state rants, saying: “Republics have fallen because of Praetorian Guard mentality where government officials get very arrogant, they identify the national interest with their own political preferences and they feel that anyone who has a different opinion, you know, is somehow an enemy of the state.”"
Yet Barr is the arrogant one, along with Trump, that identifies the national interest with their own political preferences and they both feel that anyone with a different opinion is somehow an enemy of the state (people).
Barr displayed his own evil world view.
2
@Glenn W.
Ever think that Barr is right and there was an attempt to overturn an election? Plenty of evidence already exists and more is coming out soon.
3
Jeff, no. Because I don’t sit in front of Fox News every day. Occasionally, I’ll turn it on and I am stunned by the misinformation. I’ve actually read some of Mueller’s report and it is obvious Barr has been misinforming the public on its contents. As for the “oranges” of the investigation? 200 secret meeting with a foreign adversary who was interfering in our presidential election.
4
@Jeff
Plenty of what "evidence"? Imagination does not count as evidence.
2
Cutting the Gordian Knot remains an impossible task.
Is Barr going to be our next Supreme Court Justice?
It is certainly looking that way.
3
1. Is anybody really all that confused about what Mueller and his report said? Because I’m not: they said that Russians seriously meddled in our election to benefit Trump, that Trump’s weird ties to Russia are bad but don’t rise to the level of criminal indictment, that Trump obstructed justice but DOJ regs prohibit indicting a sitting President, that the ball’s in Congress’—and our—court.
2. I swear, half the people howling at Mueller, Pelosi, everybody, didn’t vote. Not in 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, but boy, howdy, they wure yell now about WHY is Mitch McConnell running the Senate, WHY doesn’t Congress snap to, WHY this, WHY that. Well, news flash: Pelosi ain’t got the votes.
3. This also just in, progressives: not everybody agrees with you. They just don’t. They’re not all benighted, they’re not all stupid, they’re not all nursing a secret, desperate desire to vote for St. Bernie.
So I don’t get it. What did you think would happen? You thought it’d work like a movie, and then you could go back to sleep? You thought somebody’d snap their fingers, and Trump’d be gone?
Mueller did fine, though—like Dowd—the way he talks through things is at times infuriating.
WE let the country down, not Mueller. WE elected Trump. WE attacked one another.
Face up to it.
2
Trump is like the one eyed Cyclops, and we’re still all trapped in his cave.
3
@A California Pelosi Girl
Funny, I don't feel trapped at all. I feel liberated from the globalist group-think.
2
Maureen, one of your best columns. Sometimes when trying to practice "fairness," the cure is worst than the disease. Although some may view Mueller's reticence as stoic patriotism, the irony is that, as you suggested, it doesn't advance any kind of true justice. Instead, it enables the enablers.
1
the real question in regards to trumps minions should be this, what are the people who enable trump going to get from this / most people lie for a reason, what are the minions going to get for all the lies, what are they hoping to get? money, fame, a medal of freedom perhaps.
1
Mueller is silent because there's just not a lot of there, there.
7
@TommyD6of11
Right. Just 400-some pages of "nothing there."
Can I suggest that you just _consider_ reading the report?
5
@TommyD6of11
yeah not a lot, just 7 guilty pleads and 27 indictments
3
@DW
A lot of innuendo put forth by prosecutors who don't have a case. The report is a political hit piece, not a professional prosecutor's report.
The report was primarily crafted by Andrew Weissmann who is as partisan as they come and has not recovered yet from his crying fit at Hillary's "victory party".
1
So AG Bill Barr is not a good man because he didn't reach the conclusion expected by a part of the public, most of whom are no fans of President Trump and are not lawyers?
He concluded, along with Rod Rosenstein, that obstruction of justice could not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. This is a reasonable legal opinion, which an anti-Trump legal expert could also reach. In any case, regardless of the AG's opinion, the Congress can choose to start impeachment proceedings if they believe there is a clear case for criminal behavior.
I think the reason why many Republicans may no longer be listening to their Democratic colleagues is because, since Trump's election in 2016, there have been several suggestions in the Democratic mainstream to remove the President from office. The suggestions include:
- The popular vote should decide the winner of the election, not the electoral college (which has its origin in the Constitutional Convention of 1787).
- The electoral college voters should become Faithless Electors and not vote for the democratically chosen Mr. Trump.
- The ongoing idea of impeachment, which must have begun very soon after President Trump took office.
It is easy to understand why - in the eyes of Republicans - it would seem that Democrats are out looking for a reason to oust this President.
12
@Michael, I watched Mueller’s televised announcement and heard nothing new either - the report is the report - yet afterwards House Dems are acting as newly enlightened as did Moses’ tribe when he descended from Sinai with those chiseled stone tables by God’s own hand, as if Mueller’s “speaking” was all the sign they needed to validate and pursue their own agenda that you just stated. The whole November 2018 Blue Wave was predicated on impeachment solely because they can with enough ayes.
Barr would never have taken the job if the press and the Democrats had acted responsibly after the 2016 election. Time to look in the mirror and accept some responsibility for what has happened. Joining Trump in the swamp clearly wasn't the right action.
3
Bob Woodward gave the most precise analysis of the difference between Nixon and Trump and the cases against them, Nixon incriminated himself on hundreds of hours of tapes, but there was nothing against Trump that even came close. Case closed.
16
@Edward Nixon was not a mob boss, so did not speak in the carefully nuanced sentences of that toxic culture. Trump, as Michael Cohen pointed out and as everyone in NYC business circles knows, uses that language exclusively. His words have no literal meaning, but only serve to direct those who can decode the strings of words and reveal his evil wishes.
19
@Edward
Sure. And if there are 20 witnesses to a bank robbery and the criminal keeps on denying it and there is no taped confession he goes free.
13
@Edward
Well said Edward. The media have done a great disservice to our country with their relentless take down attempts.
4
Perhaps, the President did not collude with the Russians and perhaps the Chief Executive cannot obstruct justice by exercising his or her constitution authority to end an unjustified investigation at the tax payers expense.
To reduce this absurdity to a dance between Mueller and Barr amounts to willful blindness of the real issue that Trump won and a lot of people are just not happy about that.
11
@Terry, What is actually absurd is that our President is getting away with breaking the law thanks to his hand picked AG, picked because he virtually guaranteed he would protect Trump. What is wrong with that is that the AG is supposed to protect us, the people, not protect the President. If you would actually read the report you might see the problem isn't about or as simplistic as "he won".
55
@Terry
When hundreds of former prosecutors from both side insist that the president did in fact obstruct justice on multiple counts; you think it's because they 'don't like' him?
There is no hidden conspiracy by the accusers. Just Google all of Trump's statements and more importantly actions they are in plain sight.
14
@Terry. The real issue is what is the US doing to protect its democracy from meddling in2020?
8
The opinion of the Office of Legal Counsel of the Justice Department that a sitting president cannot be indicted is nothing more than a recommendation. It does not carry the force of a statute or judicial opinion. There nothing in our Constitution that pertains to this subject. If Trump were to commit a murder the punishment should be severe than impeachment. Even under this “remedy” the present biased makeup of the Senate would preclude them from being an honest jury. So we end up with a failed impeachment and a murderer sitting in the White House. What happened to the principle that no one is above the law?
79
@Marvin Exactly. Impeachment works only if the party of the president puts country over party.
44
@abigail49
The GOP controlled Senate will not impeach Trump. However, the So. Dist. of NY can indict Trump as soon as he leaves office. They have Mueller's files. Trump is boxed in; he is throwing tantrums; he is no longer sure he can beat Biden. He is not all that smart; he never graduated from middle school. He is in debt to Russian financiers, so he hides his tax records and fawns over Putin. He insults Mueller. He insults Pelosi and Schiff. He insults Biden. He insults Obama. He threatens to break an Agreement and to start a war against Iran. He talks to Sean Hannity every day. Hannity is as dumb as Trump.
15
This investigation was fundamentally flawed from the outset. It's quite clear what was required, particularly in the age of Trump, was an Independent Counsel, not a Special Counsel.
A Special Counsel reports to the Attorney General. Under those terms all Trump needed was an AG who would act as a conduit to ordinance based on reasoning and logic that would forever be circular. He found his man. Mr. Barr claims all roads lead back to Mueller, and according to the rules, that road always leads right back to Barr. And around we go.
An Independent Counsel is one who at the behest of the AG, is appointed by a Judge. An Independent Counsel is not accountable to the Attorney General or the DOJ. Clearly there is infinitely greater freedom in that arrangement.
Perhaps Mr. Mueller concluded that once Barr took office, there was no where left to go with this inquiry. Armchair spectators may not know all the inside politics that were going on, and it would surely be most interesting to learn, but I'd have to conclude Mueller knew which way the wind was blowing with internal politics at the DOJ. And it's quite evident the two men are hardly besties.
That leaves Pelosi. If Mueller, following the appointment of Barr, knew he was fatally hamstrung, he also knew that under these circumstances, Pelosi was not. Speaker Pelosi's gaming of the Constitution in my view is just plain hogwash. Formal impeachment proceedings against both Trump and Barr should have already begun.
9
"All Mueller was asked to do was to describe what he found and give his conclusions; then the Justice Department and Congress could do what they wanted." This is exactly what Mueller did. He investigated, detailed his findings, and gave his conclusions. People need to stop blaming him for the fact that the shield over the president protects even a worm like Trump, while in office, from any other accounting than impeachment. It has always been clear that the best way to remove Trump from a job he can't do is for the voters to speak decisively in 2020. Meanwhile, Congress should let the public know what they find out about Trump and also work to block him from doing further damage as much as possible.
5
Hmmm ... I take your point about facts uncovered by the investigation and the full disclosure of those facts along with clear and complete conclusions of wrongdoing. Mueller should have said what he thought about the direction in which the facts pointed and left the action to be taken by others when and how they can legally do so.
We do have the complete report and backup material which can be analyzed by others who may draw and publish clearer conclusions. That's for the future which is not controlled by the waffling of the present.
Finally, something worse than Tan Suit-Gate. I didn't think it could happen.
3
What Barr is saying is that he will be a sub-footnote in American history what's the point behaving with dignity? It's quite the advice for the rest of us that will not even be footnotes. I am sure he raised his children like that too.
4
Barr’s interview with Ms Crawford was the ultimate weirdness, not only in what he (didn’t) say but in the fake scene he contrived to (not) say it in. It was incongruous to see him wearing a fleece vest, flannel shirt, sitting in front of a fake fireplace (with a fake fire) on a beautiful, warm, spring day...what?? Maybe he wants to throw us back into the winter of our lives, who knows, but Ms. Crawford acted intimidated and didn’t challenge either the scene or the actor in it.
3
Couple of thoughts. Mueller did say that they did not find Trump innocent. So, that leaves one conclusion did they find him guilty? Well, over 200 pages of evidence on obstruction is available to decide this. Already over 700 expert professional prosecutors have decided, YES!
The cost of the investigation is similar to the Hillary one. One big difference Manafort's fines were over 20 million that goes to the government. Should we impeach? Thats a question that has people confused. I say yes we must.Politics need not be considered its justice and laws that need to be pursued.
7
@RichardHead
Too late to impeach Obama for using the intelligence community against his opponents but Jail is still an option.
1
For those who are wondering how a person like AG Barr (or Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh, or Pres. Trump, etc., etc.) can live with the idea that their names are going to be mud in the record of history, the correct response is what AG Barr said, that "he doesn’t believe in 'the Homeric idea' that immortality comes by 'having odes sung about you over the centuries, you know?'"
The point is that their people don't read history. Look at how they (and so many of their critics, as well) talk about U.S. history. Their history is whatever they say it is.
And in any case, note once again that "when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too."
2
Mueller is expecting Congress, which is loaded with former prosecutors, to take the evidence and do their Constitutional duty. He is wise to keep such low visibility. The issue is about Trump and his compromised Administration. The real question is whether Pelosi and the House Democrats are up to the task of holding hearings, questioning witnesses and educating Americans who get their information from television.
4
@Pat Choate
I'd say no. They're mostly idiots.
1
As has been pointed out then President Clinton was accused of lying to Congress and he pled guilty. The Muller decision and comments were meant to muddy the waters and inflame the "never Trumpers". It worked.
8
So Barr is saying that he concludes Mueller is saying Trump did NOT commit crimes.
But Mueller is NOT NOT saying that Trump committed crimes.
And this is all we, the American people, get after 2 years and
37 million taxpayer dollars?
Neither of these guys are finished.
Both need to be formally subpoened and forced to testify under oath before Congress with live testimony the whole world can watch.
8
Do you care, or does it make any difference to you,that the $40 million the taxpayers recovered from Paul Manafort’s fines more than cover the cost of the investigation?
2
@JM
And Mueller needs to explain why he sat on his findings of no collusion through the 2018 mid-term elections.
1
Since few of us are really qualified to judge legal obstruction, it would be good to have a wide range of prosecutors weigh in. In fact we have. Over 1,000 (!) former prosecutors from both Democratic and Republican administrations have signed a letter stating that based on the evidence in the Mueller report they would have charged Trump with multiple counts of criminal obstruction. And remember that the major roadblock is only a legal opinion from a DOJ office, not a law.
BTW, Trump's golf outings so far have cost us about $100 million.
7
What was the point of the investigation was a good question. Thirty-five million dollars? Lately, the government looks like the place to be if getting your hands on lots of money is your goal.
5
Mueller is honorable and does not attack an uncharged target with innuendo. Barr uses innuendo to further partisan points. That Barr destroys the independence of the Justice Department in the process means nothing to him. Barr is what he has become- a political hack.
14
@Newman1979
His entire report was laced with innuendo.
1
Dear Readers,
I remain flummoxed. President or not, people think you committed a crime supported by unreliable documents produced by your accusers and some shady behavior that your accusers say is circumstantial evidence of your guilt. You know you are innocent of the accusation. The investigation leads everywhere and is unlimited in looking for a crime, any crime. They pressure and ultimately jail your colleagues and friends for crimes unrelated to the original accusation against you. You choose to make the investigation difficult because you know you are innocent.
Now the investigation is over and you are cleared of the accusation. The investigators say their work was completed to their satisfaction.
But now you are on the hook for obstruction because you made the investigation really hard. Even though you were cleared, and the investigators said they were satisfied with their work and outcome.
Please Dear Readers, explain to me the justice of this scenario. I want to agree with you but can’t find a way.
6
A government official is not allowed to use the power of his/her office to make a criminal investigation ‘difficult’.
Full stop. Doing so falls under the category of ‘high crimes and misdemeanors.’
Also- innocent people don’t try to make criminal investigations difficult either.
9
Why did those under oath lie? Manafort is covering up as was lying Flynn so Mueller hits an impenetrable wall and not indicting a sitting Pres is just an opinion promoted by Justice many decades ago; but, it is not a law to be found in the Constitution or Bill of Rights or any amendments. Yes, you seem to have the desire to be oh so fair, congratulations. NYC state laws and payments to shut up one’s sexual encounters (Cohen wrote the check with DTs instructions and he went to jail for that component (yes also own his personal tax crimes). DT lies to the nation ( yes, not under oath like Mr. Clinton), but he lied and while on Air-force One and encourages his duplicitous minions Sarah and Kelly Ann to lie on the podium and White House lawn. Why do you want to defend him/them.
1
And in fact, the Constitution gives the President has total control of the executive branch, which includes the justice department. Impeachment is not law enforcement, it is a political solution to a lawless President. So impeach if you want, but you haven’t addressed that the investigation found no crime, so how can there be obstruction if the investigators say they were satisfied with their work.
1
Whether we agree with it or not (I don't) Mueller gave his reasons for not being more explicit in his judgement, claiming it's JD policy (paraphrasing) "not to pronounce on people who can't defend themselves". Considering it's Trump we're talking about, that rectitude certainly does appear misguided.
8
Notice again it's the highly educated in the halls of power telling the rest of us how we are going to live.
Meanwhile, DeVoss is further starving the Public school system with talented teachers, and a Koch brother is remaking "education" in the image of their version of religious conservatism.
It's only a matter of time we will be looking at the educated in the halls of power and watching nostalgic films of the early 21stCentury (if these films are still allowed.). If we are lucky, we will still be allowed to read about Democracy as a governing possibility that's gone, in the Press.
6
The bottom line:
Trump is going to
have to be voted out
of office. No saint
will save us. Justice
is a murky path.
Democrats must field
a candidate who can win.
During the path to the
primary votes, Democratic
candidates should take a
high road with their fellow
Democrats. The press
needs to temper their comments
and look at the big picture, ISSUES.
15
When Barr, and reportedly with Rosenstein's concurrence, released his summary and judgement, he then afterwards admitted to the Senate that he had not actually read the full report. This is not the Minister of Information, but the Minister of Propaganda. Many in this country, including myself, had hoped that Mueller was going to finally end this Trump clown show. His report proves that Trump wanted to obstruct if not actually in fact it did occur. How many in Congress read the report in full? The unredacted report is essential to see. It's hard to imagine that Mueller simply punted without good cause, based on the law under which he was operating.
12
The comments about Mueller were silly. The report itself and his televised statement speak perfectly clearly for themselves. The DoJ ruling was that indicting a sitting Chief of State was unconstitutional. This is not just a whim on the part of some bureaucrat: it is one of the foundations of the department's relationship with all presidents. Mueller was also perfectly clear about why he couldn't accuse the president without indicting him: because, without an indictment and trial, the president would have no way to defend himself against the accusations. The right to self-defense in a trial is another foundational concept, this time of our entire system of justice. So, all Mueller had left, as he confronted the problem of how to communicate to his superiors and ultimately to the public his discovery of a rogue, criminal president, all while staying inbounds of the Constitution as interpreted by the DoJ, was what we have seen: a detailed compendium of individual charges with supporting evidence, presented without any accusatory statement, plus a nudge of Congress with a reminder that they, unlike the Executive Branch DoJ, could constitutionally go where Mueller could not.
7
There is nothing in this--another of Ms Dowd's best flights of eloquence-- that I disagree with. There is one thing I would add, oddly, however to the evaluation of Mueller's cowardly performance that might have a mitigating effect on the condemnation it is due: the fear that had he been more direct, less elliptical, less obscure, his report would have certainly been more easily dismissed as a political stunt. Give him that, but he is still hiding, because his opinion, plainly expressed, would bar him from the old club of old Republican boys once honorable who hide behind a facade
of dignity that puts them above the struggles of the hoi polloi and, incidentally, puts them above the struggle for justice. He is indeed a relic who upon performing in the real world of today wants to be judged by standards of the past. The tactic he used is one that was once honored by highly educated elite. An attack or insult so cleverly disguised that the subject does not get it. An insult designed to gain approbation from peers. Language itself is manipulated, contorted to be misunderstood by the subject. The whole performance of Mueller was an exercise in condescension : if you don't get what I'm saying, at least my peers do, and I am off the hook.
9
Thanks. Food for thought.
Infrastructure can wait.
Besides, would you trust this man with another 42 trillion of tax-payers dollars?
How many Bridges to Nowhere would that buy?
4
Congress should subpoena Mueller and they should do it now, solely under their own conditions, with no negotiating. Mueller’s subpoenas to the witnesses in his investigation did not defer to those who were too shy or too hidebound to come in and face tough questions. Though Mueller is not be under suspicion of illegal activity, his ultra secrecy is belying his mission of getting at the truth at any cost. He declined to render any significant conclusions in his investigation. He owes the American people greater transparency of the evidence he examined and the process that led to the muddled fizzle of an end he presented us.
13
This was a good distraction by Mueller. No one among the Democratic Party media is talking about the biggest news of the whole report - there was no conspiracy nor collusion. Instead, through a grain out about obstruction and all is forgiven of Mr. Mueller for not finding what the Democrats had been desperately hoping for.
Now, the issue is tiresome and not worth obsessing over. There are important Democratic policies to address. Let's get to work on them. Time to put country ahead of politics.
6
The investigation was about three things: Russian meddling in the election, whether the Trump campaign conspired with the Russians, and whether Trump obstructed justice.
Trump made collusion the issue that, if not proven, would mean the entire investigation was a witch hunt. In reality the investigation appears to have been thorough but quite focused on the three things they were tasked with. And produced indictments on over 30 people - including a significant number in the president’s orbit.
The Democratic Congress is right not to let this drop. Trump no longer dismisses Russia’s role in the election, but shows no intention to do anything about it (likely because he would welcome their help or Ukraine’s or any other foreign actor who can help re-elect him).
The House should do their job of oversight, which was completely absent when Republicans were in charge. That is not putting party above country, but doing there job as a coequal branch of government.
The House is moving legislation, but without the Senate taking it up, it will go nowhere. The Republican leadership in the Senate seems to think their main job is to seat as many right-wing judges as they can and support the President. That is what Party before country looks like.
1
Beyond snickering at the notion of Donald Trump putting ANYTHING before Donald Trump, I guess it just has to be said again and again: “We don’t have enough to indict Trump’s collusion with Russians,” followed by, “We did not exonerate Trump of obstruction,” followed by, “DOJ policy prohibits indicting a sitting President, and a defendant has to be given a chance to defend themselves,” is not by any stretch of the language anything like an exoneration.
Want a simpler version?
“Well, the guy’ll skate on it, as long as he’s President and doesn’t get thrown out of office.”
@Robert
Prosecutors don't exonerate.
King Midas of old was rich because everything he touched turned to gold. Everything (and everyone) President Trump touches turns into a far baser substance. William Barr once had a sterling reputation.
By the way, those who have read the Mueller Report know that Don McGahn is something of a modern saint in terms of the propriety of his legal ethics. It is to be hoped that he escapes the President's touch and finally tells his story to Congress.
2
@Dallasite
Just because McGahn knew where to draw a line that was meaningful to him--to keep himself out of legal jeopardy--doesn't mean he's innocent in the eyes of the public.
This same guy, McGahn, is also the architect of packing the judiciary with Trump's unqualified nominees, which are getting a fast track to lifetime appointments thanks to his ally Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, who threw out the last vestiges of Senatorial privilege, and the filibuster, to do it. That is, AFTER he stole a SCOTUS seat from a sitting president, Obama, whose nomination he simply refused to recognize as Senate business almost a year before November 2016.
McGahn is on Trump's team. He's just a bit cleverer about keeping himself out of prison.
7
True that perhaps but he stayed on board after his Mueller time was finished to complete his committed “shepherding” of an unqualified nominee to the Supreme Court while seated comfortably in TV row view to bask in the glow in his goal of confirming this aggressive phony frat boy ole boy private school creepy beer drinking phony to be a Supreme. Don didn’t need the job and yes he probably found DT a bore and a creep and therefore didn’t need to break a law and be charged or lose his law license especially to be able to return to another private practice high figure income law firm. Don’t give Don any accolades here as he was out the door, perhaps on his own steam like so few have done for some reason (incompetence keeps you there?) Why would anyone work for this despicable man- despicable decades before he ever ran for the nomination.
1
*whose nominee, Merrick Garland, he simply refused to recognize as Senate business almost a year before November 2016.
Cheers to Maureen Dowd; someone has finally spoken out with truth about Mueller's weakness (character). I would go a bit further and call him a coward who failed to finish the job he was hired to do; at GREAT eyxpense to the American people. Shame on Robert Mueller and every Attorney who worked for him.
Suzanne Landwehrle
Attorney at Law
Notre Dame Law School '91
16
Has anyone considered that Mr. Mueller may have a lot to lose, personally, if he states outright what he's been implying? It takes no stretch of the imagination. When dealing with mob connected individuals, a threat of this nature may precipitate retaliation. I'd be hiring bodyguards.
4
@Daphne
Oh, like mobsters are such sticklers for detail and legal propriety before they decide whether to retaliate? I think not. That train left the station the day he agreed to take on the job. He might as well have gone all the way.
2
@Daphne
I think you're confusing Trump with the Clinton cabal that "suicides" people as a matter of course.
Dems can force mueller to testify if open impeachment proceedings, along with anyone else they want to hear from. What are they afraid of? Please pardon my grammar.
3
@Bill Kaetzel - There is no way that Mueller testifies; why do you think that he gave this press conferences anyway? He would whither terribly under Republican questioning.
2
@CCPony
They could still subpoena him. He said he would just repeat what was in the report, without elaboration. I don't think that gives Republican questioners any advantage.
1
@Bill Kaetzel
Dems don't want the truth to come out.
I hate trump, but Barr I think could be considered worse..the US Attorney General lying and going along with trump is too much. He is tricky, he is a traitor...he needs to go, now. I cant bear to even see his face.
8
It seems simple...if there is strong evidence of obstruction, start the investigation. Get it out to the public. Even if it goes to the Senate and fails, the information is in front of the voters to see.
THEN, you put in front of the public all the bills passed by the House and prevented from coming to the floor by M. McConnell,
Let the public see how the President and the leadership of the Republican Party are thumbing their collective noses at the Constitution, AND THE PUBLIC.
7
The only satisfying end to Mueller's silence would have been just six words: "Here's the report. Arrest the sucker."
4
Is anyone else tired of this? Democrats, if you believe this President should be impeached, get on with it. Our roads are deteriorating, our boarders are over run and all I hear is bla, bla, bla. An excuse for doing nothing.
6
Democrats can only do so much. Last week the met with the president to work on infrastructure. A three minute meeting that he stormed out of because he didn’t like what Pelosi had said about him earlier in the day, but likely also because he had agreed to something that he never would deliver on (working with Democrats on an issue that would go nowhere with his own party). They continue to push through legislation that the Senate refuses to take up.
An impeachment battle will only make things worse in that respect but will give the President a reason to tell his base why nothing is getting done. He has already essentially said that he won’t do anything as long as Democrats are conducting investigations as part of their oversight responsibility.
@DKSF
Right, we need more "shovel ready jobs."
"Barr is not so much the attorney general as the minister of information."
You meant minister of disinformation, right?
7
I now believe that Mueller was in the Barr camp all along
4
@alank
Then why bother with a press conference that everyone (outside of the WH) saw as pushing back against the Barr/Trump narrative, forcing them to again defend the indefensible? And why bother with releasing to the public a letter back in March that admonished Barr for 'misrepresenting' the report's conclusions when Barr did his 'summary' two days after the reports release?
2
Barr from Odes to Odious.
3
Liberals made a deal with the devil when they bestowed undeserved god-like status on Mueller. and joined anti-Trump forces with both the FBI and the CIA, which deservedly have many a black mark against them.
For more than two years, the corporate media sold the story that Mueller was the only thing standing between Trump and the apocalypse. Now that he's devolved from Father of Our Country to Deadbeat Dad, maybe we can start growing up and admitting that yes, these old white dudes are all members of the same elite club that, as George Carlin observed, you ain't in.
I knew that Democrats were in trouble when they organized those "spontaneous grassroots uprisings" in November to protest Trump's firing of white supremacist Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions and to demand that Mueller be protected.
Mueller was a Bush administration Iraq War cheerleader who enabled the "legal" justification of torture. He also directed the post-9/11 round-up of about 1,000 Muslim immigrants - some of whom were detained for up to year without charge based purely upon the suspicion that they were terrorists.
Mueller served power then and he serves power now. So has and does Barr. who despite his orchestration of pardons for several Bush Sr. administration officials convicted of Iran-Contra crimes, was grotesquely well-regarded in establishment circles. (If someone can be hailed as "bipartisan," then any sliminess tends to slide right down the Orwellian memory hole.)
Trump is only a symptom.
16
Mueller's press conference was not effective enough, so he needs to be forced to testify. The NYT Editorial Boards was right to characterize him as "I'm begging now. Please don't make me testify".
He didn't make Pelosi's nearly impossible balancing-act any easier, or not much easier. Gail Collins pointed out the same deficiencies in phrasing the 'if we knew their was not a crime committed, we would have said so'.
It seems as if Mueller will NOT say anything, either in the report or in person that is fully understood by all Americans, including dumb Americans. He seems to think that it's enough to be subtle and oblque, and refuse to be strong. and he sure didn't look strong in that live performance either. He's very disappointing, because, as in so many cases of all kinds, the lower-downs have to do time like Cohen and he was glad to give him 3 years. Nevermind that he deserved it. In a sense, he did not deserve it if Mueller was then going to let this swine off the hook--because Cohen, quite criminal himself, really did cooperate whereas others didn't, and some aren't even doing time. We don't get to know about Flynn either.
I don't know if the investigations are going to lead to 'enough' of what Pelosi says is needec; if they don't, she may open the inquiry. Only 3 more House members coming out for impeachment due to this speech is not enough, but his testimony might well really change things, and it wouldn't hurt Mueller to know he can't control all things.
4
Disbar the lad already. Jeez!
1
Seems to me, agreeing to hold 'fireside chat' with Barr, makes CBS complicit in his false/misleading propaganda scheme.
12
That Mueller has allowed Barr to color the special council findings with his redaction pen, thus over-riding the yellow text is a crime.
Mueller was hired to do a job - to determine whether or not Trump Inc was dirty. He found that yes they are filthy dirty, but allowed Barr to whitewash the findings and change the narrative to catching the good guys instead outing the con man.
5
Mueller brought a knife to a gun fight.
5
This Attorney General could hold a series of lectures for Obama's and Climton's AGs on how to actually carry out the LAW without becoming a political prostitute charged with enforcing secrecy and pulling illegal stunts more than anything else.
There's a decent chance that one or both of Obama's AGs could be indicted for their part in allowing Hillary Clinton's flippant disregard for the Espionage Act to continue and for the coup d'etat carried out against President Trump against every observance of the FISA law and procedures in place for years at the Department of Justice.
You need to actually listen to the CBS News interview Barr did with Jan Crawford. It will make you feel good about our country and its government.
5
Sorry, no.
I myself find it difficult to observe reality by means of a funhouse mirror.
Your results are welcome to differ, of course. But I do suggest finding out what a “coup d’etat,” actually is.
1
About that legacy, Mr. Barr...you may not care, but generations of your family might.
4
Barr is a known lackey. We were all waiting on Mueller. He could have said that there is ample evidence indicating Trump obstructed justice, but DOJ policy precluded him from indicting the president. He could have indicated clearly that it would be up to Congress to impeach and convict Trump. Mueller could have reiterated that there is absolutely nothing in the Constitution that prevents a sitting president from being indicted. He specifically chose not to do these things. Mueller is no saint. He let the American people down. And now with the current political situation, the House may never impeach and the Senate would never convict, anyway. Trump could be reelected next year. Mueller has helped put his country into a terrible situation. He deserves ridicule and scorn.
3
Bill Barr is dishonest, intellectually and legally. Bob Mueller is deficient, philosophically and legally. Let me explain.
Barr flat out distorts, lies and cheats -- his "summary" of the Mueller report is a compendium of distortions, lies and cheats. He is indefensible.
Mueller feels he is bound by the DOJ OLC opinion barring indictment of a sitting POTUS. That position is defensible, if wrong, given the circumstances. But Mueller's deficiency overwhelms his actions as he also chose to extend the reasoning or sentiment, if you will, of that OLC position, using basic notions of what he called "fairness," to refrain from uttering his own legal conclusions about the meaning of the mountain of evidence he accumulated. A timidity based in reason. Not as reprehensible as Barr, but not what the republic needs at this moment.
Trump attempted and possible failed to conspire with the Russians. Trump clearly succeeded in obstructing justice. Barr's attempt to support Trump's actions is treasonable (in the non-legal sense of the word); Mueller's failure to call a spade a spade is unfortunate. Barr will be remembered as a foul creature of darkness; Mueller as a flawed man.
2
How embarrassing for Mr. Barr and his descendants. He will not be remembered well. I’d hate to be his kid, grandkid or great-grandkid.
4
Ned Stark was fair to Cercei Lannister. It cost him his head and the realm 7 extra years of war and bloodshed.
If Dems don't seize the opportunity provided by Mueller's report and focus America's attention on the evidence by beginning an impeachment inquiry, I believe we will lose our democracy. We have no dragons to wipe out our enemies.
2
Am I the only one wondering if there really is a deep state at work here? Not against the dictator wanna be in the White House, but for him. Let us not forget, Mueller is a declared Republican. How else can you explain all of these so-called honorable, law-respecting men, bowing down before the law breaker in chief, protecting and enabling him?
4
“But talking to Crawford, Barr took the knife he had already stuck in his old friend and twisted it, using St. Mueller’s prestige against him.”
I’m afraid this is a metaphor for how Barr and the White House and tatted Mueller.
3
It has been fascinating to watch the adoption of Mueller, a Republican, by the Left. Now that he has failed them, they are left only to call him a misguided Boy Scout, having already begun Rushmore-like platitudes leading up to the conclusion of the investigation.
So, too, with Barr, at first a respected lawyer who is now termed Lucifer.
Trump is a fool. Full stop.
But the amount of tortured time the Left is spending on him, hair ablaze, will probably re-elect him. Why? Well, because his lying and disgusting ways are preferred by more Americans than socialized medicine, late-term abortions, regulations on corporate pay practices, open borders, turning the economy upside-down to eliminate fossil fuels, and frequent rants about Putin.
I have never seen so much political opposition so narrowly focused on someone’s personality.
You are all going to take down Biden next, the guy I would support, leaving me only a yet-unnamed Libertarian candidate as my choice to register my disgust with both parties and their “base” who will deliver up two Frankenstein’s: Trump and someone like Kamala Harris.
3
Well, he is,(Mueller) afterall, a republican. And we have seen how the "esteemed,reputable" lawyers in Washington have gotten their reputations: Yale,Harvard, the Federalist Society, clerking for the Scalias of the Supreme Court. These are the same people who promoted an emotionally unstable drunk for the highest court in the land.
I am no cop,or lawyer, but I can read between the lines: Witness tampering occurred and was perpetrated by the President of the United States! If that aint obstruction, what is? Yes, Mueller took the easy road. But at least he and Barr can share after dinner brandies and cigars.
3
Mueller did a terrible job. He should have clearly indicated in his report that Trump should be indicted for obstruction, but that he could not do so because of DOJ policy. He should have then unequivocally stated that the U.S. House should take up impeachment proceedings based on his findings. Instead, he appeared blindsided by Barr being appointed AG by Trump and then watching Barr spin his report in Trump's favor. Mueller actually did write a "snitty" memo, then made some public remarks of questionable worth, then retired by saying that he will not offer congressional testimony under oath. The whole affair is a pathetically weak showing by Mueller and dramatically improves Trump's chances of being reelected next year.
Meanwhile, the NYT seems to be dancing around the issue so as not to overly stir the pot, instead engaging in ample bothsiderism. We need to be nice to Mueller, the poor guy, after all. What could he have done differently, right? Let's not be too harsh rushing to judgment.
So Mueller is at fault for "coloring between the lines" too much? How about the NYT? Seems like a sad parallel if you ask me.
3
Very sad that so many people are blind with hate when there has clearly been a failed attempt to remove a sitting President elected by the people. People are so caught up in the hate that Obama spewed against our country as though the US were a evil and stealing from countries across the globe. For some stupid reason there are people that found him to be awesome and President Trump to be the villain and bully but taking the time to look at economic statistics only proves Trump the genius. There is a problem in DC and if you look without hatred you can see the party that had an agenda that has been foiled looking to steam roll anyone that disagrees with their vision of government by their party. In the end people will be going to jail but for some they will still ignorantly believe President Trump is guilty of something. I really feel sorry for them because it must be terrible going through life blaming everyone for their failed life. The real problem in DC is Obama will finally be exposed.
2
@Buck4miser The people voted for Clinton. The Electoral College put Trump in office. Obviously the people did not want Trump. Obama was a flawed man but he was loyal to the country and truthful. Trump has neither of these traits.
What's so diabolical about Barr is how he can sit there so self-assured and calmly with no facts and no evidence offer some distorted claim that there was spying and conspiracy on the part of the FBI to go after Trump with the Mueller report. And he thinks his smug authority as Attorney General somehow makes all this nonsense believable and convincing to every one outside of Trump's base of True Believers at those rallies.
Then there's arrogant Mueller who stick up his A hole claims to be so patriotic and stick by the rules that he doesn't realize how unpatriotic he is by refusing to spell out exactly that his investigation does accuse Trump of obstruction no matter how much his buddy Barr lies claiming it doesn't.
1
Barr's statement that "things are just not jiving" or his throwing out the idea of spying within the Agency (but no, he has "no proof" ) has a similar ring to the suggestive slithery lies Trump has used to create support and underwrite bogus claims for those so inclined to be duped. Barr's conduct is reminiscent of the old Trump ploys, as when he conducted his birtherism attack on Obama. ("everyone knows"; "everyone" is looking; "people are saying"; "no one can find or knows anything about."
Barr mimicking Trump: just another low human being, if truth be told. Barr is a liar, and an embarrassment to his country, his family, and his profession.
2
Maybe the collusion we should be looking into is really between Barr and Mueller, after all they have been friends for 30 years. Their wives are best friends. A kind of Republican bonding, probably stronger than a two year report that they must have colluded about.
Think about that, two years and they never discussed what the outcome could be and maybe cause the destruction of the Republican party?
Integrity is the word used to describe Mueller, for us the word might be loyalty, loyalty to the Republican party.
Sounds like a brilliant plan to me, the fox still guards the hen house.
It stinks like a bunch of rotten eggs.
4
Dark-hearted? Diabollical? That is what a decent man gets for trying to save the country by putting an end to this raving madness? Talk about diabolical.
4
“Sometimes it’s hard to know who is worse: devils or saints”
There aren’t any saints here, just devils. The whole Republican lot of them.
Barr qualifies for sure with his documented past misgivings during his first stint as AG, and who can forget the bounds he went to petition for his second stint by drafting a unsolicited 19 page letter that convinced Trump he’d found his Roy Cohn, thus followed by his fabricated summaries of the long awaited Mueller Report, to his and Trumps investigation of the investigators nothing burger fiasco. This will be interesting to see if the CIA is going to allow Barr to release identities of vital secret government assets for Russian consumption. Tell me, what would the Russian GRU do?
Mueller, notwithstanding his outstanding record of stellar service to his country, will be forever tarnished, if he fails to testify before congressional committees concerning his conclusions on his important Mueller Report. But who can blame him, with his fellow Republicans in Congress, waiting in line like starving junkyard dogs salivating to cut him to shreds.
It will be fascinating to watch Republicans eating their own, all in feeble attempts to save a listing Titanic presidency. If Hillary Rodman Clinton could outdistanced Republicans for 11 grueling hours during the umpteenth congressional Benghazi hearings, than Mueller should fare just fine.
Quick, somebody throw them a life preserver. It’ll be the devil in all of them. No saints here.
1
They decided to investigate Donnie two inch
A conviction would be a cinch
A life long criminal from New York
A Bill Miller quark
The minority majority republicans
Assigned a special Prosecutor an old hand
A Republican Assistant Attorney General
Appointed another republican wwould not fail
This republican Mueller had an impeccable record
Democrats hoping two inch soon be gourd
Two inch install Barr and his backstop
He would make the Mueller report a flop
The evidence was stacked up high
Russians, kickbacks, secret meeting but the well went dry
Republican investigating republicans a novel idea
Forcing the lower echelon to take a plea
But alas it was all a charade
It was just the rich on parade
2
Most Countries continue to shake their heads in sadness and disgust that trump was elected. Now they watch as all the constitutional reasons to get him out of office are being ignored. This will come back to haunt us.
4
Bill Barr is Trump’s Bruce Cutler. To call him an enabler is far too kind. If you recall, Cutler was disqualified by USDJ Leo Glasser for essentially being part of Gotti’s criminal enterprise. The sooner we all understand what role Barr is playing the sooner we can end this charade.
4
Oddly, James Comey thought he was acting like a Saint too.
3
Oh the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune!--the outrageous--to the Democrats--fortune that, despite two years of trying, Mueller could come up with nothing more concrete than innuendo and Barr is simply taking what Mueller wrote and ignoring, as he should, the unsubstantiated innuendo.
No one has found any evidence that Trump hasn't shot anyone in Times Square. Ergo, he must have done it? That's about the level of "logic" in Mueller's spoken words--he's far too smart to have written such silliness.
It's over, Democrats. Oh, you can keep trying to keep hope alive, keep trying to console the faithful that he DID collude! He DID obstruct! But you're not going to convince anyone else. All you're doing is making yourselves look like petty, vindictive, sore losers.
And, further, as time goes on, it's gotten more and more obvious that it was the Democrats doing the colluding and obstructing. In continuing to attack Trump, all you're doing is more thoroughly calling attention to your own misdeeds--not, of course, that we're going to let the country ignore or forget them.
4
Barr has been auditioning to become Disney's eighth Dwarf.
3
“Everyone agrees a president can be indicted once he is out of office. That (in addition to impeachment) is a reason to gather the evidence now while docs are available and memories fresh.”
Exactly. When AG Barr uncovers 0bama's role in this coup we can have him indicted (0bama). Mueller is a dirty cop. Dirty cops must do the time. The media also needs to face charges for perpetrating a hoax on the public.
3
Nothing will convince the Republican Senate to get rid of Trump. I don’t know why but that is the way it is. I really believe that he would have to personally start a massacre and then, maybe reluctantly they might do something. Don’t understand the power behind this embarrassing buffoon but if there’s a deep state it’s behind Trump not against him.
3
When all is said and done, the electorate put this man in office. Did they take the time to learn anything about him? (See, for example, Bloomberg Businessweek article about the sale of the Plaza.) if his core thinks he has their best interests at heart as opposed to just throwing them an occasional bone (see tax legislation) they are delusional.
And as long as the Republican Party is guided solely by self interest rather than decency and principle we’re stuck with this nasty, boorish, dishonest mess of a man. The President of the United States calling people names!?!?! We are living in Bizarro world.
3
This wordy article says only one thing that Mueller and Barr both are "chickens" in their own style and that the Republicans don't care for the country.
3
Mo, 'Cheney-esque' is exactly what sprang to mind when seeing the first snippet of the Barr interview, complete with Barr's faux-gravelly tone. On a side-note, Barr probably meant to say 'not jibing' in that interview, because from here it looks like things certainly are 'jiving', despite his protestations.
But the entire quote from Barr in the CBS interview is informative about his mind-set, which seems more of the same diehard conservative hard-liner rampage we see elsewhere in the GOP, with this crowd continuing their conservative white patriarchy last-gasp Vegas buddy road trip ethos, trying to enforce their conservatism for the next 40 years, before they all turn to worm food - to wit:
"I am at the end of my career. Everyone dies and I am not, you know, I don't believe in the Homeric idea that you know, immortality comes by, you know, having odes sung about you over the centuries, you know?"
This is the same mind-set seen in the 40 GOP'ers who lost their House seats last November, thrown out for voting with the White House for 2 years instead of representing their constituents; most of the GOP'ers retired rather than again face their constituents.
And for anyone who's been watching, remembering how instrumental Barr was in pardoning the Iran Contra conspirators at the end of the Bush 41's years, ruining that Special Counsel's case, it's easy to imagine the DOJ pardon mill now being cranked into higher(!) gear.
06/01/19-3:05pm EDT
3
Great analysis of both characters and their interplay. Now I'm wondering if there was "collusion" between these two to so confuse the public that we just walk away and let Donald Trump do any darned thing he wants to. Who needs Russians to conspire with when Trump has his propaganda team right in the Justice Department? I can see the three of them on the links at Mar-a-Lago right now, chuckling about what suckers we all are.
2
Trump is correct Mueller is a conflicted soul. He could not his assigned task and failed in his mission in the investigation. Mueller like Comey has let his disgust of a person rule over his investigation and he appointed people who were Clinton donors and one who was a Clinton lawyer.
Why did Mueller not investigate Clinton and the DNC for their apparent shenanigans with the Steel report.
If Barr had evidence Mueller is not taking kickbacks from the Clinton foundation and advice from Adam Schiff he would have said so.
3
I used to love watching Shari Lewis and Lambchop on TV when I was really, really young. I didn't care if I could see Shari's lips move or the fact that Lambchop was sock. Shari was soothing and the show was fun.
Watching Barr's lips move while he speaks for all of government and all of Justice isn't entertaining. His sock puppets are even more unreal than Lambchop, plus Barr is covering for the worst of the worst in this country, maybe the whole world. Putin must be proud!
Barr's past is not forgotten. Helping Bush and Reagan to cover up treasonous actions like selling arms to terrorists then using the ill-gotten gains to arm a bunch of mercenaries fighting the Nicaraguans broke the law. The Republicans know this and it's why Barr was chosen.
The coverup is falling apart but don't expect getting unmasked to stop these people. They have no virtue.
5
This whole thing turns my stomach as any reminder of the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings do. Raw ugly political power at its worst.
4
I wonder how many death threats Mueller received. What went on that we don't know about? Why is he so afraid?
3
I don't know who let us down more, Barr in his gasbag utter contempt for truth, or Mueller who was required to break out of his circumspect notions of probity and step up to the plate at a moment of great national need. Barr is contemptible, but Mueller has gone only 90% of the way, and in failing to complete the journey he has failed all of us.
2
No one who believes the President of the Unites States is omnipotent and above the law, above the people, creating his own law, such as Barr believes, deserves no comment on democracy or the rule of law, let alone be in a position of responsibility for it.
4
Dowd is right in indicting Barr, but a little less so with Mueller. Mueller hinted that it was up to the House to file articles of impeachment against Trump the criminal-in-chief. Mueller should have said so!
However, Mueller was wrong in saying he was bound to stay silent by the guidelines of the FBI. That guideline is being challenged in the House even now. Trump should be indicted and prosecuted now! Pence's impeachment and indictment are waiting in the wings. Then the Democrats must focus on taking the Senate away from the treasonous Republicans.
2
Let me see. Trump personally picks the man he wants to be attorney general and then his personal pick writes a summary of the Mueller report, redacting a substantial bit of the report he feels we the public should not know about, and we are supposed to accept this summary of a partial report by a highly partisan personal presidential appointment as gospel.
I don't think so.
Mueller was a hero who has become a disappointing pseudo hero, Barr is a presidential toady and the president himself is a lying despot loving disgrace.
5
Good analysis as it stands today, however, it ain't over till its over. Barr will ultimately pay a criminal quittance for his conspiracy with Trump. The question is: Why did Barr do it? Usually the reason is money, but whatever it is, one day we'll know and Barr will wish he had not cast his lot with Trump.
1
Barr lied. By omission and by commission. Any person of virtue and honor is handicapped when you are dealing with someone completely without morals and whose agenda is this corrupt.
Trump is much more blatant about it. Barr is more careful, but they share a purpose.
Lie to the American people.
Hide the evidence.
Disobey legal subpoenas.
Ignore the law.
Play the dictator who is above all laws.
Be arrogant. Be rich.
McConnell does the same thing as Barr in a similar way. So does Mnuchin.
It doesn't matter that Trump and his people had 140 contacts with Russia in 2016, that they lied 70+ times about this, and that Trump attempted to obstruct justice on at least 10 occasions to the extent that more than 1000 former federal prosecutors re now on the record that they would have prosecuted.
Trump and his administration are corrupt and dishonest. But Barr is over the Justice Department itself. He is now attacking both the FBI and the intelligence agencies. He ended the Mueller investigation, misrepresented the report, and continues to lie.
It no longer matters who the Mephistopheles is. All sold their souls. All sold out America.
Forget truth, justice and the American way.
Vote. Against every single Republican.
4
You're correct about Homer, Ms. Dowd, but it's not his Odysseus, come home after 20 years; it's his Achilles and his superhero who is laid low by chance.
What William Barr, a/k/a Achilles, did to his old friend, Robert Mueller, a/k/a/ Hector, was defeat him in combat and then drag his corpse around Washington in his chariot, a/k/a the Walls of Troy, mocking the Department of Justice and all of shocked Washington.
I have to agree that Special Counsel Mueller comes off much worse here. What's needed is for someone to portray Donald Trump and William Barr as Laocoön and then have the two huge serpents swim up out of the sea and swallow them whole.
3
Anyone who doesn’t approve of the inquiry into FBI and CIA behavior is a supporter of a police state. The very issues Democrats had with the Patriot Act on October 26 2001 have now been realized by the covert spying committed against United States citizens. No one ever wants their team to end up being exposed as lying deceitful cheaters, but that seems to be the case, this investigation is going to destroy many sacred cows. All of the rabid Clintonites and never-trumpers need to research the ample evidence and prepare themselves for the massive dose of reality AG Barr is about to deliver upon them. And the Democrats who vocally opposed the patriot act (and rightly so), need to step forward now and support this investigation, because they foresaw this, and only partisanship is keeping them from crowing “I told you so!”
Get ready- it’s real.
5
House should put Mueller live on TV so voters could be more impacted
Say what you want about Mueller's flaws--but I saw a man doing his best--seemed very nervous. The unimaginable weight of duty--trying to pry loose Trump's tight fingers around the Democracy's neck. Not satisfied?--You Do It..........
1
Simply put, if one works for Trump, they will be dictated to, or get fired, beginning with FBI Director, Comey, and if The Trumper gets his most prized wish, rather then Russia running the elections, Trump will. Then we will see what Mitch McConnell and the Republicans are made of!
3
Mo, 'Cheney-esque' is exactly what sprang to mind when seeing the first snippet of the Barr interview, complete with Barr's faux-gravelly tone. On a side-note, Barr probably meant to say 'not jibing' in that interview, because from here it looks like things certainly are 'jiving', despite his protestations.
But the entire quote from Barr in the CBS interview is informative about his mind-set, which seems more of the same diehard conservative hard-liner rampage we see elsewhere in the GOP, with this crowd continuing their conservative white patriarchy last-gasp Vegas buddy road trip ethos, trying to enforce their conservatism for the next 40 years, before they all turn to worm food - to wit:
"I am at the end of my career. Everyone dies and I am not, you know, I don't believe in the Homeric idea that you know, immortality comes by, you know, having odes sung about you over the centuries, you know?"
This is the same mind-set seen in the 40 GOP'ers who lost their House seats last November, thrown out for voting with the White House for 2 years instead of representing their constituents; most of the GOP'ers retired rather than again face their constituents.
And for anyone who's been watching, remembering how instrumental Barr was in pardoning the Iran Contra conspirators at the end of the Bush 41's years, ruining that Special Counsel's case, it's easy to imagine the DOJ pardon mill now being cranked into higher(!) gear.
06/01/19-3:05pm EDT, 4:14pm EDT
1
[Barr] added, ominously, “Things are just not jiving.”
Even though William Barr has proved himself to be blatantly deceptive and dishonorable, he still has plenty of smarts — but in this case, his choice of words is sorely lacking. In its most common sense “jiving” refers to swing dancing (think the jitterbug). What he means is “jibing,” defined as “agreeing with” (think accordance). Yes, the slip is beyond trivial in the great scheme of things, but this die-hard liberal is ready to drag out anything and everything to chide an Attorney General who’s as fake as the “president” who hired him.
1
Trump was hired to do a job and he is doing it. We the People that hired Donald J. Trump will renew his contract in 2020 for 4 more years. Our goal is to flip the Socialist Democrats in the House to Keep America First going forward.
1
Barr showed he had no shame . Mueller showed he had too much shame . Both are enablers .
1
Rather than do battle, Mueller prefers to retreat to the library. What a letdown for the Democrats.
1
It is time for Democrats in the House to impeach Trump. Enough already. Mueller has spoken (for what it's worth). What are you waiting for?
And it is time for the GOP to get rid of this cancer in the White House. Have Republicans read the Mueller Report?!?
We're all exhausted by this administration. Where are our American Patriots in Congress? Are they all so craven that they might lose an election by standing up for the Constitution and the American people? How did we get here?
1
"Republics have fallen because of Praetorian Guard mentality where government officials get very arrogant, they identify the national interest with their own political preferences and they feel that anyone who has a different opinion, you know, is somehow an enemy of the state.”
Projection much?
The lioniztion of Mueller is unwarranted . His activities at the FBI included (but are not limited to) : 1) the cover-up of the FBI's association with Whitey Bulger; 2) opposing the release of 4 men who were wrongly convicted of a murder that Bulger had committed (the FBI knew it); 3) bungling the post 911 anthrax case and persecuting (not prosecuting) an innocent man; and 4) his role in approving the sale of an American Uranium company to a Russian entity whose backer sent the Clinton Foundation over $40 million.
Mueller looks like Hollywood's idea of an upright prosecutor, and I suspect that his looks enabled his rise in the FBI. His record of mistakes/transgressions/ and self-serving shows that you cannot/should not judge a book by its cover.l
6
Not so difficult to comprehend. Psychopaths see niceness or fairness as weakness.
Bart's overly critical mentation's about Muller's investigation only suggest that the Attorney General, himself has anti-social tendencies. He is unfit for office!
Personally, as you do, I don't think Barr is fooling anyone. Is he also suggesting that the investigation was so poorly done, it should be redone!
Barr, let's do it again!!!
How long do you think he'd last if so?
2
Homer has another oft-repeated phrase: “panta kata moiran”, all things according to just measure (or the proportion of the whole).
That is what is missing here: the sense of the whole, in just measure and proportion.
Mueller gave us the right ELEMENTS of the investigation, but no warranted conclusion.
Barr added a conclusion, but it was utterly UNWARRANTED by the elements.
Homer—just like Ms. Dowd—would not be happy.
Re: "His [Barr's] interview with Crawford was tactically brilliant....He [Barr] added, ominously, 'Things are just not jiving.' ”
Um...Sorry, it's extremely difficult for me to believe a supposedly educated, supposedly literate, supposedly mature 69-year-old man who conflates "jibing" with "jiving" is "brilliant". As for Mueller: It seems to me obvious that the real problem is not that Mueller is too cautious. The problem is that he was eventually compromised and he remains compromised. The Trump boys got to him in the end, and his integrity went out the window. He sounds "elliptical" only because he's trying nevertheless to salvage just a shred of his reputation; he's still clinging to a tatter. It's a pathetic ruse; Mueller has sold out, plain and simple.
1
One of the most cogent and perceptive pieces I have read in the NYT. Well done, Ms Dowd. Mr. Meuller, could you please just be clear before you go?
Scylla & Charybdis have won. End of story.
He wants to be a “Supreme” .... plain and simple.
1
The impact Trump has on the Media Royalty is amazing. Even on Maureen. Gone is the satire. Gone the humor. Gone the wink and a nod which made her writing enjoyable, whether you agreed or not. Time to relax a bit, look at the bigger picture, the Media will have another shot at Trump in 2020. “But, you come at the King, you best not miss. “.
What did anyone expected? Mueller is a Republican, as well as Comey. Both put the Party above Country, trying at the same time to look fair. Fairly hyprocritical that is.....
Mueller did not say Trump was not a criminal.
Similarly, Nancy Pelosi did not say Trump would not be impeached.
Everybody got that?
1
Wow! What an indictment on Barr, and a whiff of cowardice on Mueller's non-commital with his investigative results. Of course, we humans do not need to invoke religious dogma to know that devils and saints inhabit our own soul; and our conscience, that knows right from wrong, may be the ultimate arbiter in exposing the unvarnished truth. Trouble is, when the good guys are not straightforward, or remain silent, the bad ones win...and we all irremediably lose. And that's the rub!
1
Let's be clear, there are only two kinds of conservatives, the "Cons" and the conned. If Mueller were a basketball official the game would end with a jump ball.
Mueller and Comey seem very similar. Their fairness only goes one way.
3
Barr has been in the Washington DC rat pack since 1982 and knows how the pro quo works, Mueller also knows. Mueller knew he was taking on the roll of Atticus Finch as the circus came to town in our living room and in color. I believe the real reason for a 2 year investigation was to bury the fact that Russia interfered in our election. Talk about jerry rigging.
It’s all one big vanity fair. Mueller’s no better.
1
"Barr is not so much the attorney general as the minister of information."
More misinformation than information.
I was going to compare him to Baghdad Bob (Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf when W send troops to Iraq) who was ridiculed for saying crazy things. Then I remembered that The Atlantic had an article titled "'Baghdad Bob' and His Ridiculous, True Predictions."
In other words Baghdad Bob, in retrospect, was more right than Bill Barr ever was or ever will be.
As for Barr having "a good reputation on the right and the left," the late William Safire (not exactly a liberal as he used to work for Richard Nixon) tagged Bill Barr as the "Cover-up General" in one of his op-ed articles for the Times when Barr was Attorney General under Bush 41.
Safire was alluding that Barr was burying evidence to protect President George H.W. Bush’s involvement in “Iraqgate” and “Iran-Contra.”
Once a Cover-up General, always a Cover-up General.
1
Homeric Barr and Mueller are irrelevant at this point. The one who matters is Penelope-Pelosi who has to take her sweet time to decide what to chose.
1
Good column.
1
MD is pithy and sarcastic. I want Maureen to be our next AG. “Mueller, with his impenetrable legalese and double negatives, has handcuffed himself”. Mueller as a new Odysseus. Priceless. A bit of a coward refusing to take questions after 9 minutes of his “speech”.
Instead of “expropriate the expropriators” The Left is offered “Investigate the Investigators”. Wow. What a twist. Terribly looking menacing claws and jiving. “whitewashing of Trump” - were you not laughing here yourself, Maureen?
I couldn’t hold my Homeric laughter. The Left is whining. They sure can foresee a defeat again. I weep profusely with you, good democratic guys and gals.
Life is tough. First, Mueller failed to live up to his purported saintliness (or, at least, Progressiveness). And now Barr is acting like he's Eric Holder, who famously called himself Obama's "wingman" and acted accordingly.
Ms. Dowd would be more credible as a critic of all things Trump, if she have ever voiced a word of criticism about anything Obama.
1
Barr lied to Congress. He has lied to the American people. He is a Trump sycophant. The Roy Cohn our clueless, corrupt president has pleaded for to defend his interests. He has stabbed his old friend, Robert Mueller, in the back. Barr should be impeached so that the Justice Department can once again function as intended. Representing the American people and not the president.
4
Yes. I think that Mueller must testify before a Congressional Committee, and he should answer questions about his report and what happened subsequent to its release. His silence after hearing Barr lie about it is inconsistent with his history of patriotism and requires explanation.
More importantly, all the witnesses that he interviewed, and the members of Mueller’s team, should be called to testify in televised proceedings to determine whether Individual One deserves to be impeached. Individual One and his lackeys have far more to fear from such proceedings than the Democrats.
2
What is wrong with spending an effort commensurate with Mueller's probe into the origins of the collusion hoax?
This is not just about the past. If it turns out that the spying on a political candidate was unpredicated, which would make it all way worse than Watergate, one of the perps is Joe Biden, a current presidential candidate.
Fiat Lux!
PS I was writing d*dA=*J, when someone from the audience exclaimed "fiat lux" = let there be light!
I asked "quantum field theorist?", he said "yes". d*dA=*J is the most concise form of writing Maxwell's equations, which describe light... It's used in the modern description of space-time-matter.
1
i normally don't like her columns but this is spot on the limits of the institutionalist mindset
3
Don't send a boy scout in to do a Navy Seal's job...
6
Congress: do something!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
5
Robert Mueller was a failure as head of the FBI and he was a failure as Special Council. Two of the biggest failures in the history of the country. His name should go down in infamy with McConnell and Trump.
3
Day in and day out, prosecutors (read Mueller) fail to prosecute for lack of evidence. Mueller refused to "prosecute" for lack of evidence. Barr concluded that Mueller was right. It's that simple.
1
@Big Al But the Report shows that there's lots of evidence...anyone other than a sitting President would be prosecuted and likely found guilty on several counts. Even a sitting President if a Democrat would have been impeached and out of office by now.
2
And no doubt that is precisely what you said regarding Hillary Clinton’s idiotic e-mail server. I can tell by the way the GOP never spent years and tens of millions investigating Benghazi over and over.
3
@Robert: And at least Hillary went before her accusers for 9 hours and answered their questions. Trump hid behind his lawyer's non-answers to written questions and his "I don't recall"over and over again.
He's a coward and a bully and a liar and a criminal whose mental illness prohibits him from protecting this country from future electoral attacks. And no supposed leader is stepping up because there are no leaders any more. We're on our own.
3
If what Mueller says is true, you cannot indict a sitting President, then why did we have a Special Counsel investigation costing the taxpayers $35 Million Dollars?
5
Colin Powell, and now Robert Mueller, both had their stellar reputations trashed for their failure to grasp the magnitude of the evil that would so casually use their peerless renown for nefarious purposes. They got played like a Stradivarius violin and then had their once priceless public cache cavalierly splintered into kindling to be used as fuel to burn down a government constituted as a robust antidote to the perennial scourges of anarchy, theocracy, monarchy and autocracy.
9
Crawford's interview was another instance where Barr expected deference, and received it.
4
I think this shows that, unfortunately, Trump’s lying and insults actually worked again. I believe his two years’ worth of angry rhetoric about Mueller was enough to dissuade Mueller from declaring Trump’s guilt because that would make it look like Trump was right about the witch hunt. Mueller decided he’d step back and let the evidence in the report speak.
That doesn’t work today. For reasons few of us can understand, Trump inspires syncophantic allegiance from the GOP Congress, his cabinet, and fifty million or so Americans who are willing to overlook the constant stream of obvious lies.
Mueller has given so much to his country. When he got placed on the biggest stage of his career, however, he was intimidated into non-action. His desire to remain above politics failed. His effort to not look like a partisan allowed Trump partisans to trash both his reputation and his work.
3
Perhaps we placed too much faith in the objectivity of the special prosecutor. Maybe Director Mueller is a Trump asset disguised as an apolitical Solomon lulling all into the belief justice will be served.Maybe in fact Mueller is a partisan guerilla
2
Since legacy and odes to character are the themes here does anybody on the left ( the media) has any concerns whatever that Barr could come up with revelations that would make them look bad forever?
Or are Ms. Dowd and her comrades convinced that they can shape the narratives, ignore and downplay some things while focusing on others, to always prevail?
Or does the paradigm of news and reporting being tailored to one’s subscription paying base make such considerations moot to start with.
Is there anybody reading these pages who thinks that so far the collusion revelations that can actually be substantiated make the investigators look worse than the investigated. ( please don’t respond by pointing out Manaford convictions, Mueller’s team goal was not to nail a DC political swamp creature on 13 year old financial shenanigans, that is shooting fish in the barrel accomplishment)
Manafort’s convictions. Of which more may well be forthcoming.
And Pappadoupolis, and Cohen, and Flynn, and others, and a passel of Russian indictments.
The last of which I mention because Russian meddling was in point of fact what Mueller was investigating. Along with “related matters.”
And then there’s Trump’s entanglement with Russian businesses and politicians, and with what looks a lot like billions laundered through Deutschebank. And his loans from China. And his family’s loans from Kuwait. And some...very odd behavior.
Of course you want Mueller, the FBI, whoever, investigated. Of course you want everything hushed up.
Alas, too late.
2
This reconfirms that Barr is what he appears to be: a Trumpublican water-carrier, what he always was in previous Republican administrations but now even worse. (Don't forget the persecution of Bill Clinton.) And I don't know why Mueller can speak more clearly to a dumbed-down nation in language they can understand. Like Comey before him, his well-meaning attempts at "balance" could reinstall Trump next year. Sadly, the time limit for subtlety has expired. Mueller needs to come before Congress to testify clearly and thoroughly, and Barr needs to be removed from the public payroll and funded directly by Trump. Obviously, that's who he's working for.
2
@CP - typo correction: that should have said "I don't know why Mueller can't speak more clearly to a dumbed-down nation." His language is clear to those educated folks who would take the time to read and parse it, but sadly, most people still either aren't paying attention or get their "news" from Fox.
This caricature of Mueller as the old establishment gentleman who's trying to keep things classy is irritating and disingenuous.
He didn't do the job. AJ Barr finished the job of drawing conclusions and making sentencing recommendations. And yes, his conclusions favored the President. Mueller's follow-up comments only turned this debacle into an even greater fiasco.
Democrats backed a losing horse in this race. It's time to move on. We need to focus on not backing another losing horse in the next presidential election.
3
At least Nixon was straight forward: If the president does it, he said, then it’s not a crime.
We laughed then, but now we know that he was right.
2
Enough already.
$35 million of taxpayers' money, for what?
Has no one the courage to challenge Trump and all his evil-doers, and hold them accountable?
Mr. Mueller is a coward, as are the multitude of politicians who have failed to act.
The Republicans and Democrats have sold out big time.
We are past the point of undoing the horrific trauma the egomaniac Trump and his minions have unleashed on the world.
How short-sighted and selfish.
Maybe for now the Mueller, McConnell, Graham, Schumer, Pelosi, Gates, Roberts, etc. families are safe from the climate change, economic and social upheaval destroying the lives of millions around the world. But the tides do change, and already no amount of money or political power can protect their children and grandchildren from a planet on a path of human driven destruction.
3
The minimalist Mueller explanation his own report isn't sufficient.
True, his words are clear and each one counts, but he has given the public topical sentences when paragraphs are required.
Yes, everyone should read the report, but as anyone who has set foot in a classroom knows. People don't read, won't read, can't read.
Leaders need to volubly and clearly fill in the blanks.
1
Our politicians and gvt lawyers have let this country down at a key point in our history--are we a country of laws and a viable constitution and government, or a country of self-promoting, self-serving politicians & their lawyers more concerned with power and winning elections than what is happening to this country.
Trump commits endless wrongdoing and lies incessantly, and Barr spins the truth into oblivion to protect his boss Trump.
Mueller, who knows the facts of the Trump case, refuses to be directly clear in his public statements and thereby manages to obfuscate and bewilder rather than clarify.
Mueller appears to be leaving the pursuit of Trump's misdeeds, obstruction of justice, abuse of campaign laws and presidential power up to the Democrats. Why?
So at election time, the Republicans can maintain to Trump voters the Democrats are on a witch hunt against Trump, and the GOP has nothing to do with it?
And then there is Nancy Pelosi, who prides herself in herding the Democratic cats, and she has decided there is not enough public opinion support to impeach Trump--although if she let the House committees hold televised hearings about Trump and his obstruction of justice and abuses of power, maybe more Americans would grasp the wrong and the harm Trump has done as president.
This is exactly what Trump, Barr, and Trump's minions are counting on.
The Democratic Party of opposition, isn't, and the people, Constitution, future of this country are out in the cold.
4
The St. Mueller's logic: “we concluded that we WOULD NOT reach a determination ONE WAY OR THE OTHER about whether the president committed a crime.”
Yet he contradicted that statement by saying “if we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we WOULD have said so."
So which is it?
2
I downloaded the Mueller report and can barely find time to read it. Most of Congress has not read it -- as unbelievable and derelict of duty as that is -- so Mueller must testify in public, and be asked direct questions which he must answer or face contempt of Congress. Mueller doesn't get to decide that he won't testify.
Was he a Republican Trojan Horse?
Enough of this nonsense.
As shown by that woman at Justin Amash' town meeting, she only listens to conservative news, and had no idea there was anything negative about Donnie Sr. in the Mueller report.
Start the Impeachment Inquiry now and get the info we need.
Do a sealed indictment of trump and prosecute him after he leaves office, please god in 2020.
It is mass insanity to let this continue.
4
Looked at in the context of a boxing match, you have one side entering the ring wearing brass knuckles and swinging a baseball bat while the other has its head buried in the Marquis of Queensbury rulebook. Very disappointing to see Mueller so obsessed with the 'fine letter of the law' at the expense of the 'spirit' of what's at stake.
The democrats should consider anointing someone to be a "voice" dedicated to taking Trump head-on with no holds barred language - a sort of good-cop/bad-cop approach while as a group they stay above the fray. Borrow from his own playbook to neutralize it. Repeat epithets over and over and see what sticks - "sleazy con-artist, national disgrace, bff of world despots, high IQ guy? show us your transcripts, still running away from McCain even after his death - just like he ran away from Vietnam - the true definition of a loser. etc. - put a think tank to create these and use them - "fast" - in response to his slander. Get them in into media.
The point being is that soundbites mold perception - and much of the populace has no higher angels to appeal to. This is what works. Their votes count and need to be fought for. Time to fight fire with fire.
2
Who knew Mueller wouldn't have the courage to make a call and plant his feet? Between him and Comey, it really is the FBI who are bringing down the nation. History will judge them both badly.
As far as Barr is concerned, his description of the FBI as a Pretorian Guard where, "government officials get very arrogant, they identify the national interest with their own political preferences and they feel that anyone who has a different opinion, you know, is somehow an enemy of the state." is a far better description of Barr's state of mind - and the Trump administration - than it is of the complacent and feckless FBI.
3
Suggest everyone voicing their "learned" opinions read the transcript of the interview of AG Barr by Jan Crawford. You can then draw your own conclusions as to whether Ms. Dowd fairly takes the measure of Mr. Barr.
If I were to write a play about a coup, I would have to look only at this administration to find my characters. The critics would say my characters seem false and I would be told they were caricatures. Individual one's obvious and ridiculous criminality would seem impossible. His lackeys would seem cartoonish. But, unfortunately for the world, this is not a play. This is the dismantling of our government by the profoundly soulless and greedy, every personality an actor in a horror movie. I awaken sick each morning. trump won't leave office. His family is nestled into the bosom of obscene luxury. Tariffs have put the farmers and others out of business and the economy will collapse, possibly orchestrated to control the population as hungry people give up. These are dark times as maga hats wash up on foreign shores with other trash. I am sad for the dream of our country. RIP.
2
I spent 30+ years in engineering R&D. Data acquisition and analysis. Mueller's report is not "easy reading," but it is a good report. It's the lawyer-eze that gets in the way - precedence, etc. Rules; clumsy, mandated format. But, the information is there. Congress, could, theoretically, take the ball and run from this juncture. And, I had not trouble with Mueller's conclusions. To me, the 2016 election is flatly null and void. The Russian interference was an outrage. The Russians are master propagandists with a powerful tool-set. We fell for it hook, line and sinker. Sleep walking. Read the first 50 pages. And, it was Russia who came after the Trump campaign, not the other way around - was part of the overall propaganda/infiltration effort. Remember, Putin is KGB. All this was a singular effort. As far as Trump himself, he was obstructing the truth every chance he got. His whole team were charged with bending the facts to cover Trumps silly/stupid actions, commentary, mistakes. Lies on top of lies - flagrant obstruction of truth. Mueller did manage to send a few to jail. People need to understand, Trump is not all there; these personality disordered sorts are not hitting on all cylinders. Should have never cleared the primary; his party was/is using him. He has no clue. Outrageous, sad. So, while certainly not the sort of thing journalists or the public are used to dealing with, it is a good report. Tells the story. Mueller did his job.
It ain't over yet. I have faith that President Trump will end up in prison . Bar that, seeking political asylum in Russia or North Korea.
I think what is left out of Mueller's statements is that, like a mob boss, Trump never leaves a paper (or tape) trail. And so, for example, concerning the Flynn thing, it's Comey's word (the contemporaneous memo) against Trump's, the Oval office having been cleared of any witnesses. No paper or tape trail. Remember the only thing the FBI got Al Capone with was tax evasion, regardless of the horrible crimes everyone knew he committed.
1
Robert Mueller wasn't tasked with making a judgement on whether or not he could indict a sitting president. He was tasked with investigating to determine if there was "collusion" with Russia in the 2016 campaign and election, and did President Trump obstruct justice. He didn't provide an answer. If he did provide an answer there wouldn't be this confusion about the report. He basically said figure it out for yourselves. "You should be very concerned." This looks a lot like someone afraid to deal with the reaction of a polarized America and a political system in a death spiral. Cowardly not apolitical. The reaction is going to happen anyway. Where is the assessment of the cracker jack legal team and the former Director of the FBI with a reputation of thorough and meticulous investigation skills? From where I sit there was obstruction of justice without a doubt and enough pathetic behavior with Russia on the part of the Trump campaign to make me sick. But I don't get to make the call until 2020. By then it may be too late. What say you Bobby three sticks.
Maureen: Though he slavishly served the serpent of another era, Bill Safire would probably bent his Nixonian to-the-end position and have been really proud to share the page with you for this one.
As one of Safire's "Nattering Nabobs of Negativity" who despised his politics, but loved his words and was happy and proud to call myself a Lexicographic Irregular, when he cut back his role of Op-Ed Contextual Consistent Conservative Challenger and Critic of all-things-NYT Editorial for the Magazine.
It is an honor to be able to say thank you again for aiming the sharpest pen, by far, on the Op-Ed page at the targets who deserve it most.
Will any of our Democratic candidates turn out to be our Alexander?
Turn him to any cause of policy,
The Gordian Knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter
— Shakespeare, Henry V, Act 1 Scene 1. 45–47
"Barr responded to Crawford with fatalism, saying “everyone dies” and he doesn’t believe in “the Homeric idea” that immortality comes by “having odes sung about you over the centuries, you know?”
Apparently Barr subscribes to the theory that 'your reputation doesn't matter after you die, anyway' and therefore is determined to destroy his own reputation himself, before he passes.
And so far he's doing a very good job of it. While it is a well-proven fact that everyone who gets too close to Trump inevitably ends up tainted and demeaned, Barr might have protected himself somewhat by wrapping himself with 'the law' and 'Justice Department independence'.
Instead, Barr has chosen to embrace Trump, to abase himself to Trump, and to destroy his reputation transparently defending Trump, and attempting to deflect 'the law' from Trump's activities.
"Mission Accomplished". Barr's reputation thoroughly trashed, his slanted bias clear to see as the reality of Mr. Mueller's report, even as heavily censored as has been made public so far, becomes known. Barr will now and forever be known as 'the AG who covered up for Trump'... Sad, but deserved. And proof that Trump's taint, his 'poison touch', is still intact and working.
1
”Sometimes it’s hard to know who is worse: devils or saints.”
...or to tell them apart.
Rudy Giuliani and William Barr...two guys who once had impeccable reputations. They were admired, emulated. Then, for some reason, they threw all of that away. And, they did it quickly as though a sterling reputation is a hot ember to be tossed away.
Both guys work for this creature called Trump. How did he seduce both of them? Or, were they really reptiles from the beginning.
4
I am an everyday, midwestern small-town, knuckle-headed, aging white guy with three grown kids who mows his own grass and cleans the gutters of his house in the fall and reads two or three newspapers every day and listens to the news on NPR.
For the first year of the Special Counsel's investigation I kept hearing commentators and pundits declare Robert Mueller to be an infallible pillar of strength and champion of justice.
The accolades for Mueller continued into the second year while Trump and his disgusting minions used their time and easy access to the media to brainwash 35% of the American public. The Republican party was busy pretending that they had always loved Russia and white supremacists were fine people etc.
Mueller was invisible and mute and playing by the book.
The vast majority of Americans are too lazy to read Mueller's report. Probably a third or more of them couldn't comprehend it if they did. If FOX News says there's nothing in it to incriminate the criminal in The White House they'll go out and mow the grass and clean their gutters.
America is doomed.
3
Before beginning her epic account on the clash between good and evil, Dodd should have waited for Mueller’s testimony before Congress. He could then tell his own story. I would call him “Mueller the reluctant,” but at the same time I would not vilify ‘gravelly-voiced Barr.”
1
The comments re Robert Mueller are confounding. READ the report.
3
For another perspective, herewith a related reader comment in response to an earlier editorial on the Muller Report before it was published:
“Guilty” , “Not Guilty” and “not proven”
In Scottish criminal courts there are three possible verdicts rather than our two. To “guilty” and “not guilty” is added “not proven.” This has the effect of a not guilty, yet the jury is saying, “There was insufficient evidence, but we believe you committed the offense.” The stigma remains.
Robert Mueller wrote that his investigation “did not establish” that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, rather than Attorney General William Barr’s wording, more favorable to Mr. Trump, that Mr. Mueller “did not find” a conspiracy. It seems to me that Mr. Mueller intended the stigma of that Scottish “not proven” choice.
Mr. Trump may call himself fully exonerated, yet I anticipate that if we get to read the Mueller report itself, we will see a much less favorable verdict.
Steven C. Chinn
Bronx
NYT Letter to the ed. re the Muller Report
William Barr has reduced the Office of Attorney General of the United States of America to that of Donald Trump's Public Relations headquarters.
2
Ms Dowd, like all Democrats and so-called ‘progressives,’ is afraid of what Mr Barr and US Attorney Dunham will uncover about the incredibly level of corruption in the Obama FBI, DoJ, and CIA.
Government agencies used to corruptly alter the course of an election and the destroy an incoming — albeit appalling — president. Lawyer up, Dems!
As for the rest of us, pass the popcorn.
2
Mueller's greatest flaw is that he does not understand that many Americans don't read anything anymore. Had Mueller put out Cliffs Notes of the report, few would have read it, since the notes would be more than one paragraph, and would have contained those pesky double negatives.
Since Americans rely on tv and social media for their information, perhaps Mueller should testify. Then again, the non-readers are the same who would not watch such testimony.
It's a Catch 22.
Turley has the proper take on Mueller.
https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/446103-robert-mueller-no-questions-routine-is-absolute-nonsense
1
When people choose sound bites over reading, we're in trouble. When people bury themselves in social media for their news, we're in trouble. When Betsy de Vos plunders public education, we're in trouble. People simply can't be bothered to resist encroaching fascism because they are too harried and too lazy to seek out the facts. The report is damning, and this so-called President and his minions should clearly be damned as well. It's all right there in the report, as the 1000 prosecutors of both parties agree.
1
I used to wonder how millions of people in Germany could be brainwashed by hitler and his crowd of thugs - now I know
5
If a president cannot be indicted while in office let's make sure he is out of there by January 2021.
3
When people live in a world of words, as both Mueller and Barr do, they are bound to lose sight of what is "right" or morally correct and get lost in intellectual babble. Brain goo.
Anyone with eyes and ears understands who and what Trumps is and has been all his life. That so much energy was spent on not finding Trump guilty is absolutely laughable. When he asked Russia to find Hillary's lost emails and Comey announced that he had found some (which turned out to be useless) at the last moment before the election, you have to marvel at how that wasn't collusion in front of millions of people. HELLO?? The FBI found the Russians guilty of hacking and Mueller indicted several of them. No collusion? Oh please. And rain doesn't make you wet.
And, the Dems are running scared of dealing with The Donald, lest they lose. Well, what about the country? Do we not lose as Trump continues to make up foreign policy and trade deals every morning on Twitter? Do we not lose if Congress doesn't do what it is empowered to do? HELLO? Dems, wake up. Stop being afraid of what might happen and be brave about what IS happening.
Keep writing, Ms. Down. You are telling it like it is.
William Barr: the face of corruption with the looks to go with it.
4
In terms of telling a clear, straightforward narrative, Robert Mueller is no Justin Amash. In terms of hunting lodge imagery, Bill Barr is more of a smug, soft Steve Bannon, not Dick Cheney, though I don't doubt that if it suited his purposes Barr as well would leave the lodge long enough to shoot a friend in the face.
2
"Cheneyesque dour-jowly-outdoorsman under the Big Sky routine".
Perfection.
2
Barr is counting on Americans being stupid; Mueller is counting on Americans being smart. Only time will tell who is right.
1334
@Alexandra:
If that's the case, as it well may be, then I think the odds greatly favor Barr!
Even if 'only' 40% of the populace is 'stupid' - that is enough to dominate the majority in our stupidly designed governmental process. Yes, stupidly designed!
People need to stop worshiping the Constitution as if it was handed down by God Herself. It is, in fact, a flawed document by flawed writers, that can always be improved upon and was designed to be improved upon.
The Senate needs at least 40 new members from the more populous states. I am sick to death of being ruled by a radical minority!!
245
@Ambient Kestrel Thank you for your pertinent suggestion that our various sacred texts are venerable and inviolable documents there to guide us without any serious questioning. The originalism of a Scalia or a Thomas or a Gorsuch in fact allows for partisan manipulation of the Constitution just as the fundamentalism of religious zealots and terrorists permits bending or cherry-picking the words in the Bible or the Qur'an to justify actions and deeds that no truly righteous person can defend. No text is immune from a host of interpretations, and that includes willful misinterpretation or interpretations driven by malevolent agendas. One needs to be circumspect and relativistic when approaching documents such as the Constitution and the Bible, and to be aware of the dogma that may lurk within those who quote these revered texts in defense of their positions about contemporary life.
85
@Ambient Kestrel
Rather than 40 new senators from populous states, we instead need more states.
Divide CA, TX and NY each into 5 new states. Divide IL and FL atleast in half. Most these states have natural cultural, economic and political divisions which would easily define such divisions.
And, there is plenty of historical and Constitutional precedence for doing so.
How ironic that the best way to accomplish your stated goal is, not to destroy the Constitution, but to embrace it.
Of course, your unstated goal has always been to destroy our Constitution which so brilliantly enshrines our sacred liberties.
9
Which is more evil?
A good man who does nothing?
Or he who harms us?
1
William Barr has been a lifelong political hack who cozied up to Trump with his 18 page letter explaining how, if made AG, he would protect Trump from prosecution.
Trump nominated Barr as AG, and the subservient, unethical GOP members of Congress appointed him.
Since becoming AG, this obsequious little toad has been lying for Trump, and is working to honor, the ethics and the integrity of career members of the US Department of Justice.
Historians will remember William Barr for being Trump's short term consigliere. Trump's lickspittle. Nothing more.
4
Old tired Republican strategy: Refuse to turn over evidence.
"Game plan to stall and obstruct, then you let the Congress try to enforce their subpoenas while you mount a public relations campaign screaming "Democrat" political witch hunt and claim the Dems are trying to undermine the two-party system. If it appears that the Congress will be successful, you give them up. If not, you won the game of chicken with the Congress". Posted by:pseudonymous in nc | April 17, 2007 at 23:27 The Next Hurrah
1
Barr doesn't know what "jiving" means. We know he meant "jibing" but for him a better description is "gibing" -- and not "giving".
1
The only Homer that should be applied is discussing William Barr is Homer Simpson.
1
Shakespeare may have summed it up well when he wrote “What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive,” but Homer nailed it with “I didn't lie! I just created fiction with my mouth!”
1
Trump shouted “witch hunt” over and over, and Mueller blinked. He bent over backwards to prove he was “fair”.
The question that should have been asked of Barr was “does it trouble you that your children will be seen as the progeny of a feckless toady, and will be forever associated with the AG that destroyed the position once and for all”?
Sadly, I’m sure the answer wouldn’t have been much different. In the service of the worst and most destructive President of all time, his stooges give up everything, including their family name.
2
Hey, if Democrats want Barr to appoint a Special Counsel to investigate the investigators...we're all in.
Maybe Andrew McCarthy (former Prosecutor. SDNY) or Trey Gowdy.
Special Counsel's have unlimited budget, unlimited authority, unlimited ability to bring the FBI on 6 a.m raids to the Clinton Compound, Sally Yates condo, Platte River Networks, Sidney Blumenthal, etc...
And they can look for other crimes committed as well..which will bring the Podesta brothers into it..and the Ukraine deal with Joe Biden and his son.
Let the Special Counsel deal with this...and Barr can keep his reputation intact.
I love the idea.
Thanks for sharing Ms. Dowd.
2
@Erica Smythe: The Democrats you mention did not commit any crimes but in your feverish imagination. If they had, the Republicans would have investigated and indicted the heck out of them a long time ago, and as far as they have tried to (the Clintons), they found nothing at all. And don't start about Hillary's emails, because Colin Powell advised her to have her own account (as hed did himself), and because they are insignificant compared to the more than 20 million "lost" by Republicans, the state secrets blabbed by Trump to adversaries and held up to the cameras at Mar-a-Lago, and the personal phone and email use by Javanka to conduct official business. If Obama or a Clinton would have done 1% of what Republicans let Trump get away with, they'd be in prison now serving decades long sentences.
1
If you will not say a president committed a crime when the evidence so suggests, you doom a nation to his potential re-election and invite an emboldened crime spree.
2
Given a spotlight, Barr was transparently shown to be a limitless slimy venal villain.
1
Mueller is a HUGE disappointment. He knows Trump is a criminal and that our democracy is at grave risk. Yet, he refuses to be an American patriot and spill his guts about all that he has unearthed. He will go down in history as a man who missed a unique opportunity for greatness.
1
The investigators and evidence is all an ideological over reach?
Accuse your accuser of the same thing you did. Whose playbook is that?
Trump is a criminal. That is an essential fact. The validity of his election in
the context of documented Russian interference and the wholesale
pillage of our country by him and his sticky fingered cronies cannot be
conceived by the rational mind. Why is he still in power? Do we really need
Robert Mueller's work and word to tell us what we know. Trump's most
enthusiastic supporters know that he lies, cheats and steals; that is why they like him. Thirty to forty percent of our population is ready to go to
war to keep him where he is. What is to become of our country.
1
Is the only Republican male politician who can execute their duties with honesty and integrity Congressman Amash? While watching these two men Barr and Mueller dance on the head of a pin Congressman Amash was clearly stating what he believed what his duty was - to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America. It took my breathe away to see one Republican who understood you don't have to be a devil or an angel you just have to understand you took and oath and respect it
1
Dowd is a true reporter in this opinion piece. After years of using gossip and personal anecdotes to color her columns, this Sunday she used real background and observable conclusions. No more petty Barry pejoratives or jabs at social climbing Clintons.
What does that say about her subject today - that this is a deadly serious matter.
3
In an age of propaganda and deceit, the person who sees the truth and fails to share it is complicit.
Oh to have Mueller interrogated by Officer Friday: "Just the facts."
I am sad that an investigation that inspired so many indictments and convictions ended with a fizzle, like bedraggled parents finally relenting to a frenzied three-year-old.
I used to think that our government was better than this, so I guess that this is an expensive lesson in actual civics.
2
Maureen, I can see how disappointed you are. Your "Bobby three sticks" article written some time ago articulated your high expectations of Mueller. Real life is more like 'To Kill A Mockingbird' rather than "The Avengers.'
Barr’s comments just don’t jibe with the facts, for he’s just jiving the American public.
1
I despise Hillary Clinton, but I'm really coming around to her opinion of MoDo.
William Barr is, just like Michael Cohen and Roy Cohn used to be, nothing more than a fixer for pathologically lawless con man Donald Trump, akin to a consigliere for a mob boss. The only difference is that the American people are paying him more than 200 grand a year to do it. What suckers we are.
6
It was remarked that Mueller has visibly aged. I think we place too heavy a burden on an aging man of integrity. (Yes, I know, we age at different rates.) Having heard this observation, I could see it myself. We are asking too much of one man whose choices, compared with Barr's and Trump's, are guided by honesty and integrity.
2
Barr is a shameless hack whose ONLY objective is to protect this disgraceful president. To those of us old enough to remember he suffers in comparison to John Mitchell. AG Mitchell was an unapologetic partisan. Barr disgraces himself by putting his job security above his Country and his motive are transparent to anyone with a functioning brain. SHAME!
5
Time for the grown-ups MD. Mueller did not: "decided to remain agnostic." One of the more important assertions of Mueller was his call to all Americans to engage themselves in these issues; because it is only they, driven to lean on their elected officials, that can pick up the ball Mueller stared to roll. Let us review why the Justice Department can not lead on this. How simple it would be for politics to use the legal system to overturn the popular will and elections results; it could be done with as little, say 10, persons. But impeachment looks again to popular will, and asks that will, if it should reconsider. Be glad for what Mueller did; had he done anything other than stick to the system, Trump would have won in his efforts to destroy how we live with, and in, that system.
"dour-jouly"
I guess you can get away with that insult since you are describing an old white Republican man.
But if any NYT (or any other media outlet) male journalist EVER described a major female political figure that way it could be career ending.
"jouly" means a fat and saggy neck. It's actually spelled "jowly".
In any case the writer is insulting Barr's physical appearance in trying to make her point.
100% cheap shot
4
@Pono
This is what you take away from the article?
Maybe Mueller realizes that all his evidence is fruit from a poisonous tree and that he and his corrupt crew would get tossed out of the courtroom. Due process is an important legal process and everything from fraud before the FISA courts to witness coercion would manifest the mens rhea of Mueller and his lackeys. So he handed his lit stick of dynamite to the AG. Sessions would have taken the bait. Barr decided to toss it to Comey, Brennan, Nadler and the other white walkers of the Deep State. Barr doesn't need Arya, dragons or Dany. The President, Fox and the unsullied army of honest FBI agents have his back.
3
that's not what fruit from poisonous tree means.
“Republics have fallen because of Praetorian Guard mentality where government officials get very arrogant, they identify the national interest with their own political preferences and they feel that anyone who has a different opinion, you know, is somehow an enemy of the state.”
Might Barr be referring to his own proclivities?
2
re: "no one will be singing odes about this general being lionhearted"
Strike "general". As the Attorney General, William Bar is not a general (noun), he is an attorney in general (adjective), therefore: "no one will be singing odes about this attorney being lionhearted".
re: He added, ominously, "Things are just not jiving."
I listened carefully and heard, instead, "Things are just not jibing." Mishearing was a common problem in translating from oral tradition to transcription, so it would fit neatly into your Homeric conceit.
William Barr has abandoned all professional ethics to become a virulent Trump MAGA-hatter. Barr's sole purpose in life is now to be the front man and cover artist for Donald Trump whose ignorance, incompetence, and bigotry are far beyond any credible defense.
Barr is a leading a member along with McConnell and Lindsey Graham of the Anti-American Republican Club that is working overtime to destroy our democracy. We can only wonder what Barr is receiving in return for trashing his reputation and his career.
3
@Jefflz
Or maybe he’s just trying to get to the bottom of this scam, huh...
1
I have looked for the comment on the Muller press conference and have yet to find it. Everyone take a deep breath and stop all the acrimony about President Trump especially DEMOCRATS! If the corrupt Democrat House of Representatives find evidence to impeach a President Trump, DO IT!!!
Muller is passé by choice seeking anonymity after two plus years in the trenches, the Special Council report is not.
The Democratic House is the only relevant agent to bring this to a right conclusion — that was never Muller’s role.
A full up Impeachment Enquiry is absolutely imperative without further political wrangling and bet hedging.
3
Regardless of Barr's warped interpretation of the report, Mueller has not countered sufficiently to make any sense of how he failed to come to a conclusion and how he came about disappointing everyone, so completely.
Where is St. Mueller? Stumbling on his weird, cloudy press statement while Barr had a nice relaxed fireside chat with a reporter in his fleece - I could only imagine he was wearing bunny slippers.... he seemed so above it all.
I can only draw the conclusion that something went bad internally something that we are not going to be privy to. Unfortunately, I suspect that it was some personal combat related to Barr's restrictions, as Mueller's boss where he tied his hands behind his back and this was Mueller's only wriggle room. Could the friendship be "speared"?
A question for Barr though, how long ago did you know that Mueller was not going to draw a conclusion and why didn't you insist that he finish the job? Shouldn't you have known that the public would never accept yours and Rosenstein's conclusion? That it would come off as supreme political high-handedness? How dare you put a fresh "Presidential cherry on the top" of Mueller's work after 2 years of an investigation that was supposed to be deep, neutral and fair. No wonder everyone is vexed and we are now in such a mess.
2
Barr as an enabler of a tyrannical president is confounding. All I can come up with is that since his op-Ed in support of a (too) strong executive, he has been angling to be trump's next nominee to the Supreme Court.
1
Mueller boxed himself in. It is hard to conclude anything but the obvious: he wanted to get all the information he had collected, put it in a report he could be certain that Congress would get (excluding grand jury items and other redactable items), and suggest they move to impeachment. Mueller knew full well the tenor of the times.
Having failed to prove collusion with the Russians, Mueller cowardly punted and boxed himself.
Barr is smart enough to state, publicly, that Mueller had it in his authority to identify crimes (which Mueller did not do), and stop short of indicting, authority of which Mueller did not have.
It this opera, St Mueller disappointed those whose hopes for two years had been stoked that he, and he alone, could slay the dragon Trump. He failed and he runs.
Congress should subpoena Mueller and require him to testify. Mueller has the more difficult task.
Barr has the high ground, and the upcoming investigations on his side.
3
Neither of these men want to see this President impeached as they both know it would cause a literal riot. Speaker Pelosi and her Senate sidekick know this as well.
Mr Trump and his mad hatters will be gone in less than two years and we will get back to the normal high crimes and misdemeanors we have come to expect from our elected officials.
1
“If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so,” said Mueller. What about this sentence is difficult to understand, Ms. Dowd? Surely, if you could read Homer--all the way back in high school, perhaps?--you can see that this is a perfectly clear sentence. Mueller made clear, furthermore, that accusing a sitting president when there were no avenues through which he could defend himself would not be fair. And the Dellinger tweet you quote here is really Dellinger quoting Mueller's statement. Only thing Barr says that seems accurate is thathe is not up for Homeric fame; he's more like a low-ranking member of the Deatheaters in Harry Potter.
1
Mueller was a lead investigator not a judge, and an attorney general can attempt to play judge on TV for only so long.
I would go one step further and characterize Barr as the minister of misinformation.
3
“If you believe Trump committed a crime, even if you can’t indict him now, why not say so?”
Precisely. Mueller failed to do so. He has given Trump the wiggle room he needs. Mueller has failed this democracy.
1
I respect Robert Mueller. But he lacks one thing a truly fine trial lawyer always has ----the unswerving drive to accomplish justice no matter the nit picking, foolish roadblocks.
Mr. Mueller had the chance to state
what he knew --that Donald Trump did all he could do to obstruct justice. He failed to do this because of a fatal rule-bound timidity.
We are all the lesser for it, including Mr. Mueller himself.
1
To not impeach is to accept and invite interference from hostile foreign powers in our elections and governance.
Attempted foreign influence in elections. By manipulating the media and the messaging. Hm. EXACTLY what the US does overseas and EXACTLY what domestic political parties do to influence voters. Why the whines? Could it be the dying gasps of legacy media, no longer the big dog of megaphone messaging? Could it be liberal orthodoxy now challenged daily by an equally adamant, equally intolerant, equally capable adversary press in fearing for it's ultimate overthrow? Could it be gravy-train-riding electeds, decade after decade lying to the people while they feather their nests finally facing not only voter wrath but palpable antipathy for their filthy avocation? All of the above. And we will do our part to add to their misery.
We mustn't forget that Mueller is a Republican. To what extent that plays a role in his weaving and dodging, I don't know, but it is one plausible explanation of his approach.
Barr is just a Trump-excuser. His job is clearly to protect Trump, not to serve the American people.
Mueller must testify before whatever committees ask him to testify. Much is still unclear; not so much what Trump is and has done, but to what level it reaches.
Barr may be the devil here and Mueller the saint - but for me the fact that almost 1,000 former Federal prosecutors of both parties said that Trump obstructed justice is good enough for me.
3
"Sometimes it’s hard to know who is worse: devils or saints."
How wonderful for you, then you can rise above both of them and take the high moral ground. Just like your argument three years ago, that there was not much of a difference between Hillary and Trump.
No, there is a vast difference between Mueller and Barr as there was between Hillary and Trump. Shame that you cannot see it.
You blurring the lines in 2016, helped but that devil in the Oval office.
5
"If you believe Trump committed a crime, even if you can’t indict him now, why not say so? Otherwise, what was the point of the investigation?"
Agreed. Mueller could have reached a conclusion in a non-judicial forum — the report — and Trump could have defended himself in a non-judicial forum — the “court” of public opinion.
As it is, Trump defended himself to the public by insisting that he was “exonerated,” and Mueller was left protesting that Trump was not exonerated, simply not indicted. To many, that’s a distinction without a difference.
On to Impeachment!
Yeah, but it’s a fair bet that Trump’s next nomination to the Supreme Court will be William Barr, not Robert Mueller.
2
“If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so,” said Mueller, ....
They didn't say so. What follows after that? One thing: the president committed a crime. Clear as a bell.
1
"Barr came into the job, Crawford said, with a good reputation on the right and the left......"
This is false. The "left" knew Barr helped engineer Bush 1's cover up of the Iran-Contra disaster.
3
When William Barr (and other notable Trump translators, explainers, and obfuscators) start explaining Trump to keep the Trump base in the fold, I hear gerbils speaking gibberish.
A few statements from Barr:
“If the President is being falsely accused — and the evidence now suggests that the accusations against him were false — and he knew they were false, and he felt that this investigation was unfair, propelled by his political opponents, and was hampering his ability to govern, that is not a corrupt motive for replacing an independent counsel.”
Barr said about a meeting he and Mueller had about the report on March 5: “We didn’t really get a clear understanding of the reasoning. And the report, I’m not sure exactly what the full line of reasoning is and that’s one of the reasons I didn’t want to try to put words in Bob Mueller’s mouth.”
Got that? Does this make sense to Trump fans?
We spent lots of time in 1956 in Mrs. Lowe's 9th grade English class diagramming sentences. I dare anyone to diagram these 2 statements by Barr--or perhaps many/most of the statements by Guiliani, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and who else (?) whose job is to explain away Trump's terrible behavior.
2
Wily Barr with trick cunning sends guileless Mueller with earnest fairness back to obscurity in this Homeric epic.
Soon we will be looking to some mythic blind storytelling poet to render this time for posterity. We will have forgotten ‘truth’ and embraced a dim memory of a bygone time when facts and intent fell to connivance and concoction — when duplicity rolled a Trojan Horse into the American Way and undid all precious protections of law and process and ideas of democracy.
America, poor step-heir to derided and mad capitalism wed to diseased and insane mind trumpeting solipsistic grandiosity, becomes shackled to impotent enervation, lays down, and feels the spear of Telegonus spreading poison through its body, fading.
This time will be called an idea, a figment, a cultural anomaly, a mythical tale of a particular kind of mind that circled itself and choked the breath out of its potential.
We will wonder, as historians do now, questioning if there even was someone we call Homer, whether the characters in our current Washington myth ever did exist, or were fictions from the typing fingers of that scribe once known as sharp and silver tongued Maureen.
1
This whole investigation and its aftermath stinks ..... Mueller might be too high minded to call a spade a spade and Barr incredibly from day one decided to protect the president at all cost.
The American tax payer paid for this useless exercise and has no right to see the complete report without the blacked out sections. Yet we all saw and heard trump’s lies and his trashing of American institutions, heard him say he trusts Putin above the CIA and FBI. His own lawyers would not let him testify in front of Mueller because he would commit perjury. But the Republican Party protects its own - and that includes Mueller.
Well, Mueller is no Saint. I agree with this article when it questions what was the point of his $35M investigation, but from a different angle - if the President couldn’t be indicted, and it couldn’t be said that he obstructed justice why was the investigation launched to begin with?
Mueller will the face of idiocy for a long time to come.
1
Mueller, Avanetti, Daniels, Comey, Brennan..all the same. If there really was Russian interference in our 2016 elections, an unbiased investigator would’ve brought all parties to the stand-the candidate who supposedly was given an advantage AND the administration officials in charge of security. Instead it just focused on Trump and left out all of Obama’s officials (who were preaching how safe our elections were, until Nov 9, 2016 when they cried foul.) Any election meddling uncovered would’ve implicated Obama as well, so that was never the goal. It was just an excuse to open an investigation on Trump. Mueller knew it was always going to be about obstruction and not election tampering. He knows he’s another tool that didn’t deliver, like Blasey Ford.
3
Thank you, Maureen Dowd, for calling it as it should be.
I am tired of the undeserved lionization of Robert Mueller.
The Special Counsel failed America.
1
Im not listening to one more Baby-Boomer. Fire Pelosi. Fire Nadler. Replace them with young progressives. Enforce subpoenas. Enforce the constitution. Jail those that don’t comply. Impeach Trump. Primary out the old guard across the nation: in cities, statewide and national. Nominate a young ticket. Win the Whitehouse. Win the US Senate. Win the US House. Win the govern-ships. Win the census. And change America for the next two generations. Democrats can and must do this.
Dear Maureen,
You left out one important fact. You write: "If you believe Trump committed a crime, even if you can’t indict him now, why not say so?"
Mueller said that if he laid out a specific indictment against President Trump, he would not be able to defend himself because of the Justice Department long-held policy of not indicting a sitting precedent.
Where would any indictment by Mueller be heard? I hope that you don't say your living room.
Mueller laid out all of the facts necessary to form an indictment and stated obtusely that Congress could act through the impeachment process.
But Mitch McConnell has "outlawed" this option. Yet, you do not mention this fact in your opinion piece. Why not?
\\But in Donald Trump’s epic reign as the hotheaded, ammonia-haired, serpent-tongued destroyer of worlds, political survival is paramount, no matter the venality involved or the cost to your reputation.//
No Maureen, in the deluded, paranoid, anti-democratic, blood-thirsty world of the left, political assassination of a fairly elected president is paramount, no matter the stupidity of that position now that the president was found to not have committed a capital crime, which was what he was accused of.
Mueller is tip-toeing around the issue of obstruction because he knows that in the court of public opinion, the jury will not be sympathetic to a charge against a man who was falsely accused and fighting to rescue not only his presidency, but the presidency itself. That is Barr's interpretation also. "The president was falsely accused."
The fact is the president was not obstructing justice, he was obstructing INjustice because he knew he was falsely accused. Once he learned that the antecedents to the Comey investigation were corrupt, he had every right to fire Comey and then Mueller because Mueller's investigation was merely a continuation of Comey's. When it was learned that the FISA warrants depended on scurrilous information from Russian sources gathered by a British spy and paid for by the Clinton campaign, we knew that the whole thing was a frame-up for a lynching.
Barr has the upper hand now. When all the information is known, this will be clear.
2
You are right about Barr impersonating Cheney, Maureen. I half expected him to fish pheasant feathers from his teeth and throw them into the blazing fireplace in the background (in June? Wearing a flannel shirt/vest? Baby, is it cold outside?). I was hoping Mueller would speak English in the way that at least 32% of Americans speak English - the way Trump or Giuliani speak, rudely, full of 4-letter words, but to the point (although their points are usually alternative facts). Instead Mueller came off as patrician and speaking legalese, with double negatives and repeating words like "president." (Is not one president enough?) Trump speaks Anglo-Saxon, Mueller Latin. We are in a War of the Words, with Trump speaking as though he has diarrhea of the mouth and Barr and Giuliani spinning tales and plates. But Mueller only gives dribs and drabs. I wish he had spoken the summaries aloud. When he testifies, I hope he speaks of the people, by the people, for the people, and takes a page from Lincoln.
To paraphrase Yeats, "the best lack all conviction while the worst spin lies to the people." Trump is an abomination and his defenders provide cover for his every sleazy misdeed. What does this nation stand for? Why would any patriotic young person consider devoting his life's work to government service given the values demonstrated by our current Republican leadership?
This week will mark the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. Cadet Bonespurs will probably find a way to usurp the occasion to promote himself. There is no bottom to how low he can go.
Make America Great Again? With this crew of “leaders”? More like make America un-trustworthy and a laughing stock to the world. I hang my head in shame at what has happened to America.
1
This is the epic of Homer Simpson.
1
Muller did his job. Barr has redacted all the relevant, and perhaps sensitive portions of the finished report, from even Congress. That is obstruction of justice in and of itself. How could we, the public, know if Trump should be charged when the report has been diluted by Barr? The question is why would Barr commit such obvious fraud? I can only reason that in the world of Barr, Trump and their cronies, a lying, cheating, horrible President is better than one competent Democrat. Can their be any other logic?
Thank you Maureen for calling it like it is. Mueller created a huge mess and his reputation is as sullied as Barr’s and every other coward in Washington - which is pretty much everyone now.
The irony of the Trump era is that the people who elected Trump to drain the swamp decided to burn the whole place down instead. I hope they are enjoying the ashes of our democracy.
We are so over.
Why is this so diffciult to understand? Mueller told us that he thought the President committed crimes, but he is prohibited from saying so directly. Fact: the President committed obstruction of justice, punishable if the President were not so, but merely an ordinary citizen. And about 1000 professional prosecutors agree. Come on, people. Although the carpet to impeachment Mueller laid out for Congress was not blood red, it surely was hot pink. He cannot give Congress the requisite will to do the right thing -- hold the President accountable for his dastardly deeds and his lawlessness. Mueller has shown his spine, and it is erect and strong. All we need now is a Congress that will get up from their pouffy seats and stand tall to protect the nation from an inflated despot.
1
Opinion
The Bar has been lowered...
William Barr is Attorney General of United States? Believe he was the first to say to POTUS, "Yes! I'll do it!" All he has to remember to keep the job is who he works for. Not, who pays his salary! Just who he works for.
This whole mess sounds like "truth is stranger than fiction" Anyone remember the TV series Braindead ? A 2015 comic-thriller - the federal government has stopped working and bugs are eating the brains of Congress members and Hill staffers. Too bad it didn't go into a second season - we'd have a hint at what our future would look like!
1
Finally someone other than a Trump robot has the courage to criticize Mueller. This is Dowd’s best piece in at least a decade. The next break through will come when someone has the nerve to point out that Mueller is a Republican.
2
I enjoy Ms. Dowd’s opinion prices and regret she could not in the spirit of Homer’s two epics, portray Trump, like Agamemnon, in a blind rage slaughtering the cattle, thinking them his enemies. Early days yet.
What is most galling is that the odious Mr. Barr reports every morning to his office...in the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice building.
And once again, if the report clears Mr. Trump, release it, fully. No redactions, no more nonsense... release it, now. Along with the grand jury testimony and evidence. Now, Mr. Barr. Exonerated? No crime? Let’s see. Let’s have it! NOW!
Is there some unknown virus affecting FBI higher ups at Moments of crisis? Comey tied himself into an agonizing knot of doubt confronting the issue of opening Hillary Clinton's investigation days before the election. Robert Mueller the legendary canonized hero of American integrity, faced with HIS moment of destiny becomes the Oracle of Nonsense, leaving a torn country with the sole option of madness. Winner and still ranting: Donald Trump!
Barr rightfully wants to get to the bottom of how a bogus investigation was launched into a candidate by the opposition party using flimsy gossip sheets (the “Dossier”) and questionable low level contacts (Papadopoulous) as a “legal” basis. If the Trump presidency could not be stopped, the goal appeared to be to smear it with a thousand cuts vis a vis a prolonged “investigation” about a Russian conspiracy that never existed. John Brennan and the Obama Administration are Barr’s targets, and I for one cannot wait to see what he finds. This level of political corruption cannot stand.
3
The surest way to make an informed decision about the whole matter is let the public see everything. It is ironic to me that the people who think Barr is the devil and Mueller a saint want to hide documents and release selectively. I have real concerns about Mueller. He was involved in some real miscarriages of justice in the past, like the Hatfield anthrax mess.
1
"Barr responded to Crawford with fatalism, saying “everyone dies” and he doesn’t believe in “the Homeric idea” that immortality comes by “having odes sung about you over the centuries, you know?”
The shelf-life of top-notch scholars is usually a generation, at best maybe two (There are of course exceptions). My guess is that the shelf-life of attorney generals or former attorney generals is a lot shorter. The only one that many people probably remember is Robert Kennedy, and he paid a high price for that (I may be over-estimating this due to my age).
Homer and his cast of characters, however, are still getting a good run in the quest for immortality. Having odes sung about you for generations looks like a good idea to me. Seems to work.
1
America wants a hero. Mueller had the credentials, military, FBI, and otherwise. Fortunately or unfortunately, Mueller got only half the job done. He left it to Congress and he left it to us, America and its voters, to rid ourselves of our tyrant, our King Trump. Nobody is going to throw out our tyrant except ourselves and in the voting booth.
Mueller looks imperfect, but he’s trapped. Unlike what’s said in the article, he’s being hit for not being politically savvy. Barr gets it.
Mueller can’t play politics or all of his team’s efforts look political. Barr can play politics because he’s a political appointee working for a demagogue. Trump hired Giuliani. He wants an AG that can work the press. Barr swings to cheers and Mueller can’t swing back.
At this point, Mueller is probably playing the right cards, but his hand doesn’t impress. He says, “please don’t make me testify.” Like Deutsch Bank, he’ll cooperate if subpoenaed.
Like a fair prosecutor, he won’t charge the crime without giving the accused a chance to respond to an indictment. That puts his integrity and his work in the best position he can manage.
In the meantime, Trump media consumers still think the report exonerates Trump. So Barr can say, “I think he should have decided [not guilty]. That’s what I did, because I’m a better lawyer.” Heck, he could have done that day one. It’s easy. As he’s long said, Presidents can’t commit obstruction of justice. (paraphrasing).
So what’s worse? Trump and Barr aren’t those “rough men willing to do violence” so that we can sleep soundly. They’re helping themselves at our expense and yelling “deep state!”
Mueller’s treating them fairly. He can’t afford an endearing photo op or a decisive sound bite. It’s frustrating, but he’s not the President’s prosecutor. He filed a police report. It’s time for Congress to act.
The point of it all is that the “Rule of Law” doesn’t apply to Trump. When Barr acted confused about the definition of “is” when being questioned by Senator Harris, it was an obvious admission of guilt by Barr. Mueller, Barr and Rosenstein are Republican operatives, and never doubt that the fix was in from the beginning. Our Republic is in decline, as a result of endless senseless wars leading to bankruptcy of the economy and our national soul. As Barr stated that “everyone dies”, he doesn’t care about his reputation because he is the perfect nihilist serving the Narcissist Trump. Barr is simply as evil as Trump.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Attributed to Edmund Burke.
Mr. Mueller was content to fall short, to not do enough.
So let me see if I have this straight. Robert Mueller wants the public to believe that he accepted the appointment of Special Counsel KNOWING full well that no matter what Mueller's $30 Million dollar tax payer funded investigation of Trump found he would not be able to reveal any evidence of "criminal activity" by Trump to AG Bill Barr, Congress, or the American public who paid for Mueller's investigation - do I have that about right, Bob...? And Ms Dowd actually believes him...
1
Devils or Saints? Different sides, same coin.
William Barr has abandoned all professional ethics to become a virulent Trump MAGA-hatter. Barr's sole purpose in life is now to be the front man and cover artist for Donald Trump whose ignorance, incompetence, and bigotry are far beyond any credible defense.
Barr is a leading member along with McConnell and Lindsey Graham of the Anti-American Republican Club that is working overtime to destroy our democracy. We can only wonder what Barr is receiving in return for trashing his reputation and his career.
Will memories be fresh enough to indict Trump out of office?
Apparently "The Right Law" is like "Alternative Facts"?
Amen to this. Maureen at her best. Both men let this country down, big time.
To go all fan-boy for a minute: brilliant column filled with salient, subtle analysis that parts the clouds. Yeats prophesied it Homerically well: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are filled with a passionate interest intensity.”
Mr Mueller and General Mattis brought sticks to a gun fight. They loose against a master communicator (third grade level), like the President (ten thousand lies and counting) Trump. Can these honorable men save this Country?
Ok. So, he looks like Cheney who, it goes without saying, is evil in a dour-jowly-outdoor under the Big Sky kind of way, and his legal opinion differs from Mueller who is an 'imperfect hero' because he is just too good and honest to be effective which Barr is because he is a 'crooked-counselor' and a 'devious-devosor' and we can be certain of this because he 'enables' Trump who, its goes without saying, is the Big E. Don't you think 'enables' is an interesting choice of words? Its sounds as if even were Barr correct on facts and law he would be crooked just because it happened to help Trump who, it goes eithout saying, is the Big E. Why is Mueller a hero? Oh right, because he said he couldn't say that Trump who, it goes without saying, is the Big E, wasn't crooked. Gosh.
“Mueller, with his impenetrable legalese and double negatives, has handcuffed himself.”.......and the country! Taxpayers spent $35M to get a clear understanding of what went on. The least Mueller can do is to go on national television and testify before the American people and give it to us straight!
I understood that Mueller and his team supplied Barr with summaries that they assumed would be made public.
Where are those summaries?
I believe I paid for them and I would like to see them. Why is Barr hiding them from me???
1
"Mueller is as elliptical as Barr is diabolical" I could write an opera from this line. YES!!
I disagree with much of what you said regarding director Mueller. With nothing to gain, he took a near impossible assignment and methodically executed it without blabbing in the press every chance he got, stoically enduring constant barbs from a President who is not one-tenth his equal in integrity or intelligence. I would urge all your readers to at least read the summaries of the report listen to Preet Bharara's explanation of why Mueller did what he did. It may not make you agree any more with his actions or conclusions, but I found it very helpful. Mueller is no saint, as you sarcastically wrote, but he is public servant worthy of our thanks.
1
To my mind Barr's legacy will be of a guy who stepped in and pulled the curtains closed so the public couldn't peer into the somewhat baffling Mueller document. We were expecting a coherent conclusion, the clock ticking down on the end of the Superbowl and, alas, Barr announced the game was called on account of darkness and offered no refund.
This situation encompasses more than just issues of justice and adjudication. In the public perception, attempts to clear oneself from unfounded accusations are largely understood, even if appearing to cross tweed, pharisaical thresholds. Sometimes we don't even go so far as to defend ourselves and merely say "my bad" and move on. Most people have been pointedly accused before on the basis of insufficient evidence and know the feeling all too well. If substantial evidence of conspiratorial collusion by Trump with Russia had been found, perceptions would be different. As it is, however, to much of the public, such supposed obstructive behavior seems--rightly or wrongly--all too human.
There is no question that Barr's legal reasoning arises from his politics. Not so with Mueller. That's the difference.
1
Mueller must testify before Congress and state plainly what his report implies.Too many Americans believe what Barr stated in his 4-page summary, which was misleading at best. When is a decent American with real power finally going to stand up to Trump and his Republican allies? What good is power if you sell your soul to keep it?
1
Simply brilliant.
In any crime there is both a victim and a perpetrator.
What we don’t hear enough of is fairness to the millions of Americans who had an election clearly stolen by Russia and then have to live with the abuse of the robber still rooting around the house to find more to steal!
Democrats need to treat Mueller not as a saint but as a human - and to push hard on the nonsensical conclusion that one cannot make a judgement. For if a President poses a current risk (for example if he is in hock to Russia or others for the favor of the election or other reasons) and further corrupts those who would normally report his crimes (AG Barr), then we are all in danger.
Who will protect our country if he declassifies the informant on Putin? Imagine what Barr/Trump will do about the next elections? Will any FBI agent now report on Russian hacking when their boss has equated that with the Praetorian guard?
Someone needs to step up and protect the millions of Americans who do not form Trumps base. And quickly.
2
"Department of Justice opinion stating that a sitting president cannot be indicted."
Why Not? This disgraceful philanderer may not be able to waste our taxes cheating on the golf courses so much, but that's why there is a VP.
Indict him, jail him !! Then bring Pence to justice, for conspiring with the philanderer, tax cheat, and pathological liar.
That leaves speaker Nancy to pick up the pieces as President
2
I must have missed the transition. It used to be the prosecution had to prove you guilty, now you have to prove you're innocent? Barr is to Trump as Holder was to Obama as ___________ was to ____________.
Maureen has one thing right; there is no hero here. Those of us who yearned for a Louis Erskine style rescue before the top of the hour, or a crusading Attorney General who would square his jowls and stand up for truth justice and the American way are left stunned and squeamish at the spectacle. Did Mueller do his apolitical best? I think he did but he may have placed too much faith in the quaint notions of integrity, fairness, duty and honor that he was raised on and that guided his life. Trump and his minions like Barr have made it their business to take advantage of those of us who believed there was something special about the American experience and that fairness would prevail. Now we’re left with Maureen to explain our hand ringing.
1
As several commenters have stated, one needs to read the whole report before coming to any conclusions as to whether Mr. Trump obstructed juctice. I agree with that, as do almost every lawyer and judge. But not Mr. Barr, he could tell after a quick glance that Mr. Trump was not guilty of obstruction. As the Red Queen said, sentence first, verdict afterward. And Barr's sentence is, exoneration.
For me, the take away of this column was that Maureen Dowd just called William Barr a Joseph Goebbels, HItler's information minister.
This is where the U.S. is today: heading to a totalitarian fascist state.
4
"Sometimes it’s hard to know who is worse: devils or saints."
Mueller is no "saint" and shouldn't be judged against such a standard.
I agree he screwed up by applying a very commendable principle in other contexts: As a prosecutor, is you don't charge someone, you shouldn't accuse them outside the judicial system in which you would be forced to make your case with the defendant having the ability to challenge you and defend him/herself on a level playing field.
But if you believe you are forced by an external (and dubious) rule to not indict the President, then the President has such an advantage that they are not entitled to the application of this principal. The President has more than ample opportunity to counter an opinion by a Special Prosecutor that crime(s) were committed.
Mueller has fallen into the trap of "absolutism" when his decision belonged in the field of "relativism." i.e., taking context into account.
2
Spot on!
“Mueller is as elliptical as Barr is diabolical. The special counsel is clearly frustrated that we don’t understand his reasoning. But his reasoning is nonsensical.”
Mueller has given the country what it needs, he has not the power to saved the day, but just enough to illuminate the truth.
We through our Congress, have all the power and and now the reason to use it. Hamlet handwringing is where we are stuck.
To screw up our courage, to impeach, or to live with our turpitude? That is the question!
1
No, no, Mo, Mueller did his job the right way: by remaining, as you say, agnostic. He is not a judge or jury; he's a fact-finder, which he did extremely well.
You sound angry, not a rarity for you, that Trump seems to have slipped the noose. I dislike him, too, but, kudos to Mueller, the investigation must be, and was, objective, professional, and fair, not partisan, vindictive, and emotional.
The next move belongs to Congress, as it should. If Congress lacks the wherewithal to do their job, it's certainly not Mr. Mueller's fault. Let us not damn our saints; we have so few.
1
You can’t take the “Republican” out of a Republican.
Any party that stands for self interests, corruption and hatred for fellow citizens is not a party that will ever embrace country first, common good or have compassion for people.
Mueller is a true Republican who put party first and like the rest of Republicans treats the public as idiots and speaks in jibberish.
The report is not Mueller’s to play games with. Taxpayers paid for it and belongs to us. If they want to keep the findings secret, then please refund us the cost and keep the report.
Americans tend to be easily fooled by people who are introverts or very rich. Mueller like Chance the Gardener in “Being There”, fooled us all that he is a quiet, private man of integrity and is apolitical. He convicted few bad hombres but couldn’t find himself to convict their leader. He came out supposedly, to correct the record but he only cared to protect himself. He knew Americans were watching but chose to only speak legalese. Like telling us that legalese is all he speaks and it is our fault for not understanding him. Condescending speech and nothing more.
Like Mueller, Trump and his conspirators in the Senate are ridiculing us every day. Mitch is laughing at our faces with arrogance and Trump is building a wall to keep us prisoners. Information is fake news, allies are the devil and he loves us and wants us to stay safe inside, away from the rest of the world.
1
Ms. Dowd thinks Mr. Barr is Satanic and evil because he supports the President that appointed him. What does she expect him to do? . . .
At bottom, the premise of this whole farcial "investigation"--that a Queens real estate guy, doing a Rush Limbaugh imitation, who fell into the Presidency, has been all along the product of a deep, diabolical Kremlin plot--was absurd to start with, is absurd now and always will be absurd.
1
History will not be kind to either Mueller or Barr. The Barr narrative simply plays into the hands of the pro-Trump people who believe that the entire investigation was a fishing expedition. Of course, that is nonsense given the indictments and evidence of Russian interference. To a lay person an offer and an acceptance is an agreement and Trump's very public plea to the Russians for Clinton's emails that was according to the report met with immediate Russian response. What more does a prosecutor need? Apparently far more than the many other contacts with Russian officials documented by the report.
Fact is that Barr and Trump have controlled the narrative and have convinced the average person that there was no point to the investigation, which to those who have read even a few pages of either volume quite laughable. We are witnessing classic dictator behavior, of which Joseph Goebbels, the Reich Minister of Propaganda of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945 would have been proud. Our republic is very much at risk with the distortions and concealment of evidence from Congress and contempt for Congressional subpoena's.
Ms. Dowd's commentary indicts both Mueller and Barr. Congress should impeach Barr and subpoena Mueller. Should Mueller refuse to testify beyond reading his report, he should be held in contempt and be incarcerated. If he is the selfless public servant and patriot that most, including me, thought he was, he should have no problem testifying without conditions.
5
What surprised me most after reading the report is that under the smokescreen of legal restraints and feigned objectivity, Mueller remains a servant of the Republicans. From the outset of the investigation he stated up front, based in oddball legalese, "[w]e determined not to apply an approach that could potentially result in a judgment that the President committed crimes." There you have it. He was looking for exculpatory evidence for Trump but stumbled across damning evidence instead, which by my reading of his logic the team decided from the outset they would not explore. I think we all had a different understanding of what Mueller was supposed to do.
3
Trump belongs in a jail cell - behind Barr’s - for any number of things, legal, financial, tax violations, using the WH as a profit center. With Barr in jail, he can’t release himself like he did with the Iran-Contra convicted criminals. But he did approve torture of prisoners, so that should cause him sleepless nights.
2
Bill Barr is a deceptive diabolical duplicitous combination of Benedict Arnold, Aaron Burr, Judah Benjamin, Jefferson Davis and John Mitchell.
The asinine extremist legal theory of the unitary Article II executive President of the United States who can't obstruct justice nor be subjected to criminal justice prosecution has no support in the American constitution. Indeed,it is antithetical to the carefully crafted checks and balances of the divided limited different power constitutional republic of united states that the Founding Fathers meant to create. They feared the executive most of all. Thus Article I legislative power takes primacy.
No wonder the former KGB operative and KGB head Vladimir Putin is still smiling and smirking. Putin's formal academic education and training was in the law of the former Soviet Union.
5
It’s kinda sad that the grey old lady has narrowed its focus to that of those living in the Manhattan bubble.
1
I like Dowd's title for Barr: not Attorney General, but Minister of Information. That sums it up.
2
Fellow Americans, read the Mueller Report. It contains enough evidence for the legally and constitutionally enabled bodies to do their duty. Their first duty is to respond to the security threats, alarming even in heavily redacted form, in Part 1, to the integrity and authenticity of electoral mechanics and processes. When huge subsets of citizens lose faith in the validity of vote counts, even the frayed national cohesion we experience now, will seem like a golden age.
I repeat: read the Mueller Report yourselves. Perhaps Robert Mueller is too perfect a straight arrow, too Gary-Cooper-cum-Jimmy-Stewart for the soiled age we live in. Nevertheless, he and his colleagues did their duty. Congress, especially the timorous and corrupted GOP Senate, needs to hear the great yawp of an enraged American people, armed with 400 pages of evidence, and do its duty. It needs to act to shore up the electoral system against foreign and domestic threats and to decide whether Donald Trump committed high crimes and misdemeanors. For us and our elected representatives to duck the evidence Mueller handed us, is to bequeath a mere shell of a democracy to our inheritors.
I repeat: Fellow Americans, read the Mueller Report.
1
Mueller started singing his saga too soon.
He should've kept his mouth shut and his investigation open until polls close on 03 November 2020. That way, he'd've preserved the freshest possible evidence in his Report.
And you ought to start in 1990 and preserve in verse the whole colorful common history of the scriveners of two weirdest, wildest memos of our new-normal moment: Barr and Rosenstein.
Pius Bob has our national boat tossed upon the wine-dark seas. Would that he had tied himself to the mast and sailed past the Siren's cove. Can anyone defeat the one-eyed Donald?
2
I stopped reading Maureen Dowd when she was calling President Obama "Barry", but this article is an excellent description of how Marine Mueller ultimately proved to be a coward.
"If you believe Trump committed a crime, even if you can’t indict him now, why not say so? Otherwise, what was the point of the investigation? "
Exactly.
3
Mueller wasn't elliptical. He said clearly that if the facts indicated that Trump was innocent he would have said so. Barr is a dishonest hack working for Trump.
2
Yes Mr Barr, we all die. But some of us can do tremendous damage during our lifetimes. Most of us also have a conscience that guides us to do the right thing while alive, clearly not a concern for Trump, Barr, McConnell, McCarthy; pathetic models for future generations
1
The report is clear enough so why quibble about the grammar? Barr doesn't have the last word anymore than Trump does and there should be no surprise that he supports the boss. If you support Trump you can't support the truth. But the truth is in plain sight.
David Runciman in the LRB-
"... In other words, if Trump weren’t president, he would be prosecuted; when he ceases to be president, he should be prosecuted; while he remains president, other means are available to remove him from office – and that would make a prosecution possible. The Mueller report, even in this redacted form, is damning. Trump is not fit to be president. He has attempted to obstruct the legal system and to intimidate and coerce the people who worked for him. Trump has told people to lie – including people who reported to him in his capacity as president – and he has done it often. The evidence is here. But on the question of whether he should be impeached, Mueller does not speak. That, too, is above his pay grade."
2
Improvise, Adapt and Overcome. What happened Mueller, have you forgotten about those three words? You've let down a lot of Marines and so many others. And we were all told you were such an honorable man.
Once a Republican, always a Republican.
You and Barr deserve each other.
1
Remember Blagojevich? A Democrat.
That is right, he is still in prison. For how long did you say?
They say that a rat can wriggle through the tiniest of holes. Mueller's milk-toast-esque word-salad has allowed this to happen, hopefully only for the time being.
2
Mueller and Barr are both republicans, both complicit.
I think it's more than clear at this point that there is ample evidence - probably cause - if you will, to indict Trump on obstruction.
I do understand what Mueller is saying, and I think he truly believes that he went as far as he could in terms of the conclusions of the report. He is careful and methodical, and has a great respect for the law as he understands it. None of these are bad traits, but in this instance, at the end of the day we needed him to weigh his normal inclinations against what is at risk and decide that the American people and our institutions are more important than him being totally comfortable with what he needed to do.
He should have issued an unequivocal finding that they found ample of evidence of obstruction of justice by the President of the United States and then he should have gone ahead and issued an indictment. Whether or not that inictment could be seen as valid against a sitting President is a matter for the courts.
Alternately, he also theoretically (depending on the statute of limitations of the alleged crimes) could have said that an indictment has been prepared and will be executed against the President of the United States instantly upon him leaving office.
1
Barr was Mueller's superior in the Justice Department; Barr said Mueller was wrong and could have indicted Trump, and over 1,000 former federal prosecutors have told us that they would have indicted Trump.
The House Judiciary Committee has the responsibility to subpoena Mueller and have him explain and correct the error that Barr said he made.
Neither Mueller, nor Barr, nor Trump want that to happen. Too bad, the American people do and we deserve an answer.
4
Mueller did the right thing, proceeding with a careful unbiased investigation within the limits of the law, as he was charged to do. Blaming him for the travesty that Barr and Trump have made of this whole matter is simply to sidestep the responsibility of Barr and the GOP majority in the Senate in their unconscionable support for Trump's misdeeds. In any reasonable world, Mueller's findings would be leading directly to an impeachment — he all but spelled that out. It's a bit like holding teachers responsible for low graduation rates and ignoring the structural racism and poverty in this society that leaves millions of children in no position to learn. In both cases, the people blamed couldn't possibly fix the problem all by themselves.
2
"Rectitude was Mueller’s Achilles’ heel."
As a Homeric figure, I suspect Mr. Mueller, as disciplined and straight shooter as he seems, would welcome his rectitude as his epic weakness. To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen, I have seen "weakness" and rectitude is no weakness.
3
Why is Robert Mueller so misunderstood? His primary task was to unearth evidence related to Russian interference in our election and lay out the facts. That became more complicated when Bozo, from the minute he was inaugurated, got involved. Mueller’s now dealing with two issues. Justice Department policy is that a sitting president is protected from indictment while in office. Mueller as Special Counsel was a Justice Department employee. He’s a straight arrow so he’s going to follow policy. The subtlety of adhering to that policy is that since a president is unable to be tried in court, defending himself against charges for any crimes he’s committed while in office, Mueller’s reasoning is that no charges are to be made. In line with that reasoning is that our Constitution offers a remedy for situations like these, impeachment by the Congress, which Mueller took as the proper course of action. His report should be read by all Americans, but it wasn’t his intent that that, in and of itself, would settle the question of whether trump stays or goes. He’s left that to Congress. The irony of all of this is that Mueller is giving us all a lesson in how our democracy is supposed to function as laid out by our Constitution, and we seem hellbent on ignoring it. Dowd and the rest of the chattering class who write that Mr. Mueller is somehow derelict in not proclaiming trump guilty completely miss the point and do our democracy a disservice.
3
Thank you for so reasonably articulating how our democracy is supposed to work. The House has a duty and responsibility to at least instruct the Judiciary Committee to determine, with collaborating evidence, that there are sufficient grounds to impeach. The problem is the way the general public thinks. The majority of House Democrats believe that even begining impeachment proceedings will be politically toxic. In many ways they may be right. People nowdays do not seem to value or reward political courage. Without even a majority of Democrats willing to take that first step, even though I sure they quite well understood what Mueller was saying, the process is impeded for the present.
We have been led down a path that has brought our Democracy closer to the precipice. Our country is in the hands of those who see acquiring and protecting power as their sole purpose.
We have a President who has shattered our institutions and behaves with no concern for the people he is supposed to serve. He is weak and he is dangerous.
He is a useful fool to the McConnell's and the Barr's of the world. Mconnel and Barr are useful tools to the Kochs and and Diamonds of the world.
All of these men have sold their souls for greed and power. Mueller was supposed to be the arrow that pierced them all.
The Dem's arrows to date have all bounced off.
Mueller now says he refuses to be the public face when piercing the Trump armor.
The Dem's are holding off taking him down. They wont use the weapon of impeachment to let loose the arrows.
"We need the perfect arrow"
We are supposed to take him down with our votes, it seems.
We know how well that went.
It really makes one wonder.
If we do not see impeachment in the next 3 months we can assume that they are all in the business of protecting and gaining power.
There are no “White Knights”.
“We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
The first comment was from a therapist friend, making the point that we can’t count on help coming from others, that true change comes from within.
The second comes from Pogo, the Walt Kelly character, during the Nixon/Vietnam/Watergate era.
We are living through an era that is the result of the shift of focus, over the post war decades, from the teachings and preachings in schools and churches, and even in the last of what was responsible media, to following the self-centered, too-many-seasons mini-series approach to living and governing.
And now that everyone with a smart phone has a voice, we all feel like we participate in every episode, this comment included.
And now that wrongdoings have to be proven by videotape replay, anything you can get away with is OK for many. (Even this “proof” can be diminished if denial is repeated over and over.)
Mueller represents what might be the last gasp of decency in our system of checks and balances. Barr represents, along with Trump and Trumpers, the best way to exploit those who see them as their saviors in preserving their way of life - without their having to be the work of adapting to reality - and not the TV version of it.
We know for a fact, because we have recently seen him do it, that Barr will withhold, lie about, distort or delay disclosure of information that is harmful to Trump. Barr has also done his best to undermine the conclusions of Robert Mueller and his staff and even taken shots at Mueller personally in his bizarrely unscrupulous defense of a criminal president. If that’s not enough, it is a virtual certainty that Barr will use his newfound declassification power to selectively release information to discredit the legal basis of the Russia investigation and, at the very least, impugn the motives of its originators. In fact it would come as no surprise if he were to allege criminality on the part of those responsible for initiating the investigation. Surely he was given his extraordinary new power by Trump for that very purpose. Barr will do these things because he has proven himself to be every bit as corrupt, lawless and shameless as his boss. When he used the word “spy” with no stated factual basis to describe authorized surveillance by the FBI he displayed a reckless indifference to the damage the nation's chief of law enforcement does when he undermines a critical branch of the Justice Department he heads. Any further damage he might do to the rule of law, our national security and the agencies that protect it will doubtless not deter his scorched earth defense of our unfit president.
1
The biggest mistake made by Mueller was to state that although he found no evidence of collusion or obstruction that still doesn't mean exoneration. I guess no American can be non partisan. We are living in a paradox today. The Democrats and the Republicans both don't have a moral compass and are all the same hypocrites. The American public is fed up and don't trust our politicians and the media.That is why Trump can manipulate our current state of affairs and will more then likely succeed in getting elected in 2020.
1
@Henry Blumner Mueller did not say "no evidence," he said "insufficient evidence" to indict. But he couldn't indict anyway; that will be the job of the House, and the bar for evidence in impeachment of government officials is lower than for criminal indictment of non-officials; and let us be aware that the only difference between impeachment and indictment is the target of the action.
Mueller was too reverential to the office of the President to be effective. If this was just a crime boss, which is what Trump tries to emulate, he would have been much more aggressive to get to the truth, starting with Trump's children. Don Jr. had reportedly been telling people for weeks he expected to be indicted, but Mueller never went there. Mueller could have had the entire unredacted report sent to the House, through the Grand Jury. He didn't go there. He could have drifted into Jared and his shady dealings with the Saudi's. He didn't go there, either. He (foolishly) trusted our system, just as the gears are seizing up. As a Republican, perhaps Mueller is like the others. Not happy with the executive, but OK with the agenda. Thank God we have a democratic House, or we'd already have a dictatorship. Unfortunately, Nancy seems paralyzed about what to do.
1
Too right. Mueller has to step down from his patrician pedestal and clarify his $35mm report for the millions of taxpayers who paid for it.
1
Mueller may be the wise man in the room realizing that a negative conclusion, although legally correct would have done more harm to the nation with long trial and hate spewed on both sides
Once again we see how Washington, the power elites, and the twisted mentality of self-justification operates. Dowd's article is pretty good, and her final question, who is worse, devils or saints? Well, there are no saints in Washington, and diabolical machinations come in many forms. Do US Americans have the government they deserve, or have unwittingly created and accepted? Or, do many of us still try to trust the governments we elect by hook or crook and are continually betrayed?
1
Trump has figured out that he needs to fill his administration with other people like him who don't care about their ethical reputations in society.
That's a massive problem, because individual reputation is the best strategy humans have devised to prevent their societies from falling into savagery.
Folks. The Mueller report is available for about $2.00 on Amazon. You do not have to read every word. There are summaries at the beginning and throughout. If you read it you will see that the report is clearly an indictment of Trump and his campaign. The "exoneration" with the Russian interference was based on a very strict legal definition of coordination requiring either a written agreement or very organized cooperation between the two parties which Mueller could not establish. But clearly there were many contacts between the Russians and the Trump campaign which by itself clearly shows that Trump,s election was illegitimite and should be condemned by every American.
Mueller quoted directly from his report when he said that they would have said so if Trump was innocent of obstruction (did anyone actually read the report??). The report makes it very clear that Mueller thinks Trump was guilty of obstruction.
Barr lied in every way. His name will always be associated with shame...and in fact..treason..for threatening the very foundations of our democracy. He is no different than any person who enables a dictator. History is full of these shameful misguided people.
1
@Andrew links to the full (redacted) report can be obtained for free online at https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/politics/read-the-mueller-report/?utm_term=.cad7483e1ef8
or
https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/04/18/politics/full-mueller-report-pdf/index.html?r=https%3A%2F%2Famp-cnn-com.cdn.ampproject.org%2Fv%2Fs%2Famp.cnn.com%2Fcnn%2F2019%2F04%2F18%2Fpolitics%2Ffull-mueller-report-pdf%2Findex.html%3Fusqp%3Dmq331AQCKAE%253D%26amp_js_v%3D0.1
@Andrew . Luckily, the NYT posted the report. It's free! I read it! We can skim, read, peruse, pick and choose - do what you like Americans!! It's here and it's telling!
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/18/us/politics/mueller-report-document.html
Thanks, NYT!
Mueller came forward because we now have evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors as well as obstruction of Justice by what occured in the Flynn case in the past week.
Michael Flynn was caught red handed in top secret wiretaps colluding with a top Russian spy about reversing Obama's sanctions . This same spy Trump later invited to Oval Office for a secret collaboration session and celebration of Comey's firing while giving him US classified intel. Now Barr won't release the Flynn transcripts in defiance of a court order. Obviously Only Bob Mueller wanted to come forward to tell us this investigation is much more serious than the GOP would have us believe and we are now outside the constitutional checks and balances. Defiance of this court order is no different than Richard Nixon refusing to turn over his secret tape recordings except it is being done by Barr who cares less about how history will record him and so did John Mitchell and Dick Cheney.
However we now have clear evidence of treason at the highest level of the Executive Branch and an extensive cover up and daily obstruction of Justice. We know Trump and family lied about their Russian dealings but how much did others in the GOP lie about Russian money flowing to the GOP and Mitch McConnell in 2016? This investigation is about treason and nothing less.
Even Maureen makes light of how serious it now is. Shocking.
I have always been amazed how some people use large words and impressive sentences to cover up the fact that they have no new pertinent facts or ideas. Like birds with pretty feathers attempting to get a mate. They attempt to hypnotize you to the notion that they are smart. Many words, little meaning, very little truth.
1
Trump is a master of spin. Mueller likely doesn’t know what “spin” is. Barr is a Trump acolyte who looks like a rumpled professor but is, instead, a man with no ethics or morals.
Trump controlled the narrative of his mis-doings even before Mueller began his investigation. That’s what Trump is good at: controlling the narrative by forcing everyone, including the news media, to always have to react to his inane tweets and incoherent policies. It gets tiresome, and many have given up trying to make sense of it all. And Trump wins.
The entire issue of investigating collusion and obstruction never had a chance in today’s media driven world. It was always going to be about the spin of the truth, which Trump is really, really good at.
"Rectitude was Mueller’s Achilles’ heel."
No, rectumtude is more like it.
Mueller knew conclusively by August 2, 2018 that the Trump campaign had not colluded with the Russians. If rectitude was truly Mueller's Homeric epithet, he should have reported that then, and concluded his investigation, instead of dragging out his role in the partisan political coup to damage the president. But he wanted to affect the November 2018 mid-term elections against the president, so he colluded with his hand-picked team of largely partisan Democratic lawyers to keep that finding hidden. After successfully interfering in the mid-term elections, he was continuing to draw out his phony investigation of President Trump as long as he could get away with it, undoubtedly to affect the 2020 elections.
Fortunately, Bill Barr called him to account, and Mueller's formal, written lack of findings against the president speak volumes more than his twisted, nonsensical, legalese, verbal obfuscations.
1
Why is Maureen being so dismissive of the possibility that the Intelligence Community may have overstepped their authority? Very troubling and really a degradation of the presses mandate in pursuit of Trump...Let’s hope there really isn’t any there there ...the willful ignorance of this would haunt the liberal media for years ....
2
While we are on Homerian epics, this whole affair can be likened to the struggle between the devoted warrior Ajax (starring Robert Mueller) and the clever, conniving, and self-serving Odysseus (starring Barr). Both lay claim to the armor of their fallen hero Achilles. The king decides the claim will be settled through debate, which of course Odysseus wins. While Odysseus is prancing around in Achilles armor, Ajax -- once a bulwark for his nation -- goes on a rampage and self destructs.
There is a great scene in "All the President's Men" where an exhausted Bob Woodward meets Deep Throat in a darkened parking lot. Woodward has just had the rug pulled out from him with a story linking Haldeman to the coverup. His source contradicted him leaving Woodward exposed.
Instead of lending emotional support to Woodward, Deep Throat stays above the fray.
In turn, Woodward explodes at Deep Throat and calls him out, demanding answers.
Mr Mueller meet Deep Throat.
We don't need another Washington 'Institutionalist', we need a Patriot. Mueller has seen firsthand the Russians compromise our Elections. He has seen the Republicans look the other way. He has seen Trump and Barr launch investigations on the good people that Mueller extolled today.
This is not the time to 'retire'. To take no questions at your press conference. This is the time to get out of the Washington insider box that you seem to have lived in your whole life and time to defend this Country and the Institutions you have been part of.
In this era, you are either part of the solution or part of the problem. Half measures or go along to get along don't cut it anymore.
The likes of Bill Barr is a prime example of why impeachment that include successful removal of Trump by the Senate will not be sufficient or timely enough to reverse the near catastrophic damage already done by the Trump Administration done to the economy, lives damaged or lost and to our nation’s world standing. We will still be stuck with Mike Pence and his toadies! What is needed is for the Supreme Court to perform an intervention by annulling the results of the 2016 presidential election. This would allow a complete reversal as needed by ALL Trump’s measures, including Trump’s pardon, judicial appointments, executive orders that were done for the oligarchs. I am certain that Justice Clarence Thomas, from his Catholic catechism classes and training, is quite aware that annulment is the perfect reverse time machine, needed for rescuing this nation! The Court has already established a precedence when it intervene in the year 2000 presidential election. The Putin-Russian meddling in the year 2016 election, together with financing of severe big money financed partisan gerrymandering of national and state legislative districts, Russian planting of fake news in social media systems, have badly subverted and crippled most Constitutional systems of check and balances, with the Supreme Court remaining possibly the last bastion of hope!
Where has honesty and integrity gone?? Everything is hidden and no one in government can agree to disagree and arrive at an honest solution to the problem. Having an attorney general who is using publicity to back anyone in government who he likes should BAR R them from public service. should we bar Barr?
If the lead investigator into Trump's crimes can't come forward and simply state that he found criminality how can the Democrats impeach the president? The simple answer is that they can't.
Here is another reason why Nancy Pelosi's strategy in dealing with trump is correct. Don't jump to conclusions, then act, and find yourself at the end of a gangplank overlooking shark infested waters. Either by pride or cowardice Robert Mueller jumped ship and handed Barr the treasure he always wanted: an out for the president.
Pelosi knew this would happen. The resistance needs to listen to her and follow her lead. Pronto.
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I still cannot understand why mueller rejected barr’s Invitation to read his 438 page summary before its release. I also would like to know the names of the particular attorneys whom Barr insinuated used “personal”legal judgements rather than abide by “constitutional” law. Hopefully Barr’s investigation into the FBI and the special counsel attorneys will clear up many questions the American people have on the witch hunt the country has been through for the past 2.5 years.
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It’s obvious that Trump and Barr simply want to run out the clock on impeachment until the pull of gravity from the election makes impeachment a moot point, since voters will give this President an up or down vote.
With or without impeachment, Trump has policy cards to play during the campaign and up until the election, and the possibility of a healthy economy, or an October Surprise.
Then there’s always a chance that the Democrat nominee will shoot herself in the foot (see Mike Dukakis, Geraldine Ferraro, John Kerry) , or make a scandal (John Edwards, Thomas Eagleton, Gary Hart).
And who thinks the Russians won’t have their troll farms, hacks of Democratic information and other mischief-makers working even harder this time? The “cyber-swiftboating” of the Democratic candidate is being prepared right now.
Lacking the focus and clarity to voters that impeachment proceedings would bring, Trump simply has a better chance for re-election than he would without running a campaign that requires voters to choose a formally accused and indicted (probably unconvicted by the Senate) candidate.
Dowd is proficient and labeling and deriding the Attorney General, but doesn't, at any point, analyze what he is actually saying. Perhaps Barr is right. Is it unreasonable to actually discuss the merits of the argument or must the response always be lobbing verbal bombs from the safety of the ideological bunker.
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Mr. Mueller: You have devoted two years of your life to this project. You have uncovered facts and leads vital to the preservation of American democracy. You faced enemy fire in Vietnam. Please do not let the prospect of a few uncomfortable days of Congressional hearings allow FOX, trump and his minions to spin the report into oblivion.
It is simply hypocritical to welcome and support an investigation of the President, but criticize a warranted investigation of why the President was initially targeted. You cannot have it both ways. Barr's investigation is making the Dems nervous. Why?
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I find it maddening that CBS and Jan Crawford gave Barr so much time to continue his evil spin. It's as if they want to give him the last word.
If Maureen could contemplate for even a moment the possibility that in fact there was a conspiracy among senior Obama administration staff to spy on Trump and his campaign for no other reason than to gain political advantage, everything Barr said would make sense to Maureen.
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My hope is that the right continues its attack on Mueller, just enough to motivate him to go before Congress and tell all he knows. I can't believe he would be someone who could allow Barr's lies to stand.
Some time ago I exited Union Station, Washington D.C. and was immediately moved by the sight of the Washington Dome in the near distance. I stood for a few moments in muted awe, and then I said to myself," Unfortunately, now the center of organized crime." Have we forgotten the war crimes of previous administrations, the daily flood of lies, dissimilitude, and parasitic lobbyists? Like children we look for ethics and integrity where ethics and integrity never lived.
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The arrogance of the government officials who saw things through a lens warped by political preference is scary. The press that makes heroes or villains out of these same people are complicit.
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Yes, the country is not operating under the rule of law. The Constitution gives Congress the power to investigate, and those who refuse to cooperate may be punished under the law. Many of those investigations have had a stink (think, Joseph McCarthy, the HUAC, and the Senate equivalent) but, no matter how abusive and unfair they might have been, they were legal. Sort of interesting how the Congress's abuse of power can be used to investigate the executive branch's abuse of power. Mueller is dead nuts wrong in bowing out under the excuse that a sitting president cannot be indicted. Mueller is an investigator not king. He is obligated to give his opinion based on the investigation, to use the excuse of non-indictment is presumptive. I say to Mueller "state your opinion clearly and let the rest of us decide what to do with it." Mueller's double negative statement is not an example of modesty or restraint, it is pure arrogance; Mueller's assignment was limited to investigate and to report, not to giving godly judgments.
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It is jaw dropping how two of the straightest of arrows in practice, Comey and Mueller, each doing their duty, could be so awkwardly inexpert in the wiles of communication. Both, while certain their honesty would bring America to her senses, have been so thoroughly damaged and storied by the devious-devising of Barr et all. Anymore straight arrowed, honest people about to step forth to save the US from its government needs a communication machine behind them.
The overriding principal that colors all of this is the concept that a sitting president cannot be charged with a crime. I wish someone would explain in a detailed cogent way why this is. It seems that your country is the only one in the world that takes that position and it looks more regal than presidential. Where in your vaunted constitution does it actually say that?
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"All it takes for evil to win is for good men to do nothing"
Rump believes he got away with using foreign assistance to win an election and lying about it. The only thing that will keep him out of jail is his reelection and then the election of disciples who will forever protect him.
Now he has the players in place in the DOJ and the SCOTUS, he is creating the narrative to act. The deep state and radical left are out to destroy you by destroying me and my best ever presidency.
He will do what ever he can to legitimatize the use of police powers in what he sees ans a clear an present danger.
Translation, the worst is yet to come.
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Maureen, there are no 'devils or saints' in Washington. Robert Mueller did his job and reached his conclusions which shattered the expectations of the Trump haters. AG Barr and Deputy AG Rosenstein did their jobs and applied applicable law to the facts, establishing the President did not obstruct justice. Yet the elite media hysteria continues unabated. Out in the hinterland, Americans have largely moved on, and we await a real verdict on the President's performance in 2020. No one has a crystal ball, but nothing you describe is 'diabolical...'
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All through this process, while everyone saw Trump's criminality and lies run plain sight, we had to listen to past retirement, cowardly Democrats, as it turned out, say "wait for the Mueller Report". During this time, I told many of my friends and colleagues, that they were banking on the wrong man. After all Mueller was the director of the FBI while the 911 investigative report was done. Lots of information about that horrible event were covered up and redacted....under the watch of Mr. Mueller.
Like the Homeric sagas, there is truth in the impetus to record sagas, and disagreement in their interpretation to current events and its actors-, heroes, heroines, villians. However, two realities surface. First-This substantial recording of oral and written evidence will have its own long term collective voice and will have a long life. The evidence collected is viable and has staying power. Second- The details in the Mueller report will undoubtedly be teased out into bite sized reralities and then positioned as political ammunition as the 2020 presidential and congressional election season gets hot. Ultimately, Homer himself may reappear in the person of a "chosen one"- a blithe spirit with wisdom on the tongue, compassion in the soul, and ethics in the heart to save us all.
Even if Mueller said that if he testified, only the same thing said in print would be regurgitated orally. Well, that’s okay with me. Americans should hear from the investigator exact what is hidden bound between the covers.
It’s like a mesmerizing audio book. It’s an,”I didn’t know that!” experience. Have you read 448 pages? I think not. And now the courts have ordered some redacted parts released. New info. Well, only the privileged few even knew about that.
Speak up Mr. Mueller, our ears are burning.
Mueller did exactly what he should have. He gave congress a road map. If you think Mueller took a pass on the investigation, you have not read the report.
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As is usual it seems every time I stop by to see what's going on here, you
Miz Dowd, and many of your followers can't get to the heart of whatever the current hissyfit is about. The reason Mueller isn't specific is because he cannot. If we go back to Starr v Clinton, Starr stated in his report that Bill was guilty of I believe 11 counts. I will repeat that word. GUILTY. If Mueller had found any guilt he could have used the 'G Word'. He did not because there was NO there there. If he had, his work would be done and then congressional DEMS would actually have something to work with instead of doing all the babbling. He was trying to throw them a bone but had nothing.
The notion that Trump can’t be indicted or prosecuted while in office should be respected, and Trump should be ejected from office as soon as possible. Maybe a long-overdue resignation should take place, with Trump giving excuses involving his quack doctors and high blood pressure. No shame or guilt in that. Or get someone to continually whisper into Trump’s ear, “No one is waiting to prosecute you, no collusion, no guilt,” until it’s time to slap the orange jumpsuit on Trump. In either case, Trump’s loss will be America’s win.
Dowd has spun a web that is inescapable where Mueller is concerned. His only real out would have been to explicitly challenge the Justice Department claim that a sitting president can’t be indicted. That at least would have been an important step toward actual legal clarification and it would have undercut the dismissive response of congressional Republicans. On the other hand, it took Barr to spin the report’s conclusion into yet another web that Mueller can’t escape. I understand his saying he has nothing new to add. He still needs to repeat what he did say in a forum that everyone can attend.
Are they still friends? Do the wives still, speak with one another? If the foursome go out together does someone else taste their food first?
What explains "people" like Barr, McConnell, Hannity, Giuliani, Kim, Putin, Trump?
They are contemporary brothers without a conscience, "humans" without humanity, the earth's present day Machiavellian psychopaths gifted with the talent to deceive the masses.
What explains them is not the right question. The salient question is, What explains people who support, follow, admire them? If we cannot get to the answer to that question, we are doomed to being preyed upon. Forevermore.
Mueller will testify. Or, he will be held in contempt. That's how it out to play out.
Here is the heart of the matter for me, from Maureen's column:
Just as Barr enables Trump, Mueller enabled Barr.
Both flawed men, flawed for different reasons, found one another in this drama and may have been everyone's undoing.
Is Mueller's "If we had confidence...." statement an example of:
1. Litotes (affirmation of something by the denial of its opposite)?
2. Apophasis (whereby the speaker brings up a subject by either denying it or by denying that it should be brought up)?
3. Understatement (speech or disclosure containing less strength for emphasis and effect)?
4. Antiphrasis (a subset of verbal irony)?
Or perchance one or more examples of rhetorical devices?
By the way, outstanding column, Ms. Dowd!
Your exploration of the use of language in general as well as Homeric epithets in particular brings to mind "the bright-eyed Athena," "sea-cleaving ships" (which sounds more like an Old English kenning) and other tropes.
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I agree whole heartedly that Mueller did not do the job as expected from a prosecutor and thus he betrayed the country. The FBI had no problem messing with Clinton, yet the same FBI, JD, and Obama felt shy stating that the Russians were helping Trump win the elections. Now Mueller is shy about conclusions. Barr is right to knife him: if you don't have the guts to finish the job, then don't take it. I respect the villain Barr more than the wimp Mueller.
Mueller is a Republican. Rectitude is fine but it also can be hidden behind. It’s a disaster. When Trump gets elected again don’t blame the dems when the focus of the Times is to blame the dems for failure when the ‘free’ press, essentially privately held, runs Republican talking points endlessly.
For one thing, people will admire Elliot Richardson, who passed away in 1999, as long as they will revile Bill Barr.
For another thing, saints may be too much of a straight arrow and devils may be to sweet tongued, decent people will always prefer the former even if they are infuriating at times; and even if decent people hope for a redemption of the devil, they will come to their senses to rid themselves of the sweet poison imparted by the devil.
So, whether you want to give Barr a Homeric epithet or not, history may have already written one for him. As for Mueller, he may be no Joseph N. Welch, but it is not Ken Starr either.
Good decent people, especially chroniclers and commentators like yourself, Ms Dowd, should set the record straight, so the future generations will learn from history and understand the real reason for the fall of America. No more fun and games, no more Barry!
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As a sidebar to Trumps AG, a friend of mine just returned from Alaska, took the red-eye back last night.
He just passed me in the garage and said Alaskans hate Trump. Not one did he speak with have anything to say good about him. Many up there see climate change (first hand) as the biggest problem and Trump is doing everything he can to wreck what little chance we have of a future.
Nice to hear, maybe Alaska will turn blue for the 2020 election.
Why look to Mueller as the saint, assuming that his word is final. As he said, "read the report". Democrats need to quit following and think for themselves and LEAD!!
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Apropos Disguised Devils and Saints
____________
Dear Maureen Dowd, I enjoyed your analytical objectivity and agree that in a Venetian Masquerade Ball one would only be able to keep Barr and Mueller apart without exposing their faces by concentrating on their necks. Otherwise, birds of a feather.
Excellent article. Food for thought. Democracy is a spectator sport, until it isn't. Until what remains of the Republican Party reads and understands the Mueller report and televised hearings occur, not much will change.
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Each volume of the Mueller Report HAS a summary and conclusion. The summaries are several pages and the conclusions very brief. Mueller summarized these in his recent appearance.
Our last presidential election was hacked by Russia, to the benefit of Trump and the detriment of Clinton. Even if there was insufficient evidence to indict the Trump campaign, there is evidence that they were aware and pleased by Russian meddling. Appalling as I find this and much of Trump's behavior, isn't the logical outgrowth of Part One of the Mueller Report for both parties to worry about the integrity of our future democratic elections and to be discussing solutions to this enormous threat?
Mueller Report Part Two also has a short summary, very short conclusion. It says, Trump could not be indicted by Mueller (Mueller's opinion of the situation) but Trump could also not be deemed innocent, or they would have said so!
Mueller's report then details multiple charges of obstruction of justice, signed, sealed, delivered (no more fact finding needed) for Congress to initiate an impeachment process, for the on-going process Congress is currently being thwarted in or for prosecution if Trump leaves office after one term.
From the misrepresentation of the Mueller Report by Attorney General Barr, you might assume he would have somehow reversed a Mueller indictment. Mueller's integrity stands, his report stands. It's actionable.
Americans can at least read the report summaries. Yes, we can!
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Dowd almost had me convinced, but "savvy" commenters have pointed out that for Mueller to accuse the president of a crime without indicting him (which he couldn't) would have not allowed Trump to defend himself in a court of law. That is it, the golden ticket. Fairness, of which we have seen none at all from the Trump administration has become so rare that we no longer recognize it.
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Mueller could have indicted, and then sealed the indictment, thereby preserving the ability (taking into account statute of limitations’ constraints) to unseal the indictment and prosecute Trump for multiple crimes the moment he leaves office.
I don't understand Dowd's inability to understand what Mueller had to say; I heard him loud and clear- Americans, it's up to you to protect the "Rule of Law" and your democracy.
And, he is right it is up to us- it's our turn now to do what we need to do as citizens of the United States of America to ensure that despots and criminals in high places are investigated, properly charged based on clear evidence, found guilty of "high crimes and misdemeanors" and punished for their crimes.
If it means handing over these persons after the 2020 election or after a successful impeachment, fine. Each requires a fully informed voting public, including our notoriously single-minded senators, fed up with the theft of our democracy and willing to do whatever necessary to restore its original purpose, a government body "by and for the people."
Read the Mueller report.
Support investigations and speak out when these investigations falter because this administration is ignoring the "rule of law" to protect itself from the public eye.
Share your informed opinion with your elected officials and demand a hearing when enough evidence has become public to make it crystal clear what this administration has been up to.
Vote.
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@V- rule of law only applies when you are the one ruling in our modern political environment
Why are we bound by the opinions of these two bureaucrats? Its plain enough on its face that Trump obstructed justice without the Mueller investigation. Anyone who has a heartbeat can see that. If Trump is obstructing why is he obstructing? Its simple - he has something to hide. No verbal Barr gymnastics can alter what is obvious. And when did Justice Department "opinion" become law. That's the most puzzling thing that somehow Justice department "opinion" and "policy" somehow is the governing law which precluded Mueller from stating the obvious, that Trump committed crimes. Whether or not he can be prosecuted is a different consideration. All Mueller did was confuse the issue enough so that Barr could come in and obfuscate the obvious with his nonsensical "bizzaro world" logic, where up is down, good is bad, and Trump is innocent.
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@Cassiopeia- please explain how the chief executive obstructed. Was the investigation into collusion ended or was it broadened after Comey was fired. Did Comey leak documents and make politically motivated decisions with Hillary’s email server or FISA warrants. Was Mueller, Rosenstein or other DOJ official ever fired. Did Trumps White House counsel give full access to The Mueller investor and documents turned over. As chief executive Trunp has the right to express all options and can choose to express them in public statements such as Twitter. Explain to me where the obstruction occurred.
An investigation should come to a conclusion if it can. The conclusion of MUELLER'S REPORT is:
He could not find enough evidence to indict Trump for criminal conspiracy (but there is plenty of evidence for cooperation and colluding) and he tried to obstruct justice AND MUELLER SHOULD HAVE SAID SO.
THIS IS NOT OVER YET.
@Alexander- colluding is more than a meeting and the meeting should not have taken place nor should an agent (Steele) of the DNC / Hillary campaign pay Russian informants for dirt on Trump. Apparently neither is illegal
It's scary to think that our leader's, and those who serve them, no longer care about their place in history.
Barr and Mueller are more like characters in a Shakespearian tragedy than heroes in a Homeric odyssey.
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@Jim Collins - I think you have a romanticized version of how the world works. Especially when your determination of good or evil depends on party affiliation
Mueller doesn't make sense to you because you start with the premise that he is a straight arrow, an imperfect hero. You undermine your analysis with your bias. Open your mind. Consider Mueller's history, Whitey Bulger, for instance, where he chose to protect the institution rather than act with integrity.
Mueller's job was not to exonerate and when he effectively did so in regard to collusion, he did it so he could NOT exonerate as to obstruction and create the atmosphere that exists now. That should have been obvious.
His job was to find probable cause. Period. When he did not he should have closed the investigation.
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@Carl- lets not forget the botched Anthrax investigations and UraniumOne started under his watch
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Outstanding column. Got it exactly right, and you gave voice to the extreme frustration I feel with Mueller.
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This op-ed strikes me as Utopian and unfair. Trump has been calling for a purge of the FBI since Day I. He now has a stooge and parrot in the office of AG. Said stooge is initiating the purge, via a witch-hunt against the loyal agents who initiated the Russia investigation.
Mueller was a special counsel, not a regular one. Seems to me, then, that Mueller was hinting at how precarious Justice is, when it comes to reining in the treachery of Trump. He's invited the politicians and press to both read and interpret his report; and he's invited Congress to hold the trial.
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You hit a bullseye on this one, Maureen. Mueller is operating in the era of the Greatest Generation without understanding that the rules have changed. The Baby Boom generation of the Bush neo-cons, McConnell, Falwell, Trump and yes, even Bill Clinton, have changed the rules. The ends justify the means. Barr is just one more in a line of power hungry narcissists who have lost sight of what made America special. Mueller's values preclude him from participating in the degradation of our institutions but he may unwittingly be contributing to same.
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Am I missing something? Now that Mueller is a private citizen can't be be compelled via subpoena to publicly testify in front of Congress. If so then why hasn't that subpoena been sent? Also, seriously someone needs to look at Barr's recent finances. Like Kavanaugh I bet it contains some large mysterious sum of money that no one that didn't come from his job. Count on it.
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@Blackcat66
Nadler and Mueller had been negotiating for Mueller's testimony. Then Mueller gave his televised speech fanning the flames, followed by Nadler effectively saying, "Okey Doke."
Doesn't it seem likely then that a deal was cut for Mueller to avoid a subpoena from Nadler?
Trump's obstruction has been apparent since he fired James Comey. Mr Mueller, unfortunately, chooses to maintain his credential as a Republican rather than tell the truth. Kenneth Starr had no problem whatsoever delivering his report and boxes of evidence to Congress, and he sang to the housetops about a president's shameful private conduct. After a year of Mueller's investigation, where Trump denigrated it and those in charge relentlessly, and Mueller's choice to accept Trump's written answers rather than demand his testimony, I sadly concluded that he was on the Trump train. How I wish it were not so.
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It is often hard for most folks to understand super-smart people, an Einstein or Turing. Likewise the logic of exception used by Mueller is hard for most of us to parse no matter how clear it is to him. Minister of Misinformation Barr, on the other hand, is quite clear in his words, just not in his logic or motives. Barr needs to be pinned into the corner of testimony under oath by Congress about the lying to Congress his summary actually was, and why he lied.
Mueller wants no part of such testimony. Too bad. His report speaks for itself, and is clear to him? OK. Ask him instead why he ignored the clear intent of the Special Counsel Act and the Constitution and instead went with the "long-standing" (not!) Justice Dept. memo. Ask him why sealed indictments were not used. Ask him whether state prosecutors can indict a president even if feds cannot. Ask him who should investigate and indict POTUS and Justice Dept. officials if not the federal branch whose job is to investigate And indict. Ask him the differences between a policy, a law, and the Constitution.
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Something about the Mueller report doesn't seem right. What if, Trump behaved in an unhinged manner because he was wrongly accused all along? What if Mueller is stringing us along with unflattering facts about Trump that he knows don't amount to collusion.... for political reasons?
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I’m listening to the audiobook version of the Mueller Report now. It backs up every finding with evidence. And it makes very clear that the President committed obstruction of justice.
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There is another way forward, but you have to be patient. One year and six months from now there is supposed to be an election. Exercise your democratic rights, get the vote out. Toss Trump and his senate enablers then bring on the charges. In the meantime there is work to be done to make certain no Homeric odes are sung about Barr, or Trump or any of the others who have enabled them. Let them spend their golden years in Leavenworth or Gitmo or wherever seems convenient for you.
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Dear Maureen, you have it wrong this time. A special counsel is not appointed to be a judge and jury leading to conclusions of convictions. Rather, a special counsel is an appointed fact finder for the grand jury of the American people and their representatives in Congress.
Mr. Mueller has done a credible and fair job of finding, organizing and reporting the facts and presenting them to the American people. It is now up to the people to decide and pass their judgment in November of 2020. This is how our democracy does and should work. Imperfect ? Yes. Will our Republic be stronger for it ? We shall see. I hope so, but I am imperfect too--I am an optimist.
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@Joe B Optimist-how sad.
I used to read the Times because it kept me updated on the events connected with Trump and the Mueller investigation, and gave me hope that something would result that would stop our slide into autocracy and chaos and preserve our democracy. When I read articles such as this I get the feeling that I am reading a post mortem, a rehash of events and people that have gotten us to the point that we are now. I get the feeling that we have lost and the momentum is such that we will continue to lose our country to a handful conspirators, Trump, Barr, McConnell, McCarthy who have put personal ambition before country, our citizens. I see few solutions, certainly not the Democrats at this point.
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