Mueller Report Release and Reaction Watch (Updated)
No summary will be released Saturday
The long-awaited Mueller report was submitted to the Attorney General yesterday, and to the stunned, unhappy shock of the left, he has reportedly not recommended any further indictments.
Reports are circulating that Attorney General William Barr could release a summary to Congress as early as today.
Attorney General #WilliamBarr could release a summary of the #MuellerReport as early as today.
Listen here: https://t.co/Dw0cHZqOf8
— CBS News Radio (@CBSNewsRadio) March 23, 2019
If that happens, there are sure to be reports on the summary contents, and we’ll keep you posted should and as those unfold.
Meanwhile, Ken Starr has penned an interesting piece at the Atlantic that reminds readers of the regulations surrounding the special counsel investigation and report.
Under the regulations that governed his appointment and now guide his final acts, Mueller is to provide a confidential report to one person only: the attorney general. The regulations, which were promulgated 20 years ago during the final months of the Clinton administration, do not contemplate any sort of report sent directly from the special counsel to Congress or the general public.
To the contrary, the regulations call upon the attorney general, William Barr, to receive the confidential report and then do two things: First, to notify Congress of the investigation’s completion and, second, to provide an explanation for certain specifically enumerated actions. There is no requirement for a Barr-edited version of the Mueller report.
In short, there may be no Mueller report at all, save for the confidential document that lands on Barr’s desk. And these same regulations do not require the attorney general to simply pass along a “confidential” report that may very well contain unflattering information about one or more individuals. Including the president.
. . . . This is not to say that Barr’s hands are tied. Mueller is in regulatory handcuffs, but Barr—as the attorney general—still maintains a goodly amount of discretion as to what he will choose to report to Congress. In his exercise of discretion, Barr may well opt in favor of transparency, while complying with statutory obligations not to reveal grand-jury information. (His letter to Congress said that he is “committed to as much transparency as possible,” and that he would consult with Mueller and Rosenstein to “determine what other information from the report can be released to Congress and the public consistent with the law, including the Special Counsel regulations, and the Department’s long-standing practices and policies.”)
Barr also has inherent discretion, as an officer of the Justice Department, to share whatever he intends to report to Congress with the president and the president’s lawyers. Why would he do that? To ensure that the president’s constitutionally recognized privilege—executive privilege—is dutifully safeguarded.
The attorney general also has the raw power to jettison the regulations entirely. Unlike a statute, the regulations may be dispatched by the stroke of a pen, and new ones put in place. He may determine that the public interest requires maximum transparency, as long as grand-jury secrecy is scrupulously maintained. But unless and until the attorney general takes that bold action, the current regulations stand and have the force of law.
With no idea at all what is in the report, 2020 Democrat hopefuls are demanding that it be made public.
Releasing the Mueller report to the public is about protecting our democracy and the people’s confidence in our elections and government. The White House must not interfere in any way — give the information to the American people.
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) March 23, 2019
This report should be made public immediately. https://t.co/Q2JCExqYaA
— Cory Booker (@CoryBooker) March 22, 2019
Release the Mueller report to the American people.
— Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) March 22, 2019
With the Mueller investigation over, The Washington Examiner notes five things that did not happen.
1. Mueller did not indict Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, or other people whose purported legal jeopardy was the subject of intense media speculation in the last year.
2. Mueller did not charge anyone in the Trump campaign or circle with conspiring with Russia to fix the 2016 election, as was the subject of intense media speculation in the last year.
3. Mueller did not subpoena the president, as was the subject of intense media speculation in the last year.
4. The president did not fire Mueller, as was the subject of intense media speculation in the last year.
5. The president did not interfere with the Mueller investigation, as was the subject of intense media speculation in the last year. In his letter to Congress, Barr noted the requirement that he notify lawmakers if top Justice Department officials ever interfered with the Mueller investigation. “There were no such instances,” Barr wrote.
Meanwhile, House Democrats are planning a conference call to discuss the report.
There will be a conference call with the entire House Democratic caucus at 3 pm to discuss The Mueller Report. Stay tuned…
— Alana Abramson (@aabramson) March 23, 2019
They want it released, too.
Now that Special Counsel Mueller has submitted his report to the Attorney General, it is imperative for Mr. Barr to make the full report public and provide its underlying documentation and findings to Congress. #ReleaseTheReport pic.twitter.com/v1ROpZBqZJ
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) March 22, 2019
Around Twitter, there are some great responses to the report’s release.
#MuellerTime certainly not Happy Hour for #Democrats. Robert Mueller just got President Trump re-elected by a landslide…
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) March 22, 2019
To all the whining, loser liberals… pic.twitter.com/AexswlHcgo
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) March 23, 2019
Can’t wait to watch the #Democrats do a u-turn on their hero… #MuellerReport pic.twitter.com/ux2143SiBg
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) March 23, 2019
Apparently, they’re already saying that the report might not be a big deal over at MSNBC.
Amazing to hear people on *MSNBC* saying Mueller report might not be a big deal
— Rich Lowry (@RichLowry) March 23, 2019
Some predictions made earlier this month did not age well:
"…I think it’s entirely possible, if not likely, that there will be other indictments."
–@RepAdamSchiff 3/22/19#MuellerReport pic.twitter.com/VtQ4fMbIiG— Larry Elder (@larryelder) March 23, 2019
FLASHBACK: John Brennan Predicted Additional Mueller Indictments Just Two Weeks Ago https://t.co/y7M1GrdNpL pic.twitter.com/qj6xvHJWEt
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) March 23, 2019
Lara Logan appeared on Fox & Friends Saturday morning and noted that there are no headlines about President Trump being vindicated.
Journalist Lara Logan said Saturday that the response to the Mueller report was striking because of what was not happening: there were no blaring headlines boldly proclaiming the vindication of President Donald Trump.
. . . . Logan, during an appearance on “Fox & Friends” Saturday, argued that if the Mueller report had resulted in indictments or charges of any kind, that would most certainly be the top story in every paper.
My question is this: If charges had been brought against the president, then the headlines would all be screaming about, you know, victory, right, for the left. Vindication. This proves that what the left has been saying is right. Now, no charges have been brought but I don’t see screaming headlines that say this vindicates the president.
We don’t know what is in the report at this point, but I think that Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) asks a good question:
Democrats have spent the past two years using speculation about the Mueller Report to vilify @realDonaldTrump and threaten impeachment. If the report proves there was no collusion, will they finally admit to the American people that this was a witch hunt and move on? pic.twitter.com/IUrvvTRZuv
— Steve Scalise (@SteveScalise) March 23, 2019
UPDATE: No summary of Mueller’s report will be released Saturday
From Politico:
The public and members of Congress will be in the dark for at least one more day on special counsel Robert Mueller’s central conclusions about contacts between associates of President Donald Trump and Russia during the 2016 campaign.
The Justice Department informed Congress on Saturday afternoon that Attorney General William Barr would not provide findings to lawmakers until at least Sunday, officials at Justice and on Capitol Hill confirmed, prolonging rampant speculation about what might be in Mueller’s report and fueling Democrats’ increasingly urgent pleas to release the entire document.
However, Barr, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and their top aides were at Justice Department headquarters Saturday poring over Mueller’s submission and considering how to boil down the core conclusions into a summary that can be made public before officials embark on a review of the whole document, an official said.
Access to Mueller’s report has been limited to “very few” individuals, a Justice official said, in part out of concern about leaks of one of the most politically sensitive documents in modern American history.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
TDS levels are off the charts. The dems will never get over 2016. Now it’s time to expose FISA gate.
Emergency rooms at hospitals across the nation are overloaded with TDSers. What will happen to people with real medical emergencies?
No matter what Barr releases, screams of, “COVER UP” will follow immediately. Oh no, wait. They’ve already started,
Because it makes so much sense that the deep state that so wanted to prevent Trump from becoming president would then undermine their own work to protect him.
This morning NPR weekend edition dragged a barnacle encrusted former low echelon Nixon prosecutor from drydock and reheated seven hundred day old leftover Nothingburgers.
James Woods: “Lunch is served”! And, so is dinner and breakfast for many, many days ahead in Hotel Whine-a-fornia!
Time to bury the Donkey-Ass eared Muller.
Can we now have a special prosecutor investigate those behind the Russian collusion fraud?
Of course you know you are talking about OBAMA, BIDEN, HILLARY, HOLDER, LYNCH, and thousands of the Democrats embedded in Fed. Tick agencies.
Let the Firing Squads for Traitors warm up!!!!!!
A special prosecutor appointed to investigate everything Hillary!, to specifically include, but not necessarily be limited to, her connection to the Trump–Russia (Steele) dossier, her server(s) and her overall handling of classified information, and alleged corruption at the Clinton Foundation, all of which would cover that and much more. It’s long overdue.
It took two years for Mueller to write up his report. There’s no reason why it should take Barr *less* than two days to go through it and summarize it. Particularly on a weekend.
To all the angst-ridden leftists who are crying to see if there’s something, *anything* in the report they can go screaming off into the night waving over their head, sit down. Have a beer. Consider how much of your life you’ve wasted over the last two years chasing this particular windmill. The whole thing will be available on Kindle in a short time, and you can sit on the toilet while reading it so you’re within reach of sufficient tissues to soak up those tears.
I’ve seen a few videos highlighting the MSM responses to the news, most are funny if you can stand to listen to them.
I just wish that these people would add the clip of Obama whispering and Medvedev:
President Obama: “On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space.”
President Medvedev: “Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you…”
President Obama: “This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.”
President Medvedev: “I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir, and I stand with you.”
AG Barr: now, where are the clinton, wassherman-schultz (congressional computer scandal) and obama/jarrett investigations?
No one trusts the United States justice department anymore. It’s horrific. The ONLY way to rescue the DOJ and the US justice system is for Barr to complete the circle and investigate and prosecute the crimes we have all seen happen right in front of us.
And we ESPECIALLY don’t trust the “Fibbers Bureau of Insurrection/Injustice”, the Intel Agencies who stood by to watch what they knew was BS, and the cowards that we have in Congress supposedly representing us, particularly of “The Stupid Party” run by Mitch McCommunist and Kevin McBoehner.
WE WANT OUR OWN HAND PICKED SPECIAL PROSECUTOR WITH ONLY CONSERVATIVE LAWYERS WHO HATE DEMTARDS LOOKING AT EVERYTHING.
We WANT JUSTICE THAT DEFINITELY INCLUDES INDICTMENTS, PROSECUTIONS, AND PUNISHMENT; NO MORE BS CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES THAT HAVE PROVEN TO BE NOTHING MORE THAN PHOTO OPS FOR POLITICIANS TO RUN FOR REELECTION AND WASTE OUR TIME. Congress has been revealed to be nothing but a toothless tiger and irritant to those who can plainly see through the thin veil of BS to provide distractions and entertainment to the unserious.
Pelosi has already staked out a position so she can claim “coverup” knowing there’s no such thing. She’s saying the dems will boycott a classified briefing on the report, calling instead for publication of the full text. This is bull crap.
The entire reason for the probe was an investigation into possible Russian intelligence actions, part of ANY investigation will, by necessity, have to use whatever spy-related access we have to what the Russians are doing (moles, double agents, informants, intercepts, whatever) as part of the investigation and the report. THAT must not be revealed to the Russians, hence it MUST not be in any public or dem-leaked version of the report.
There’s a word for what you’re engaging in when you reveal our classified capabilities to enemy nations for no good reason other than political gain. That word is treason.
I just love how they keep screaming for immediate release of full report. They know full well that there is a process that has to be followed. Also, just imagine how many pages the report it and people were actually expecting some info today?
If the full report is ever released to the public, any classified information in it will have to be redacted. That review process will take time, so the lynch mob will have to be patient (although it’s not in their nature.)
This could have been better for chastising the exploding heads! Why give out that information? It surely would have been better to state “A list of recommended further indictments will be released on mm/dd, I have no additional comments at this time”. Empty list is released on mm/dd.
Let me go on the record with my opinion. By the way, this is the first and only time since the entire circus began that I have seen anyone date the special counsel regulations. I intend this as a great condemnation of modern reporting.
The special counsel regulations are poor. They are easily abused. They are, in numerous senses, foolish, and prone to being manipulated to will them into authorizing an independent counsel without running afoul of the constitutional conflicts thereof. In so doing, the executive branch is turned upon itself in a constant state of conflict; instead of a pyramid, it becomes a pretzel. The regulations served their original purpose – producing a report about the Branch Davidian disaster that resulted in no prosecutions of federal officers, no accountability, no liability. This is taken from how White Papers are used in Commonwealth countries: you investigate an issue to smother it.
Long story short, making the government separate from the President who supposedly presides over the government completely wrecks separation of powers and turns a pyramid into an Ouroboros, constantly biting its own tail as it feeds on itself. Either get rid of the President for whatever actual or perceived reason, or let him govern. A state where neither is true – and furthermore, where prosecutors are divorced from political oversight and accountability to elected officials – means that a transfer of constitutional power not to Congress, nor to the public, but to the closely knit legal societies the special counsel regulations were intended to insulate from accountability.
Inevitably, there would be a President unpopular with the Beltway, and an Attorney General weak enough to be swayed by institutional momentum. The regulations made this circus inevitable. It was only a matter of time. The results are in. This is a failed experiment. I hope we learn from it for the decades to come.
Seems to me that the special counsel regulations are only part of it. The regs should be tightened so that special counsel can only be invoked if there is actual evidence of a crime. In this case, Mueller was presented with a phony dossier that was rubber-stamped by the NSA judge…. at least four times. THAT is the big crime. The NSA itself must be investigated and prosecuted. At lest the Nixon and Clinton cases were launched to investigate crimes. Mueller was tasked to investigate a fraud and not exonerated Trump but exposed evidence of the actual crimes themselves. So this investigation backfired.
There were so many treasonous crimes committed just to launch the special prosecutor phase. We need to get past Mueller ourselves and start focusing on the real crime, the NSA/DOJ/FBI/Clinton collusion. That is probably the biggest criminal conspiracy ever perpetrated in American history.
It’s time we get to the “Lock her up!!!” part and make sure to include her co-conspirators. Otherwise, we’ll never get to the clean-up and healing part.
AG Barr should allow the Dems and NeverTrumpers to stew and wallow in their anguish until it reaches a fever pitch (could get even worse?) and then release his bullet points summary report.
Trump has no say on what Barr should do but if he keeps repeating he fully supports the release of the entire report, it just amplifies the insanity of the establishment opposition.
This became a mental illness long ago. Will it never end? When do the white coats arrive to take them to the loony bin?
Americans are burned out on this. It’s like listening to a bratty child having a tantrum for hours on end, even after he can’t cry anymore. Where are the parents?
I’m hoping that all of this, including, I hope, investigations of the criminal proponents of this attempt to thwart or steal the 2016 election, spurs a healthy round of strident conservatives to primary the Vichy GOP incumbents in 2020.
Let the primaries begin.
Seeing the denouement of this hit job has also revealed to me exactly how inept Jeff Sessions truly was as an AG.
I think that someone had something on him – i.e., that he was compromised to do his job.
The face of Jeff Sessionszzzz was covered with perspiration on the day that he left the DoJ upon being fired. He looked like a man who was having a heart attack and scared to death.
If he wasn’t part of the Deep State Coup D’Etat, he must be the dumbest b@stard ever born to have taken the job in the first place and to have let Rat Rod Rosenstein counsel him immediately to recuse himself.
Sorry, but I’ve got no good feelings for the one person who I thought was going to be a help to President Trump given his history in the U.S. Senate. Jeff Sessionszzz is the biggest disappointment of any the President nominated to be in his Cabinet. I trust that we hopefully will never see nor hear form him again if we are lucky.
After thinking about this some more, I don’t see how Barr could release the entire report. Trump has been exonerated. There are many innocent people included in the report that need to be redacted. To release the entire report allows the swamp to make a list of those people for further abuse. We know that Congress top-down cannot be trusted not to leak.
I don’t think it important that Barr not release anything more than the general conclusions of the investigation. Congress has no authority to do anything to Barr. He would be operating well within his lawful authority which doesn’t require him to report anything at all to anyone.
Let Congress do what they want. Now let the DOJ move on to the next investigation: Hillary. Then we’ll be learning even more about how utterly corrupt the ruling establishment truly is. Expect violence.