May 1, 2019: Robert Mueller Makes Clear - His Report Did Not Exonerate the President

 

May 1, 2019: Three perplexing questions confront us as the month begins. First, are shrimp getting high? 

Second, how many times can one president tweet in a 24-hour period before his thumbs blister and bleed? 

Third, did the Mueller Report exonerate Trump?

 

Let’s start with shrimp. Scientists in Great Britain were recently testing river waters at fifteen sites. As expected they found trace elements of pesticides in all the fish. But who knew! Freshwater shrimp were getting high. Traces of cocaine showed up in tissue samples at every site. 

The ways in which humankind has managed to degrade the environment are many and varied.

Have some cocaine with your shrimp.

 

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“This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations.” 

Special Counsel Robert Mueller

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As for tweeting, President Trump rises early to start the month of May. His first tweet comes at 4:56 a.m. Trump is in an orange snit because the International Association of Fire Fighters decided to endorse Joe Biden for president in 2020, with union leaders explaining, “Joe has always had our back.” This pisses off the president who tweets angrily, “I’ve done more for Firefighters than this dues sucking union will ever do [emphasis added throughout], and I get paid ZERO!” 

By 6:01 a.m. he has already tweeted and retweeted more than sixty times, risking carpal tunnel syndrome. 

By the time he hits the sack after a hard day as president, Trump has tweeted 83 times, ending with a quote from Sean Hannity at 10:14 p.m.: “The Mueller Witch Hunt is completely OVER!”

 

It’s pathetic, really, because earlier in the day we learned that not everyone believes the Mueller Report totally exonerates President Donald R. Trump, as Donald R. has been insisting. (The “R.” is for “Russia.”) 

Who disagrees with his assessment? 

Special Counsel Mueller! 

Once again, the free press has to step in and reveal the truth, releasing a copy of a letter Mueller sent to Attorney General William R. Barr (he gets the “R.” too). Barr has been playing dumb for five weeks and telling everyone he and Mueller agree. The Attorney General says President Trump is exonerated! There was no collusion. And without the underlying crime, Barr insists the president cannot obstruct justice, even if he pays every witness $5 million to lie.

 

Thanks to reporters doing their jobs, we find out Mueller did not intend to clear Trump. We learn he sent a forceful letter to the AG, outlining several concerns. In that letter, the Special Counsel explains: 

As we stated in our meeting of March 5 and reiterated to the Department early in the afternoon of March 24, the introductions and executive summaries of our two-volume report accurately summarize this Office’s work and conclusions. The summary letter the Department sent to Congress and [Barr] released to the public late in the afternoon of March 24 did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this Office’s work and conclusions. We communicated that concern to the Department on the morning of March 25. There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation. This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations.

 

At any rate, Mr. Barr spends a good part of the first day of May testifying before the GOP-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee. 

 

“Part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” 

Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and his Republican colleagues spend their two hours’ worth of time allotted for questioning on critical issues like Hillary Clinton’s emails (which might make sense if she were president, and we believed her missing emails would reveal a conspiracy with Russians to steal the 2016 election). 

Sen. Josh Hawley’s focus is typical. He digs deep into the Mueller Report to land on an August 26, 2016, text message from F.B.I. agent Peter Strzok. It reads: “Just went to a southern Virginia Walmart. I could smell the Trump support.” (You can go to the 3:25 mark on this video link if you’d like to see the senator at work.) 

Hawley is shocked and outraged and who cares about pages 112-123 of the Mueller Report where we learn that Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign chairman up until that very same month, is working on a “backdoor” peace deal which would be in the best interests of Russia? 

If I was Sen. Hawley, I might zoom in on this secret August 2016 meeting, between Manafort and Konstantin Kilimnik, as noted in the Mueller Report. “Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort met in New York City with his long-time business associate Konstantin Kilimnik, who the FBI assesses to have ties to Russian intelligence.”

 

If I were Chairman Graham, I might focus on this June 3, 2016, email from Rob Goldstone, a publicist for a Russian singer named Emin Agalarov, to Donald Trump Jr.: 

Emin just called and asked me to contact you with something very interesting. The Crown prosecutor of Russia met with his father Aras this morning and in their meeting offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father. This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.

 

In fact, I might beseech Chairman Graham to heed the words of a great U.S. senator, uttered just days after news of that secret meeting that Goldstone and Don Jr. arranged broke in The New York Times. That great senator asked future F.B.I. Director Christopher Wray, on July 12, 2017, during his Senate confirmation hearing, if he thought Don Jr. should have taken the meeting – and did he think Don Jr. or someone involved should have notified the Bureau? 

Yes, Wray agreed, saying: “To the members of this committee, any threat or effort to interfere with our elections from any nation state or any nonstate actor is the kind of thing the FBI would want to know.” 

Who was that great U.S. senator? Who found that email to Don Jr. from Goldstone, and the decision to take the meeting, so disturbing? 

Lindsey Graham.