This New Yorker cartoon brilliantly depicts what a lot of us are feeling about Attorney General Barr’s four page summary of the Mueller report. At first blush it gives Trump license to proclaim his complete exoneration by the Mueller investigation. But, on closer examination it appears to be a carefully constructed whitewash.
While most media reports have accepted Barr’s assertion that Mueller’s report exonerated Trump from collusion – and have focused on its not exonerating him from obstruction – my reading of Barr’s letter actually neither exonerates trump from collusion nor obstruction. Since the media has focused on the obstruction matter, I will focus primarily on collusion.
A careful reading of Barr’s letter reveals that it does not state that the Trumps did not conspire with the Russians. It only quotes the following partial sentence from Mueller’s report: “[T]he investigation did not establish (my underline) that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian Government in its election interference activities”. Note that it does not say that it did establish that they did not conspire. And, since this quote was lifted from a longer sentence, it is necessary to be able to see the rest of the sentence, as well as the paragraph that contains it, in order to determine whether what it appears to say is qualified by the omitted verbiage – that only the favorable stuff has been shown. Furthermore, if there was a definitive finding elsewhere in the report that Trump and his associates did not conspire, surely Barr would have quoted that? So If this is indeed the most positive quote that Barr could find in the entire report, we can only assume that the rest of the report is quite negative about collusion or conspiracy.
One thing the Barr letter is unequivocal about is that the Russians did interfere with the election in Trump’s favor: both by releasing Democratic party emails that damaged Hillary; and by conducting “social media operations in the United States to sow social discord, eventually with the aim of interfering with the election.” It also says that the Russians made “multiple offers to assist the Trump campaign”, which confirms that the Trump campaign had knowledge of the activities that a foreign government was conducting, in its efforts to influence the US presidential election on its behalf. It shows that, at the least, the Trump campaign was passively accepting such assistance, rather than rejecting it, as a clearly illegal activity – and reporting it to the FBI or the CIA.
There is also a great deal of publicly available information that shows that the Trump campaign’s acceptance of Russian help was not so passive. This includes Donald Junior’s emailed “I love it” response when offered dirt on Hillary by the Russians. Also, we know that Manafort, while Trump campaign chairman, provided Trump polling data to his associate Constantin Kilimnik, who was connected to Russian intelligence. We know that Trump personally dictated a memo in Junior’s name lying about the infamous Trump Tower meeting that was meant to deliver the Hillary dirt. Then there are Jared Kushner’s meetings with the Russian ambassador, attempting to set up a back-channel between Trump and Putin, using Russian embassy communications channels. And these are only things from the top of my head, There are many more, most of which I have covered in previous Gerry Meandering posts.
Now a word on Barr’s decision that there was no obstruction of justice, because there was no crime. According to his letter, this decision was based solely on the Russian matter. However, there is at least one other area where we know Trump committed a crime – notably the Michael Cohen case in the Southern District of New York, where Trump is cited as Person 1, instructing Cohen to perpetrate a campaign finance violation, for which Cohen has been convicted. Trump actually signed a check to Cohen, while in office, executing that violation. Additionally, there is strong evidence of other illegalities: in Trump’s dealings with banks and insurance companies; in the Trump Foundation; and in his using funds donated to his inauguration committee as a personal slush fund. One of the reasons Trump wanted to get rid of Comey – and tried several times to have the White House legal counsel fire Mueller – was to prevent this information from coming out. Why did Barr not consider this in declaring that Trump did not commit obstruction of justice?
Remember that William Barr was Trump’s hand-picked candidate for attorney general, knowing he would be the person in control of the release of the Mueller report. Before Trump selected him, Barr had written an unsolicited nineteen page memo to the justice department, describing his legal theory that there is virtually no way a sitting president could commit obstruction of justice. While he had previously served as attorney general under George W Bush, at the time he wrote that memo Barr was a private citizen and, in doing so, seemed to be angling for the AG appointment. There is little doubt that this was a major factor in Trump’s selecting him. Now, from Trump’s viewpoint, Barr has done his job. The Barr Report gives Trump the opportunity to gloat now. It also enables Barr to delay the release of the Mueller Report, providing time for Trump to exact his will and continuously proclaim his phony exoneration. But this is a short term victory.
Release of the full Mueller report is vital and will happen eventually, so the truth will come out. The truth will also come out from the investigations still being conducted by the SDNY and other state legal departments, as well as the justice department itself The truth is a powerful thing. Having a president who has lied more than five thousand times while in office will not ultimately be overridden by an Attorney General who could well be his stooge.
So eventually it is the people who know that Trump is unfit to be president who will be vindicated. Eventually cannot come soon enough. Keep the faith!
Gerry Meandering 