Hanging Off The Cliff

Americans should be in much better physical condition considering how much we love jumping to conclusions.

And we're always willing to help each do exactly that.

Lawfare Blog:

Leave it to President Trump to describe as “Total EXONERATION” a document that specifically quotes Special Counsel Robert Mueller as saying that one of his principal findings “does not exonerate” the president.

The brief letter sent by Attorney General William Barr to congressional leaders on Sunday afternoon summarizing Mueller’s findings is a complicated document. In key respects, it contains very good news for President Trump about a scandal that has dogged his presidency since before he even took office. The determination of just how good the news is - whether it amounts to the exoneration Trump claims on these points or whether we’re dealing with conduct just shy of prosecutable - will have to await the text of Mueller’s report itself. But for those who quite reasonably demanded a serious investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and of cooperation and coordination with it on the part of the Trump campaign, it has to be significant that Mueller, after the better part of two years of investigating, has not found that anyone associated with the Trump campaign knowingly conspired with Russia’s efforts.

In other respects, however, Barr’s summary of Mueller’s report is ominous for the president. While Mueller did not find that Trump obstructed his investigation, he also made a point of not reaching the opposite conclusion: that Trump didn’t obstruct the investigation. Indeed, he appears to have created a substantial record of the president’s troubling interactions with law enforcement for adjudication in noncriminal proceedings—which is to say in congressional hearings that are surely the next step.

What makes the document more complicated still is the fact that it offers only a skeletal description of Mueller’s report. It only purports to convey Mueller’s top-line findings and does not include any of the evidence or legal analysis that underlies those findings. It doesn’t tell any of the stories that the Mueller report will tell. It only distills and announces two high-altitude legal conclusions from those stories. Assuming that Barr is characterizing Mueller’s findings reasonably, that leaves a whole raft of questions unanswered about what those stories will be - and what their impact will be.

We'll see what we see. 

We don't know what's what yet. 

There are still 57 indictments under seal.

There are numerous court transcripts that remain heavily redacted.

There are 17 other investigations in process - some of which are beyond the reach of 45*'s Executive Branch Mafia.

And there are no simple 10-word answers to any of the questions that we all still have.

If there are signals for me to find in Barr's letter, they include:

• We ain't seen nothin' yet
• Keep your powder dry
• Muddle through and stumble forward

If Barr is the plutocrat I think he is, we're going to see another iteration of The Great Smoothing-Over. ie: after every big fuckup, we have "cooler heads" who step in to calm us down and keep us from actually starting to shoot each other again.

(Ed Note: Not that we're particularly shy about gunning each down like rabid dogs - I'm talking about choosing up sides for a flat-out civil-fucking-war)

Anyway, I include only the big fuckups that I can remember from my own lifetime.

1. JFK assassination
2. Civil rights / Vietnam era riots
3. Watergate
4. Iran-Contra
5. Iraq war
6. The crash of 2008

Obviously, there are others, but the main feature of The Smoothing is that justice is largely denied. And that's what Mr Barr is good at.

I'll go out on a limb and say that 45* is not the one who picked Bill Barr, any more than 45* was the one who picked either Gorsuch or Kavanaugh.

But before I go full Howard Beale, I'll try to heed my own advice and just wait for whatever shoes are going to drop next.

Fake lord help us.