Mueller’s performance raised questions that reached far beyond one appearance before one committee. It called into doubt the degree to which Mueller was in charge of the entire special counsel investigation.
“You wonder how much of this was affecting the investigation,” one Republican member of the House said as he watched Mueller’s testimony. “It sheds a lot of light on what happened the last two years. He wasn’t in charge.”
Related”The very fact that Democrats had to subpoena Mueller in order to create this final moment should in fact be the final reminder of what a mistake it was for Democrats to have waited on him.
This is going to be rough today if Mueller is so weak and shaky he can’t even form a sentence
"You can charge 13 Russians, no one has ever heard of, you can charge all kinds of people around the president with false statements, but the guy who puts this whole story in motion, you can’t charge him?"
As the Republicans introduce new and difficult questions with every questioner.
Chris Wallace: "I think this has been a disaster for the Democrats and I think it's been a disaster for the reputation of Robert Mueller." #MuellerHearingpic.twitter.com/FZczz4erf2
You have to look at this from a perspective of “how is this beneficial to the Democrats”. They, obviously, were aware of Mueller’s mental state (having met with his representatives and him continuously over the last month) and, they also know, that he didn’t select the investigative team. In fact, the investigative team selected him as the front man. But, how is this beneficial to the Democrats?
The only thing I can suggest is that they are going to throw Mueller under the bus. This is merely and apparatus to suggest that their own ongoing and obsessive investigations (Congressional House) are clearly warranted and necessary since the Special Investigator was so inept. They are going to go full retard on subpoenas etc. And, the entire time they are going to cite the improperly done Mueller investigation as their justification.
Credible theory.
Socialist Weasel has the sads.
A frail old man, unable to remember things, stumbling, refusing to answer basic questions…I said it in 2017 and Mueller confirmed it today — All you pundits and moderates and lame Dems who told the public to put their faith in the esteemed Robert Mueller — just STFU from now on
Two U.S. officials briefed on the inspector general’s investigation of possible FBI misconduct said Comey was essentially “running a covert operation against” the president, starting with a private “defensive briefing” he gave Trump just weeks before his inauguration. They said Horowitz has examined high-level FBI text messages and other communications indicating Comey was actually conducting a “counterintelligence assessment” of Trump during that January 2017 meeting in New York.
In addition to adding notes of his meetings and phone calls with Trump to the official FBI case file, Comey had an agent inside the White House who reported back to FBI headquarters about Trump and his aides, according to other officials familiar with the matter. […]
Republicans including House Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Devin Nunes believe that Comey, like his top counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok, was attempting to “stop” the Trump presidency for political reasons.
“You have the culmination of the ultimate spying, where you have the FBI director spying on the president, taking notes [and] illegally leaking those notes of classified information” to anti-Trump media, Nunes said in a recent interview. His panel is one of two House committees scheduled to hear testimony from Mueller on Wednesday.
Lots more at the link, though much of it is rehash of what’s been known for some time.
Although they interacted with Mueller’s team at different times and in different places, the witnesses and targets often echoed each other. Almost all decried what they called Mueller’s “scorched earth” methods that affected their physical, mental and financial health. Most said they were forced to retain high-priced Washington lawyers to protect them from falling into “perjury traps” for alleged lying, which became the special counsel’s charge of last resort. In the end, Mueller convicted four Trump associates for this so-called process crime, and investigated an additional five individuals for allegedly making false statements – including former Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Some subjects of investigation said Mueller’s agents and prosecutors tried to pressure them into admitting things to give the appearance of collusion. They demanded to know if they had spoken to anyone with a “Russian accent.” They threatened to jail them “for life” and to drag their wives or girlfriends into the investigation. […]
His witness list, which grew to more than 500, targeted conservative journalists and authors, conservative think tank analysts and Republican congressional staffers. Witnesses were compelled to comply with more than 2,800 grand jury subpoenas and nearly 500 search-and-seizure warrants. Casting an even wider net, Mueller also issued 230 orders for communications records and almost 50 orders authorizing use of “pen registers” – devices that record dialed numbers — to collect phone records on individuals, most of whom turned out to be innocent.
But, the 10 witnesses swept up in the inquiry say those facts and figures, as well as the final determination that there was no conspiracy or collusion with the Russians, do not begin to account for the human toll of the Mueller probe.
The William Barr interview: Full Transcript – and it’s good.
JAN CRAWFORD: The four page summary that you wrote, did you ask in that March 5th meeting for the special counsel to kind of redact all the grand jury material?
WILLIAM BARR: Yes, not redact it but highlight it so we could redact it, we would, so, you know, the report was over 400 pages, I knew that it was voluminous and coming our way in a few weeks. My intent was to get out as much as I could as quickly as I could. To do that I would have to, as a matter of law, make sure that grand jury material was redacted because regardless of the political posturing that’s going on it’s not lawful for me to just make that public.
JAN CRAWFORD: Not even to Congress?
WILLIAM BARR: Not even–
JAN CRAWFORD: So you could even give Congress, which of course is demanding that and threatening to hold you in contempt because you’re not giving them the full report
WILLIAM BARR: That’s right, and so–
JAN CRAWFORD: But by law you can’t?
WILLIAM BARR: Right, and so because we were not involved in the investigation we would have no way looking at the report of determining what was grand jury material and what wasn’t, so we had for a period of weeks been asking the special counsel’s office to highlight the stuff so we could quickly process it for release and I guess–
JAN CRAWFORD: For a period of weeks you had asked for this material?
WILLIAM BARR: Yeah even before the March 5 meeting we had asked or raised the subject–
JAN CRAWFORD: And what was the response?
WILLIAM BARR: And then at the March 5 meeting I made it explicit and then after the March 5th meeting we asked..
JAN CRAWFORD: And what was the response?
WILLIAM BARR: We thought it was being– we thought it was being done and I do believe they were putting in more footnotes in that would be necessary ultimately in identifying the material but whether the wires were crossed or whatever it didn’t come in a form that identified the 6E material.
JAN CRAWFORD: And that was a surprise to you when you got the report?
WILLIAM BARR: Yes.
[…]
JAN CRAWFORD: You, I just want to be clear on this. How long and how many, you expected the special counsel’s office to redact that material, so to point out what should be redacted —
WILLIAM BARR: Right. Right.
JAN CRAWFORD: So the four-page summary would have been unnecessary?
WILLIAM BARR: Correct.
Via @MZHemingway — AMAZING INTERVIEW! Stunning ending. Read every word.
Via Instapundit:“It is somewhat difficult to feel at ease in a republic wherein federal prosecutors feel comfortable pronouncing sentences of not not guilty.
A two-part edition of The Mark Steyn Show in which Mark talks with George Papadopoulos about three years as a Deep State target – and the personal cost to him and his wife.
….during the 2016 Presidential election. The Attorney General has also been delegated full and complete authority to declassify information pertaining to this investigation, in accordance with the long-established standards for handling classified information….
The readers are already digging through them at Conservative Treehouse:Moments ago Judiciary Committee ranking member Doug Collins released the transcripts of nine key figures from the House investigation into DOJ and FBI political activity.
EXCLUSIVE: The "Steele" dossier source who falsely claimed there was a Russian Consulate in Miami was ALSO was a source for the Moscow “pee tape” AND **the key source** alleging an “extensive conspiracy” between the Trump campaign & Russia involving Manafort and Page 🚨
Democrats recently excoriated Barr for even using the word “spy” to talk about actions by the Obama administration’s FBI and Justice Department against the Trump campaign before the presidential election in November 2016.
However, Democrats could have a difficult time in attacking Durham.
Confirmed as U.S. attorney in February 2018 by a voice vote in the Senate, he had gained praise from Democrats when Trump nominated him.
Among these admirers were two of Trump’s biggest critics, Connecticut’s two Democratic senators—Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy. The two men had recommended Durham to serve as U.S. attorney.
“John Durham has earned immense respect as a no-nonsense, fierce and fair prosecutor, and we are pleased that the White House has agreed with our recommendation that he serve as United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut,” a joint statement by Blumenthal and Murphy said. “As an Assistant United States Attorney, John Durham has proven himself time and time again in some of the most challenging and sensitive cases.”
It looks like Barr has found just such another case for Durham.
@johnrobertsFox – Per our Jake Gibson: Sources tell @FoxNews that CT US Attorney John Durham has been working on the investigation into the origins of the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and the Trump Campaign for “weeks.”
@Techno_Fog – Barr appointed John Durham, who uncovered evidence the FBI framed men for murder and brought the corrupt FBI Boston office to justice. This is bad news for @JohnBrennan
In 2017 George Papadopoulos and his wife Simona were approached in Greece by a known CIA/FBI operative, Charles Tawil. Mr. Tawil enlisted George as a business consultant, under the auspices of energy development interests, and invited him to Israel.
On June 8th, 2017, in Israel under very suspicious circumstances, where Papadopoulos felt very unnerved, Mr. Tawil hands him $10,000 in cash for future consultancy based on a $10k/month retainer.
Mr. Barr made real news in that Senate hearing, and while the press didn’t notice, Democrats did. The attorney general said he’d already assigned people at the Justice Department to assist his investigation of the origins of the Trump-Russia probe. He said his review would be far-reaching—that he was obtaining details from congressional investigations, from the ongoing probe by the department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, and even from Mr. Mueller’s work. Mr. Barr said the investigation wouldn’t focus only on the fall 2016 justifications for secret surveillance warrants against Trump team members but would go back months earlier.
“What are you doing to investigate unauthorized media contacts by the department and FBI officials during the Russian investigation?” he asked.
“We have multiple criminal leak investigations underway,” Barr responded.
More.
"Here's where we are. The Democrats and you folks in the media are not concerned about the report. I think you're concerned about the results weren't what you expected. And I think we're finding out that everybody was sold a bunch of snake oil, and now the jig is up!" – Grassley pic.twitter.com/QGGXO3lK8t
