Attention to the Unseen

Garrett M Graff writes: Back in January, approximately 1,000 Robert Mueller news cycles ago, I argued that given the arc of the special counsel Russia probe, it’d be embarrassing for Donald Trump if he weren’t an agent of the Russian intelligence: “We’ve reached a point in the Mueller probe where there are only two scenarios left,” I wrote at the time. “Either the president is compromised by the Russian government and has been working covertly to cooperate with Vladimir Putin…

Read More Read More

Laurence Tribe writes: Despite Attorney General William Barr’s assurances and President Donald Trump’s boasts, the Mueller report doesn’t come close to exonerating the president of wrongdoing. Instead, it invites Congress to initiate impeachment proceedings. It’s time for Congress to heed that invitation. In its extensive discussion of the constitutional issues implicated by special counsel Robert Mueller’s 22-month investigation, the report asserts that Congress has the authority to apply law “to all persons – including the President.” Specifically, Congress may “protect…

Read More Read More

Susan Hennessey and Quinta Jurecic write: Here is, as Bill Barr might call it, “the bottom line”: The Mueller Report describes, in excruciating detail and with relatively few redactions, a candidate and a campaign aware of the existence of a plot by a hostile foreign government to criminally interfere in the U.S. election for the purpose of supporting that candidate’s side. It describes a candidate and a campaign who welcomed the efforts and delighted in the assistance. It describes a…

Read More Read More

Anne Applebaum writes: There is a lot inside the Mueller report, and it will all take many weeks to digest. But two things remain unexplained. One is the question of messaging. Why was Trump, all through the latter part of the 2016 campaign, repeating and using slogans that were conceived on Russian state media? Obama “founded ISIS” and Hillary Clinton will cause World War III : These were slogans first used by Sputnik and other Russian sources. We still don’t…

Read More Read More

Benjamin Wittes et al write: [B]y creating a rigorous factual record concerning both Russian intervention in 2016 and presidential obstruction of the effort to investigate that intervention, the report poses other questions acutely. Most importantly, it poses the question of whether this conduct is acceptable—not whether it’s lawful or prosecutable or whether the evidence is admissible, but whether as a nation we choose to accept it, and if not, what means we exercise to reject it. Mueller is not a…

Read More Read More

The New York Times reports: When Attorney General William P. Barr sent Congress a four-page letter last month describing his take on the conclusions of Robert S. Mueller III’s special counsel investigation, he quoted several fragments of Mr. Mueller’s then-secret report. But none of the excerpts were in context or even complete sentences, raising the question of whether he was portraying their thrust and tone accurately or skewing them to make them sound better for President Trump. Now that the…

Read More Read More

The Guardian reports: Armed rightwing militia members detained a large group of migrants at the US-Mexico border and coordinated with US border patrol agents to have them arrested, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, in a series of actions the civil liberties organization called a “kidnapping” and a flagrant violation of the law. Several videos taken at the border in New Mexico this week appeared to show men belonging to a group that calls itself the United Constitutional Patriots…

Read More Read More

Yoni Appelbaum writes: In the report, [Mueller] laid out 10 specific incidents his team examined, each of which might constitute—singly or in aggregate—evidence of obstructive conduct on the part of the president. “The Special Counsel’s decision to describe the facts of his obstruction investigation without reaching any legal conclusions leaves it to the Attorney General to determine whether the conduct described in the report constitutes a crime,” Barr wrote. But there is another, simpler way to understand Mueller’s report. A…

Read More Read More

Noah Bookbinder writes: [T]he Mueller report is an unmistakable act of deference to Congress’s primary jurisdiction over accountability for the president. The House Judiciary Committee must now pick up where Mr. Mueller left off and begin holding proceedings to determine whether Mr. Trump abused the powers of his office. The report details egregious evidence of obstruction, emphasizing the pattern of conduct that the president took after James Comey, then the F.B.I. director, confirmed the bureau’s investigation into possible links between…

Read More Read More

Garrett M. Graff writes: The Mueller report has been sitting in the Justice Department for nearly two weeks. Attorney general William Barr told Congress Wednesday he’s hoping the public will finally get a look at the 300-plus page document sometime within the next week, ending a bizarre period of dissembling and fumbling by Barr that has left America with more questions than answers about the seriousness of what Mueller uncovered. That public release, when it comes, will thankfully end the…

Read More Read More

CNN reports: Last Friday, the President visited Calexico, California, where he said, “We’re full, our system’s full, our country’s full — can’t come in! Our country is full, what can you do? We can’t handle any more, our country is full. Can’t come in, I’m sorry. It’s very simple.” Behind the scenes, two sources told CNN, the President told border agents to not let migrants in. Tell them we don’t have the capacity, he said. If judges give you trouble,…

Read More Read More

BuzzFeed reports: Attorneys for Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former fixer, submitted documents to lawmakers Thursday night accusing Trump and his team of lawyers of instructing Cohen to lie to Congress about when negotiations ended to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. In a 12-page memo sent to top House Democrats, Cohen’s attorneys said Trump “encouraged Cohen to lie and say all Moscow Tower project contacts ended as of January 31, 2016 using ‘code’ language — telling Cohen during various…

Read More Read More

Benjamin Wittes writes: Here’s a radical idea: For the next two weeks, let’s give Attorney General William Barr the benefit of the doubt. I understand why so many people are suspicious of Barr and are lining up to denounce him—and there may well come a day, and it might come soon, when I will get in line and join them. Barr’s initial letter summarizing the top-line conclusions of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation allowed President Donald Trump to claim exoneration…

Read More Read More

Michael Paarlberg writes: It’s a fortunate thing for Donald Trump that the Democrats, and much of the media, spent the past two years focused on the narrow question of whether his 2016 campaign actively colluded with Russian agents to hack his opponents’ emails. Were it not for this singular obsession, we might have come to appreciate the full scope of graft, influence peddling and petty theft that has made this the most crooked administration in US history. One doesn’t have…

Read More Read More

Gavin De Becker writes: Some Americans will be surprised to learn that the Saudi government has been very intent on harming Jeff Bezos since last October, when the Post began its relentless coverage of Khashoggi’s murder. The Saudi campaign against Bezos has already been reported by CNN International, Bloomberg, The Daily Beast, and others. Saudi Arabia attacks people in many ways, obviously, including through their elaborate social media program that uses sophisticated technology and paid surrogates to create artificially trending…

Read More Read More