Josh Marshall at Talkingpointsmemo.com
It’s worth reading Josh Marshall’s recent post on the Barr letter. Read the whole thing, but notice how often he simply says “we need to see the report”. That’s because we need to see the report! AG Barr’s little ‘summary’ or whatever, is useless. Because he is useless. He’s damaged our country enough already, let’s not assist him in the damage he’s trying to do here. I’ve excerpted the last 3 paragraph’s of JMM’s post below. They contain important thoughts that are worth remembering.
On the broader question of the 2016 election, we need to see the report. Based on the publicly available information, the President betrayed his country and serially lied about his involvement with Russia and his knowledge about the Russian interference campaign. We know that despite all denials, throughout the campaign the President was trying to land a multi-hundred million dollar real estate deal that required the assistance of the President of Russia, one that required the end of sanctions. We know his campaign manager was handing over campaign data to a man the FBI judged was a Russian intelligence asset. We know his campaign had a back channel to Wikileaks and appears to have coordinated the timing of the leaks. We know that his top campaign officials had numerous contacts with Russian officials and intermediaries offering campaign assistance and welcomed the assistance. Finally, we know the transition worked with Russia to undermine the sanctions intended to punish the intereference (sic) campaign.
By any standard, simply these known facts are profoundly damning and constitute a massive national betrayal. The Trump campaign knew about, profited from and encouraged Russian assistance. Putin also appears to have been dangling a massive payoff in front of him the whole time. Russia helped Trump; Trump helped Russia; they were in contact via intermediaries throughout the campaign.
Presumably the report explains the details of these dealings and how they did not constitute either conspiracy or coordination. That is the information, the analysis we need to see. I’d suggest we know very little until we see this information, which is to say, until we see the report.
We cannot and must not give in to the narrative that Trump has been in any way shape or form ‘exonerated’ by Mueller’s investigation, until we hear Mueller himself say so out loud in public with witnesses. Which I doubt is something we will ever actually hear. This vile man currently acting in the role of POTUS is surrounded by a vast criminal network. Does he know anyone who isn’t a criminal? He will be facing many different charges of all kinds the minute he is no longer technically POTUS, and he will one day face justice. For now, he has all kinds of lackeys and toadies trying to prevent it from happening. We can’t let them succeed. Enormous pressure must be exerted on Congress to dig deeply into the findings. And we must keep reminding people that this man is a criminal, many times over, who lied repeatedly to the public about his dealings with Russia, his business practices, his “charity”, etc.
