(Fair warning — this is something of a rant) I’ve been watching TV and the news that’s broken in the New York Times regarding differences of opinion between people on Mueller’s team and Attorney Cover Up General Barr (CUG Barr). Hearing Michael Schmidt denigrate Mueller over and over again with his “Mueller refused (what Schmidt means is chickened out) to make the call on Trump’s criminality. Even some of the commentary has only briefly and I mean briefly noted the FACT that DOJ policy prevents the indictment of a sitting President.
This passage from the NYT piece that to me underpins the whole Barr strategy (with people like Schmidt selling it for him) to tear down Mueller is:
“At the same time, Mr. Barr and his advisers have expressed their own frustrations about Mr. Mueller and his team. Mr. Barr and other Justice Department officials believe the special counsel’s investigators fell short of their task by declining to decide whether Mr. Trump illegally obstructed the inquiry, according to the two government officials. After Mr. Mueller made no judgment on the obstruction matter, Mr. Barr stepped in to declare that he had cleared Mr. Trump of wrongdoing.”
I’m no rocket scientist or brain surgeon but ever since Barr released his first “nothing to see here folks” letter over and over again I keep thinking about the fact that a simple yet hugely important fact — that DOJ policy prevented Mueller from indicting Trump. Tonight it was minimized, and in fact barely mentioned at all & certainly neither host Nicole Wallace (filled in for Brian Williams tonight) or anyone else. So, once again we have that puissant Schmidt who more than a few times seems to be auditioning to be the NYT’s next Judith Miller (main water carrier for a GOP President lying his ass off) covering for Trump by doing exactly what Barr wants — literally challenging and criticizing Mueller as being weak. Sadly, tonight’s refusal to emphasize the fact that Mueller could not, no matter what he found indict Trump is the way virtually all the discussions I’ve seen go, and the only thing distinguishing it is how strongly Mueller was attacked. Again, while I’m no genius I find it incredulous that so many people ignore the obvious — No matter how much evidence Mueller had on Trump he couldn’t indict him so he (properly) laid it out so Congress could take up the matter just as Jaworski did during Watergate!
Why is that so fucking hard for people to get through their heads? It literally wouldn’t matter if Mueller had Trump on videotape making sworn depositions in the WH that he was doing everything he could to obstruct justice and giving specific examples! Same with ordering his idiot son Don Jr. and others to cut deals with various Russians, or even himself talking directly to Putin about quid pro quos! NOTHING Trump did would alter the fact that under DOJ policy Mueller wouldn’t be allowed to obtain an indictment. Nothing.
Schmidt has pissed me off before but tonight that asshole has jacked up my blood pressure to the point I doubt I’ll sleep a wink. So I say Fuck You Michael Schmidt. Fuck you and your newspaper for giving you a platform which happens to be one of the largest megaphones to spout your Trump fluffing bullshit. If I believed in heaven and hell I’d gladly tell you to fuck yourself one last time before you arrived there in the morning and started experiencing the torturous suffering you so richly deserve.
I don’t have much more use for any journalist or pundit who refuses to every goddamned time this nonsense about Mueller “inexplicably” not rendering a judgement on Trump’s guilt doesn’t shithammer the FACT that he was prevented by DOJ policy from obtaining an indictment from the Grand Jury! Maybe we can get Tom Steyer to hire that Captain Obvious character from TV commercials to hang around newsrooms and jump in to point it out to the “talent” as they pontificate.
Btw, we don’t know what Mueller actually said.
He might well have in nice, legal language have stated the evidence was there to bring an indictment but since DOJ policy didn’t allow him to do so he prepared the information Congress would need to act since that is the only body that can do so while Trump remains in Office. After all, one of the sentence fragments Barr quoted specifically stated Trump was not exonerated on Obstruction of Justice. We also don’t know what Mueller’s report said prior to the sentence fragment that stated no member of the campaign conspired with the Russian government. Government. That single word is important because as people on this site surely have learned Putin works much of his crap through his network of oligarch pals. Mueller might well have pointed that out. But the fact of the matter is we don’t know and Barr is doing everything he can to keep us from finding out.
In the meantime he’s got asshole fuckwads like Michael Schmidt helping him damage the credibility of Mueller and his team. And it should be noted the story in question tonight still doesn’t have any sourcing directly from Mueller’s team. Only from sources at the DOJ talking about what Mueller’s team has said to them. Barr has from the beginning planned on how to protect Trump. He planned out what he’d do and he’s doing it. And getting “journalists” to help him and tonight the New York Times gave him (and Trump) a big boost.
I can’t express all I’d like to say about what I’m thinking, especially (again) with the smugness that rolls of Michael Schmidt like lies roll off Trump’s tongue. So again I’ll say it the way I couldn’t in the title of this rant — FUCK YOU MICHAEL SCHMIDT!!!!
End of rant.
(I apologize for not tending to any comments this diary might get tonight. As I said it will be difficult to sleep but it’s past midnight & I’ve got to be up with the dawn patrol so I have to at least try and get some rest.)
***Update***
As noted in other diaries last night the Washington Post came out with its own story on this, and if you read their account & compare it to the NYT’s version someone is wrong. I’m betting it’s the NYT. More than one thing in the Post story jumped out at me. I want to note that the NYT piece is clear and Schmidt has gone on TV over and over and confirmed all of their sources were at DOJ itself and not from anyone on Mueller’s team. Basically, the NYT sourcing is people around Barr who know the shit is going to hit the fan and like their boss trying to shape the narrative before an objective version of events comes out. It’s even been suggested that these folks made a point of talking to the Times because the Post had the story and it wasn’t going to be favorable to Barr/the DOJ. In comparing the two stories I don’t believe as I’ve seen suggested here this morning that the Post has sources from Mueller’s team, but rather from different individuals than the Times relied on. I keep thinking of pundits like Chuck Rosenberg and others who talk about the DOJ institutional mindset, and my take is that career DOJ folks in the know have a different take than those close to Barr about things — and the Time’s sources were aware that others didn’t want what Barr has done tarnishing the DOJ further than it already has been so they’ve been quietly going about trying to set the record straight.
Anyway, the Post story says that from early days Mueller’s team apparently made it known to DOJ they weren’t happy with how Barr had characterized their work. From the Post:
The displeasure among some who worked on the closely held inquiry has quietly begun to surface in the days since Barr released a four-page letter to Congress on March 24 describing what he said were the principal conclusions of Mueller’s still-confidential, 400-page report.
And:
“There was immediate displeasure from the team when they saw how the attorney general had characterized their work instead”, according to one official briefed on the matter. (emphasis added)
IOW, Mueller’s team is still not talking to the media but now that the report has been handed over to DOJ they can and have been talking to counterparts at DOJ involved in what happens next.
There’s also the question of Barr’s initial summary and I don’t give a rat’s ass about his trying to walk back the term but that’s exactly what he wrote — his summary. From work in a past life where I’ve done so, it never made sense to me that Mueller’s report wouldn’t have included an Executive Summary of a few pages or so to characterize his findings. Also that it would have been written in a manner that would protect any national intelligence matters and ongoing investigations. As for grand jury matters that too could have been scrubbed so as to speak of grand jury matters only in generalities — pending the presiding Judge granting a motion to allow release of such materials. Btw Barr could have made such a motion at any time. Mueller still could, as can Jerry Nadler in his role as Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. In fact, a news organization can, although (lawyers please weigh in) I don’t think they’d have as good a case with the Judge. The point however is that there wasn’t a single Executive Summary, but multiple ones. Mueller’s team wrote one for each section of the report, and I note according to the Post did so in a way that would allow for immediate release & not just to Congress. And Barr blew them off. Again from the Post:
Summaries were prepared for different sections of the report ,with a view that they could be made public, the official said.
The report was prepared “so that the front matter from each section could have been released immediately — or very quickly,” the official said. “It was done in a way that minimum redactions, if any, would have been necessary, and the report would have spoken for itself.”
Mueller’s team assumed the information was going to be made available to the public, the official said “and so they prepared their summaries to be shared in their own words — and not in the attorney general’s summary of their work, as turned out to be the case.”
I think I’ve pushed the boundaries of fair use at this point, so I’ll try and wrap this up. We have two major outlets reporting that Mueller’s team (and Mueller himself?) aren’t happy. One is co-authored by a frequent administration shill (Schmidt) who loves to talk up work he’s co-authored on TV (am I the only one that’s noticed in such situations he’s the only one that goes on TV?) and the other from a competing outlet that puts a very different spin on matters. I don’t know about you, but I believe what the Post has to say on this a helluva lot more than the NYT. Alas, at least on MSNBC only the Times and Schmidt are getting air time to sell their (and Barr’s/Trump’s) version. WTF?
I keep wanting to ask Michael Schmidt if he got a DNA transplant from Judith Miller...