Analysis: Mueller paints a damning portrait of the president
His months-long effort pushed the boundaries of presidential powers and the law, revealing a commander in chief consumed by self-interest and intent on having his top lieutenants lie or obfuscate on his behalf. The fact that many refused to do so may have helped save Trump from being charged with obstructing justice.

Those advisers effectively served as the guardrails in a White House that often seems to have none. A White House counsel who told the president he would rather resign than oust Mueller. A senior West Wing aide who quietly ignored a request to pass messages to the attorney general, who had already recused himself from the investigation.
https://apnews.com/91b640225af04df3abd9b7a33f9c7f01

Mueller Exposes Erik Prince’s Lies About His Rendezvous with a Top Russian
The Blackwater founder repeatedly misled Congress about his infamous meeting in the Seychelles. What happens to the Trumpworld associate now?
https://www.thedailybeast.com/mueller-ex...kirill-dmitriev

Ein fb-Freund:

On Barr and Mueller reports.

"The war-monger, arrogant and corrupt automaton who can chuckle at people's deaths, brag about her destruction record, and sabotage her legitimate rivals, has lost the election, by losing the trust of American people.

That's all there is to it. The storm, to which she has contributed methodically and consistently, has wiped her out. Blaming Russians for this storm, is like blaming witches for the storms that used to disrupt the life of Salem, Mass.

But then again, we are dealing with the country that still thinks that witch-hunting is a legitimate scientific, legal, and political enterprise."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8ivzHcPb1k

So, eventually I happened to disagree with Tucker: It isn't possible to be shallower than "Beto". :-)

Fazit:
"Collusion" - ein NEIN
"obstruction of justice" Unklar

Rechtlich bedeutet das:
in dubio pro reo

Politisch bedeutet das:
die Wähler werden 2020 über diesen Präsidenten entscheiden.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEygxlQ02M4

Diesen Journalisten (in den USA, aber auch in Deutschland) möchte ich wie Bill Clinton einst zurufen: I feel your pain. :-)

Zitat von Landegaard im Beitrag #6018

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Zitat von Willie im Beitrag #6010

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Zitat von nahal im Beitrag #6008

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Game over.
Mein Beileid, Willie-Boy

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Ah, der intelligence officer wagt sich mal wieder vor. Mit dem Wunschdenken der ueblichen Knaeblein. 😂

https://i.imgur.com/tzz4dLP.gif

https://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/...ill-5-62-99.jpg

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Gibt's ein Impeachment oder gibt's keins?

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Ex-Nixon White House counsel: Mueller report 'more damning' than Watergate
John Dean, the former White House counsel for President Nixon, said Thursday that special counsel Robert Mueller's report was "more damning" than the Watergate report.
"I looked on my shelf for the Senate Watergate Committee report, I looked at the Iran Contra report. I also looked at the Ken Starr report," Dean said on CNN's "The Lead."

"In 400 words, this report from the special counsel is more damning than all those reports about a president, this is really a devastating report."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/...zv8dFZVf4qwo3VU

What the Mueller Report Says About Obstruction

“Our investigation found multiple acts by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations, including the Russian-interference and obstruction investigations,” Mueller wrote. “The incidents were often carried out through one-on-one meetings in which the President sought to use his official power outside of usual channels. These actions ranged from efforts to remove the Special Counsel and to reverse the effect of the Attorney General’s recusal; to the attempted use of official power to limit the scope of the investigation; to direct and indirect contacts with witnesses with the potential to influence their testimony.”

Mueller, however, refrained from recommending prosecution, saying that there were “difficult [legal] issues that would need to be resolved,” in order to reach a conclusion that the crime of obstruction of justice was committed by Trump.
Factoring into his decision not to weigh in on prosecution, Mueller wrote, was an opinion issued by the Office of Legal Counsel finding that “the indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions” in violation of “the constitutional separation of powers.”
“Because we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment, we did not draw ultimate conclusions about the President’s conduct,” Mueller wrote. ....

... Barr claimed that “the White House fully cooperated with the Special Counsel’s investigation, providing unfettered access to campaign and White House documents, directing senior aides to testify freely, and asserting no privilege claims.”
That’s contradicted in the report. (Womit Barr bestaetigt, dass er selbst auch ein Luegner ist.)

... Mueller left open the door for congressional consideration of Trump’s conduct. “With respect to whether the President can be found to have obstructed justice by exercising his powers under Article II of the Constitution, we concluded that Congress has authority to prohibit a President’s corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice,” Mueller wrote. ....

https://www.factcheck.org/2019/04/what-t...6WveKHCAMo6wnyU

The Mueller Report Should Shock Our Conscience
I’ve finished reading the entire Mueller report, and I must confess that even as a longtime, quite open critic of Donald Trump, even I was surprised at the sheer scope, scale, and brazenness of the lies, falsehoods, and misdirections detailed by the Special Counsel’s Office.
We’ve become accustomed to Trump making up his own facts on matters great and small, but to see the extent to which his virus infected his entire political operation is sobering. And the idea that anyone is treating this report as “win” for Trump, given the sheer extent of deceptions exposed (among other things), demonstrates that the bar for his conduct has sunk so low that anything other than outright criminality is too often brushed aside as relatively meaningless. ...

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/th...our-conscience/

Mueller report shows Russians, Trump camp were friends with benefits. Collusion by another name?
Analysis: Mueller didn't find a conspiracy he could prove, but did show that the Russians and the Trump team pursued a relationship during the election and after.

To charge a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, Robert Mueller decided he had to prove the existence of an explicit, corrupt agreement between the two sides. It wasn't enough, his report said, that the Trump campaign and Russia were acting out of mutual interest.
Mueller said he didn't find a conspiracy he could prove. But he did establish in painstaking detail that the Russians and the Trump campaign pursued a relationship of mutual benefit during the election campaign — and afterward.

Some might argue that verges on a different sort of collusion.
"The report reveals that there was an awful lot of contact between people in Trump world and Russians, and there appears to be at least some attempt at coordination," said Greg Brower, a former U.S. attorney during the George W. Bush administration and senior FBI official. "One could argue you put all that together, it looks like collusion."

The report says, "The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."
But it also says that "the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts."

And after the Russians helped Trump get elected though efforts that were apparent to the Trump campaign, the report says, the Russians reached out to members of the Trump transition team, including the president's son-in-law, ostensibly seeking the fruits of their labors.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/nationa...llusion-n996101

The best defense of Trump is still a damning indictment
The Mueller report’s defense of Trump: exculpatory incompetence, misplaced rage.

The story the report tells is that a foreign government illegally interfered in America’s presidential election on Trump’s behalf, and rather than treating that incursion as an attack on America’s political institutions, Trump treated it transactionally, as a gift to him personally.

And so, rather than defend America from Russia’s attacks, he defended himself from the investigations into Russia’s attacks. Rather than see Russia’s hacks as a threat to the legitimacy of America’s elections, he saw the investigation as a threat to the legitimacy of his own election. So rather than defend the rule of law, Trump subverted it.

The irony is that if Trump’s defenders are right, then it was Trump himself who delegitimized his presidency. He did it through specific acts of obstruction, like firing James Comey and trying to fire Jeff Sessions and lying to the public, but he also did it by failing to understand that being president of the United States means putting America, well, first.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/...ion-obstruction

It’s Not the Collusion, It’s the Corruption
What the Mueller report says about our world.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/18/opini...corruption.html

Trumpski gestern Abend:
Donald J. Trump@realDonaldTrump
“The Mueller Report is perhaps the single most humiliating thing that has ever happened to the White House Press in the history of this Country. They know they lied...Many reporters lied about Russia Collusion and so much more. Clapper & Brennan, all lies” @TuckerCarlson
5:38 PM - 18 Apr 2019

Trumpski heute Morgen (bis jetzt):
Donald J. Trump@realDonaldTrump
Statements are made about me by certain people in the Crazy Mueller Report, in itself written by 18 Angry Democrat Trump Haters, which are fabricated & totally untrue. Watch out for people that take so-called “notes,” when the notes never existed until needed. Because I never....
4:53 AM - 19 Apr 2019

Donald J. Trump@realDonaldTrump
...agreed to testify, it was not necessary for me to respond to statements made in the “Report” about me, some of which are total bullshit & only given to make the other person look good (or me to look bad). This was an Illegally Started Hoax that never should have happened, a...
5:08 AM - 19 Apr 2019

Dean's take on this:
(((DeanObeidallah)))‏@DeanObeidallah
Looks like someone is actually starting to get that the Mueller report was actually HORRIBLE for him - he went from "Game Over" to now calling it the "Crazy Mueller Report" and claiming it was written by "18 Angry Democrat Trump Haters." Trump is right - he should be scared!
6:08 AM - 19 Apr 2019

Sogar bei Fox:
Fox News’ Chris Wallace Trashes Barr: He Acted as Trump’s Defense Lawyer
‘The attorney general seemed almost to be acting as... the counselor for the president rather than the attorney general,’ Wallace said.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-news-c...-defense-lawyer

Zitat von Willie im Beitrag #6038

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It’s Not the Collusion, It’s the Corruption
What the Mueller report says about our world.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/18/opini...corruption.html

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George Conway in Op-Ed: Trump Is a Cancer on the Presidency and Congress Should Excise It ‘Without Delay’

"Mueller couldn’t say, with any “confidence,” that the president of the United States is not a criminal. He said, stunningly, that “if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state.” Mueller did not so state.

That’s especially damning because the ultimate issue shouldn’t be — and isn’t — whether the president committed a criminal act. As I wrote not long ago, Americans should expect far more than merely that their president not be provably a criminal. In fact, the Constitution demands it."

And Conway argues that if the president’s actions do nothing to “serve the public interest, but to serve his own, he surely could be removed from office, even if he has not committed a criminal act.”
“The investigation that Trump tried to interfere with here, to protect his own personal interests, was in significant part an investigation of how a hostile foreign power interfered with our democracy,” he says. “If that’s not putting personal interests above a presidential duty to the nation, nothing is.
https://www.mediaite.com/print/george-co...-without-delay/

Bill Kristol@BillKristol
To my fellow Republicans: Having read the Mueller report, you may decide that nothing in it requires or justifies the impeachment of Donald Trump.
But, having read the report, do you have no qualms about deciding this man deserves our party's renomination as president?
9:45 AM - 18 Apr 2019


let's go for a drive@toddshy
Replying to @BillKristol
Bill. There are no more fellow Republicans. There is no Republican party. This is now the party of Trump.
In a few years they will pretend not to know him. But it's too late. They slept with him. And he left his toothbrush in the Republican bathroom.
7:00 PM - 18 Apr 2019

Luz Gonzalez‏@sfloridastorm
Replying to @BillKristol
Bill, they are involved, have been involved, in a COVER-UP. CORRUPTION IN THE EXTREME.
7:05 PM - 18 Apr 2019

TheValuesVoter@TheValuesVoter
Replying to @sfloridastorm @BillKristol
The Republican Party, as it existed from 1852 until a few years ago, no longer exists except for in name and office address.
Almost every member of the party who is elected to federal office has either explicitly or by default made it clear that their loyalties lie with Trump.
7:12 PM - 18 Apr 2019

Cathy Pasternak@cathy_cap2ax
Replying to @BillKristol @TallulahSC
Do you think most Republicans care how many impeachable offenses Trump has committed?
The whole world knew Trump was a mobster tied to Russia when he was elected.
He is a known criminal who projects his transgressions onto others, that’s his tell.
6:20 PM - 18 Apr 2019

Seth ist ein ausgezeichneter Jurist, der sich die Muehe macht, die Dinge auseinanderzudividieren, oder so Mosaiken zusammenzusetzen, wie sie zueinander gehoeren.

Seth Abramson@SethAbramson
449/ In *each case* the issue is "sufficiency of the evidence." In *no* case did Mueller find *no* evidence of a crime—merely *not enough* evidence.
Those are *very* different ideas when Trump is claiming "exoneration" *and* impeachment doesn't require beyond a reasonable doubt.
9:42 PM - 18 Apr 2019

When Trump won, Putin deployed his oligarchs
After an election marred by Moscow's attempts to buoy Donald Trump's candidacy, the Russian president wanted to cash in.

In December 2016, a few weeks after Donald Trump’s surprise election victory, Russian president Vladimir Putin convened what a Russian oligarch described as an “all-hands” meeting with some of his country’s top businessmen. A main topic of discussion: U.S. sanctions against Russia.

One of the oligarchs present was Petr Aven, co-founder of Alfa Bank, Russia’s biggest commercial bank. Aven had recently met with with Putin one on one to discuss the sanctions and what to do about them. Putin said he had been struggling to get messages to Trump’s inner circle, and urged Aven to take steps to protect his bank from additional U.S. penalties, according to special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, which details the episode. Aven perceived that as an order, not a request, according to Mueller, and understood “that there would be consequences if he did not follow through.”
Aven quickly understood that his mission was to contact the Trump transition team, and began an effort to contact Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

Mueller’s nearly 450-page report granularly describes this and related episodes, revealing how Putin explicitly encouraged his country’s wealthiest and most powerful businessmen to make contact with Trump’s transition team after the election. The directives help explain the “flurry” of contact the oligarchs made with Trump’s associates in the weeks following the reality TV star’s unexpected victory, Mueller wrote.
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/1...n-trump-1282648

Zitat von Willie im Beitrag #6043

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Bill Kristol@BillKristol
To my fellow Republicans: Having read the Mueller report, you may decide that nothing in it requires or justifies the impeachment of Donald Trump.
But, having read the report, do you have no qualms about deciding this man deserves our party's renomination as president?
9:45 AM - 18 Apr 2019

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Was die wirklich Progressiven beunruhigen sollte?
- Die schrumpfende Mittelschicht
- Die zunehmend ungleichere Verteilung des Vermögens (wie in Lateinamerika)
- Die (mit Ausnahme des Krieges gegen den IS) fast gänzlich verlorenen Kriege
- Die hohe Staatsverschuldung
- Die verrottende Infrastruktur
- Die sinkenden Geburtenraten
- Die sinkende Lebenserwartung
- Die stagnierenden Reallöhne
- Die Drogenepidemie
- Die unkontrollierte Macht der Internetkonzerne
- Die Massenimmigration
- Die Gewalt in den Städten
- Die Verhärtung der politischen Positionen (schlimmer als jemals in der amerikanischen Geschichte, wie nicht wenige Beobachter befinden)

Was sie beunruhigt?
- Donald Trump

[Über die meisten Länder Westeuropas lässt sich Ähnliches sagen.]

https://scontent-ort2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t...a34&oe=5D2E5591

https://scontent-ort2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t...941&oe=5D400ABB

https://scontent-ort2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t...ee6&oe=5D48415F

Zitat von Willie im Beitrag #6048

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https://scontent-ort2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/57798730_10211862398750366_2104563485760290816_n.jpg?_nc_cat=107&_nc_ht=scontent-ort2-1.xx&oh=1eb10950f23eed685e90b61e661fba34&oe=5D2E5591

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Donald Trump’s Personality Is an Impeachable Offense
The Mueller report reveals the deep unpleasantness of working for the president of the United States.

President Donald Trump has committed so many brazen acts of cruelty, dishonesty, and stupidity in full view of the public that it’s not really a surprise to hear about the cruel, dishonest, and stupid things he does behind closed doors. But the lightly redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report that was released on Thursday morning is still a revelatory document. Read as a profile of the president—a piece of reporting informed by interviews with sources under oath—the Mueller report shades in the portrait of Trump that’s already imprinted on our brains. It also makes it clearer than it’s ever been that the president drives everyone around him absolutely mad. ...

...In these please-like-me anecdotes, Trump comes off as deeply pathetic. He appears to be a socially inept child who lives in a fantasy world that revolves around his own ego, believes no rules apply to him, barely maintains a weak grasp on logic, and is desperate to be loved.

None of these observations are groundbreaking. But it’s still both troubling and satisfying to read these firsthand accounts of Trump’s failures as a president, boss, American, and human being in what was commissioned to be a dispassionate government report. It’s not just Trump’s political opponents and those beset by resistance brain who think he’s unqualified to lead a nation, a business, a family, or a productive life. The people working hardest to protect him think so, too.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019...LLk55u4IhGskWOA