Trump/Russia/SDNY investigation

Pexbo said:
I have a feeling this is Mueller's Office looking to rein in the Democrats in the House who have started discussing impeachment already. I think they know that on the information that is currently in the public domain, while the House might vote to impeach Trump, the Senate will veto it and prop him up. Conservative media and Republican Congressmen are still pushing the narrative that "after nearly 2 years of investigations, we've still seen no evidence of wrong doing by the President". Mental gymnastics but technically correct in that other than the Individual 1 stuff (easily inferred to be Trump), he's yet to be named in an indictment.

I think Mueller wants to slow down the impeachment talks until his report is released and all of Trump's crimes and supporting evidence laid bare. If McConnell still blocks it in the Senate... god help him.
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It's not Mueller's job to influence if or when the president is going to be impeached. His mandate is to investigate.
 
He ,or anyone for that matter,isn't going to get a reply from the SC.It's laughable that he even considers it.
The SC released their statement and that's it.
Done for the time being.
 
A good way to interpret Mueller's statement is "One or more components of the Buzzfeed story are wrong and we are concerned Congress and the media are getting spun up about impeachment based on a story that is not entirely accurate. We are also concerned that a move to premature impeachment may usurp our ability to carry out our investigation and fully leverage the witnesses we are currently working with. We deliberately worded our statement in a lawerly way to confuse everyone as to which of the Buzzfeed portions are untrue and which may actually be true because we don't want to get into a back and forth about validating a news outlet's story in the middle of an investigation".
 
The Firestarter said:
It's not Mueller's job to influence if or when the president is going to be impeached. His mandate is to investigate.
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See below.

Raoul said:
A good way to interpret Mueller's statement is "One or more components of the Buzzfeed story are wrong and we are concerned Congress and the media are getting spun up about impeachment based on a story that is not entirely accurate. We are also concerned that a move to premature impeachment may usurp our ability to carry out our investigation and fully leverage the witnesses we are currently working with. We deliberately worded our statement in a lawerly way to confuse everyone as to which of the Buzzfeed portions are untrue and which may actually be true because we don't want to get into a back and forth about validating a news outlet's story in the middle of an investigation".
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To add to that...

His mandate is to investigate, as you say @The Firestarter, That investigation could be severely impeded by a failed impeachment process.

If Trump is impeached and the senate fail to indict him and decide to veto his impeachment, something that McConnell and the other rats in the senate will do without blinking given the chance, then their next move will be to declare the whole investigation a waste of time and give Trump the green light to shut the whole thing down and bury the report in the process. A failed impeachment will make that much easier as the less educated public will have no trouble believing that it was all a complete waste of time and money. Moderate Conservatives will get behind him once again and see him as legitimised and his approval rating will soar.

It's a clear message from Mueller to the Democrats. Hold your horses and stop getting ahead of yourselves, when the report drops it's going to be a case of simple (actually incredibly complex) procedure.
 
Pexbo said:
See below.



To add to that...

His mandate is to investigate, as you say @The Firestarter, That investigation could be severely impeded by a failed impeachment process.

If Trump is impeached and the senate fail to indict him and decide to veto his impeachment, something that McConnell and the other rats in the senate will do without blinking given the chance, then their next move will be to declare the whole investigation a waste of time and give Trump the green light to shut the whole thing down and bury the report in the process. A failed impeachment will make that much easier as the less educated public will have no trouble believing that it was all a complete waste of time and money. Moderate Conservatives will get behind him once again and see him as legitimised and his approval rating will soar.

It's a clear message from Mueller to the Democrats. Hold your horses and stop getting ahead of yourselves, when the report drops it's going to be a case of simple (actually incredibly complex) procedure.
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It’s not for an appointed official to interfere in any way with the business of elected officials . Unless he thinks he is J.E Hoover. It’s not in Mueller’s pay grade to be concerned with political decisions.
 
The Firestarter said:
It’s not for an appointed official to interfere in any way with the business of elected officials . Unless he thinks he is J.E Hoover. It’s not in Mueller’s pay grade to be concerned with political decisions.
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Sure, which is why it's a bit of a grey area.

He's not directly interfering in politics if what I have suggested above is true. He's not reaching out to any politicians and recommending they change their decisions. He's simply clarifying an inaccurate report about his own investigation that could be erroneously used to make a decision. The decision is still down to the House Representatives, he's ensuring that the decision is made with correct facts, not media disinformation. I think in light of everything, he is absolutely correct and within his rights to do that.

It's a bit like Comey's rock and a hard place over whether he should have revealed the Clinton investigation just before the election in 2016 or the Trolley Problem.

Lets say that the Impeachment Process began on the back of this news. Fast forward a few months and the Mueller report is released, disproving this article and subjectively invalidating the impeachment process. If the process is in action, it could fail, if the process was successful and was in the hands of the senate it would be the perfect excuse to throw it out.

Where would that leave Mueller? Questions would be asked over why he didn't clarify the reporting earlier, by not making a decision to clarify it he allowed the House to make a fool out of themselves by impeaching on fake news.

Where would that leave Mueller's credibility? How much easier do you think it would be to dismiss the report of a man who has been accused of running a which hunt who then allowed the President to be impeached off the back of a news article he knew to be factually inaccurate.

He's absolutely right to clarify the reports at this point. It's easy to say "he should remain apolitical" but it's nigh on impossible to do so when you are investigating the President. Every decision made or decision avoided has political consequences, he just has to do what he feels is morally or procedurally correct.
 
@Pexbo, how many of your inferences and theories do you think have turned out to be (or look likely to be) right? There's been quite a lot of them in this thread. Not that there shouldn't be, just curious.
 
Brwned said:
@Pexbo, how many of your inferences and theories do you think have turned out to be (or look likely to be) right? There's been quite a lot of them in this thread. Not that there shouldn't be, just curious.
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I wouldn't have the first clue how to quantify that. The majority are just my musings and as you say, inferences. The one above for example, we will likely never hear Mueller's justification for what he did so we will never verify or dismissed that theory. It's essentially just me disagreeing with @The Firestarter and explaining my logic/reasoning/thought process.

The Buzzfeed article is a good reason why we should never be too certain of our assumptions. We're trying to build a bigger picture from scraps of information of varying degrees of quality. I'm sure I've got a lot wrong in here and we can only speculate on what we know but the conversation is still fascinating regardless.
 
Pexbo said:
Sure, which is why it's a bit of a grey area.

He's not directly interfering in politics if what I have suggested above is true. He's not reaching out to any politicians and recommending they change their decisions. He's simply clarifying an inaccurate report about his own investigation that could be erroneously used to make a decision. The decision is still down to the House Representatives, he's ensuring that the decision is made with correct facts, not media disinformation. I think in light of everything, he is absolutely correct and within his rights to do that.

It's a bit like Comey's rock and a hard place over whether he should have revealed the Clinton investigation just before the election in 2016 or the Trolley Problem.

Lets say that the Impeachment Process began on the back of this news. Fast forward a few months and the Mueller report is released, disproving this article and subjectively invalidating the impeachment process. If the process is in action, it could fail, if the process was successful and was in the hands of the senate it would be the perfect excuse to throw it out.

Where would that leave Mueller? Questions would be asked over why he didn't clarify the reporting earlier, by not making a decision to clarify it he allowed the House to make a fool out of themselves by impeaching on fake news.

Where would that leave Mueller's credibility? How much easier do you think it would be to dismiss the report of a man who has been accused of running a which hunt who then allowed the President to be impeached off the back of a news article he knew to be factually inaccurate.

He's absolutely right to clarify the reports at this point. It's easy to say "he should remain apolitical" but it's nigh on impossible to do so when you are investigating the President. Every decision made or decision avoided has political consequences, he just has to do what he feels is morally or procedurally correct.
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Makes sense to me.
 
Pexbo said:
I wouldn't have the first clue how to quantify that. The majority are just my musings and as you say, inferences. The one above for example, we will likely never hear Mueller's justification for what he did so we will never verify or dismissed that theory. It's essentially just me disagreeing with @The Firestarter and explaining my logic/reasoning/thought process.

The Buzzfeed article is a good reason why we should never be too certain of our assumptions. We're trying to build a bigger picture from scraps of information of varying degrees of quality. I'm sure I've got a lot wrong in here and we can only speculate on what we know but the conversation is still fascinating regardless.
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Yeah I thought as much. Agreed on the main points! More detailed thought is better than less detailed thought, almost always. Was just interested to get your perspective.
 
Pexbo said:
Sure, which is why it's a bit of a grey area.

He's not directly interfering in politics if what I have suggested above is true. He's not reaching out to any politicians and recommending they change their decisions. He's simply clarifying an inaccurate report about his own investigation that could be erroneously used to make a decision. The decision is still down to the House Representatives, he's ensuring that the decision is made with correct facts, not media disinformation. I think in light of everything, he is absolutely correct and within his rights to do that.

It's a bit like Comey's rock and a hard place over whether he should have revealed the Clinton investigation just before the election in 2016 or the Trolley Problem.

Lets say that the Impeachment Process began on the back of this news. Fast forward a few months and the Mueller report is released, disproving this article and subjectively invalidating the impeachment process. If the process is in action, it could fail, if the process was successful and was in the hands of the senate it would be the perfect excuse to throw it out.

Where would that leave Mueller? Questions would be asked over why he didn't clarify the reporting earlier, by not making a decision to clarify it he allowed the House to make a fool out of themselves by impeaching on fake news.

Where would that leave Mueller's credibility? How much easier do you think it would be to dismiss the report of a man who has been accused of running a which hunt who then allowed the President to be impeached off the back of a news article he knew to be factually inaccurate.

He's absolutely right to clarify the reports at this point. It's easy to say "he should remain apolitical" but it's nigh on impossible to do so when you are investigating the President. Every decision made or decision avoided has political consequences, he just has to do what he feels is morally or procedurally correct.
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For the record (although I think it's clear), I don't disagree with Mueller's decision to publicly comment on the article. I was disagreeing with your interpretation of the motives behind it.

The scenario that you described may or may not happen, but as I said, I do not think Mueller uses that possibility in his decision making as a SC.

As far as Comey is concerned, I believe he made a mistake although his motives were probably well intented. It was simply too close to the election not to impact it.
 
Raoul said:
A good way to interpret Mueller's statement is "One or more components of the Buzzfeed story are wrong and we are concerned Congress and the media are getting spun up about impeachment based on a story that is not entirely accurate. We are also concerned that a move to premature impeachment may usurp our ability to carry out our investigation and fully leverage the witnesses we are currently working with. We deliberately worded our statement in a lawerly way to confuse everyone as to which of the Buzzfeed portions are untrue and which may actually be true because we don't want to get into a back and forth about validating a news outlet's story in the middle of an investigation".
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Thanks. Sounds coherent. There is one helluva cat and mouse game going on, in at least four dimensions, is all I know.
 
Rudy just made some stunning admissions to Jake tapper today



Also said that the Trump Moscow tower talks went into november 2016!!!




Also Buzzfeed adamant about their reporting

 
He just can't avoid that script, can he?

"He didn't do it"
-> "I don't know if he did it, but if he did, so what?"
-> "He did do it, but it's not a crime to do it"
-> "What is really a crime?"
-> "Is crime illegal?"
 
I know I'm late on this but Trump family is basically the Bluths and Giuliani is Barry Zuckerkorn.
 
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