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I've long talked about 2 competing theories. One is that Trump colluded with Russia. The other is that the Department of Justice behaved reprehensibly in *pushing* this theory -- dossier-fueled wiretaps, informants, widespread criminal leaks, investigation shenanigans. 1/
As crazy as it was, Theory 1 was widely held & pushed by our media and other partisans. It has been shown to be false. That leaves us with theory 2 -- that our DOJ had no basis to behave in this norm-breaking fashion against Trump. Consider this when looking at today's report 2/
The exoneration of Trump regarding collusion is strike 1 against the DOJ. But the second part of the report -- the part about obstruction -- also is a strike. Let's look at what it says. 3/
Note this curious line from AG Bill Barr: "The Special Counsel states that 'while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.'" 2 reasons it's significant he goes out of his way to note this is a claim from Mueller 4/
One, it's the job of the prosecutor to make decisions about whether crimes were committed. It's *weird* Mueller didn't do it. It's COMEY-like that he didn't do it. It's intended to be a smear and is typical of the Comey-style game-playing we saw throughout the Russia hysteria. 5/
Let's pause to note Mueller's extremely close personal relationship and work history with Comey should be viewed by journalists and other observers as worthy of scrutiny given Comey's role in both the Russia conspiracy theory and the obstruction claims 6/
OK, so Barr asserts in the next paragraph that the evidence is not there for such a charge, and paragraph after that explains that his tweets and public comments and what not don't meet the 3 criteria needed. He shows that Mueller's line is wrong. 6/
A Comey-style ploy is to play games between what's known and what's not known. So, for example, Comey told Trump he was NOT under investigation 3 times--but publicly suggested otherwise. Perhaps Mueller thought he would try to do something similar with his weird line. 7/
If Mueller wanted to claim Trump had obstructed justice by speaking against a full-throated investigation of a crime sane people must admit he didn't commit, he should have done so. It could be argued that not doing so shows Theory 2 is still something we're dealing with. 8/
The most significant part of the Russia section is the complete exoneration of Trump. The most significant part of the obstruction section, after Barr/Rosenstein saying there was no crime there, is that they quoted Mueller. Theory One is Dead. Theory Two is Alive. 9/9
I'll note that this, from one of the top Resistance guys, came out very quickly in the NYT tonight. They're not happy that they didn't get to leak Mueller's line (like they selectively leak all the other things) or play other games with his approach. 
