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My summation: Trump is Putin's useful idiot. That's obvious, but apparently not a crime, merely a national humiliation and grave threat to national security.
My prediction: Overreach by triumphalist Trump so egregious it will lead to his downfall, but the cost to our nation will be extremely high.
For starters: The logic of the Trump "exoneration" narrative presumably will lead to pardons for those jailed while remaining silent, notably Manafort. His silence may have been the roadblock that prevented the conspiracy charge from sticking.
Then it seems possible Trump will try to turn the prosecution spotlight around to focus on Hillary Clinton ... again. We've heard noises like that previously from him, his boy, from obsequious Lindsey Graham, and now, oh yeah, the Russians. thedailybeast.com/mueller-report…
I worry that Trump's overreach, like that of Cheney/Bush, will get us into another wildly destructive war, most likely with Iran. But I do think he has a deep aversion to foreign military adventures, which is some consolation.
The economy? Figuratively speaking, he's built it out of rotten concrete and told contractors they don't need to worry abt regulation. But last week's bond market inversion was like an early tremor in a high-rise disaster movie. It could be Trump's Towering Inferno, and ours.
There is no doubt Putin's people took part in a criminal conspiracies to affect the US elections (per Mueller indictments and Barr letter). Trump sought to benefit from those crimes, and did. His denials are akin to saying his election fell off a truck.
There is also no doubt that Trump tried to help the Russians cover up their crime of electoral interference by denying it happened, firing people looking into it, publicly taking Putin's word over the US intel community. Why is that not obstruction of justice, Mr. Barr?
You benefit from a crime, you cover for those who committed it, but you did not "conspire"? Seems like a very narrow definition that many a mobster would like applied to his case.
There will be new facts, a lot of hair splitting in the House, and there may be criminal prosecutions for fraud and mob-related crimes. But Barr has just handed Trump control of the narrative, which is all he cares about.
And sure enough ... the overreach begins ... thedailybeast.com/senator-lindse…
