Thread by @aaronjmate

"...but the Russian lawyer's presentation did not provide such information." Bye-bye June 2016 Trump Tower Meeting aka "the smoking gun."

As predicted (

https://twitter.com/aaronjmate/status/1069742439987113986

), Mueller employs suggestive wording to suggest "links" and "ties" between Trump & Russia, while acknowledging there is no evidence to actually allege anything concrete:

Bye-Bye Steele-@Maddow theory that Trump watered down Ukraine RNC Platform as "quid pro quo" (and it's ridiculous that it was ever a thing to begin with):

PDF 48-49: Mueller on theft of DNC emails, later released by Wikileaks. GRU officers "*appear* to have stolen thousands of emails and attachments" - why "appear"? Why not just the GRU "*stole*"?

Is this Mueller saying that they don't know for sure that GRU stole the DNC emails?

Bye-Bye Manafort Sharing Polling Data is Proof of Collusion

p.s. hello @joshtpm aka the polling data revelations “effectively end the debate about whether there was ‘collusion.’" (talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-col…)

And now we learn why Mueller went on the record to reject Buzzfeed's Cohen story, & why @BuzzFeedBen @JasonLeopold have to retract it. Buzzfeed reported that Cohen "told the special counsel that after the election, the president personally instructed him to lie." Mueller:

Remember when Cohen's call to a Kremlin assistant proved collusion, or to quote @Chrislhayes, that "The President was compromised by a hostile foreign government, full stop." Mueller: "Cohen could not recall any direct follow-up... nor did the Office identify any..."

.@chrislhayes , November 2018: "Here is what we know. The President was compromised by a hostile foreign government, full stop. There is no other conclusion that could be drawn from Michael Cohen’s admission that he lied to Congress..."
()

Oooh this one's good. Here's Cohen blowing a massive hole through the supposition that high-level, secret negotiations w/ Moscow were continuing over the Trump Tower Moscow Project through June 2016:

Russiagaters are citing suggestive Mueller language like this as vindication. "Numerous links" & "ties" are ambiguous, & legally mean nothing -- that's why Mueller doesn't indict or claim conspiracy, nor cite a single Kremlin intermediary who met w/ Trump camp as part of one.

You know that widely held view that Kilimnik is a "Russian intelligence agent/spy"? First, note that Mueller never calls him that, only says that the FBI "assesses that Kilimnik has ties to Russian intelligence." And here's Mueller's "support" for "that assessment":

Remember how endless prominent conspiracy theorists told us that Manafort must've shared the polling data to aid the Russian meddling effort? Mueller:

Can any conspiracy theorists explain how, if Russian officials colluded w/ Trump on the election (or since 1987, per @jonathanchait), why then, per Mueller, "they appeared not to have preexisting contacts & struggled to connect with senior officials around [Trump]" post-Election?

Hmmm, Mueller says Mifsud made false statements to the FBI -- but doesn't charge him for perjury, like he did to others. Why is that?