Thread by @PantsuitPolitic

I'm reading the report in full and will make some notes here as I go if you'd like to follow along. -beth

"Although 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 from Russian efforts...

the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."

"A statement that the investigation did not establish particular facts does not mean there was no evidence of those facts." [This is where congressional committees come in]

Page 2 of the report carefully explains that "collusion" is really not a thing in federal criminal law. Which adds to the bizarre nature of the Attorney General's press conference.

Paul Manafort and Konstantin Kliminick worked on a "peace plan" for Ukraine that was a "'backdoor' way for Russia to control eastern Ukraine." Kliminick is the person with whom Manafort shared polling information and discussed plans to win over Midwestern democrats.

After the election, the CEO of Russia's sovereign wealth fund collaborated with a friend of Jared Kushner on a "short written reconciliation plan for the US and Russia, which [the CEO] implied had been cleared through Putin."

Editorial comment: the professionalism of this report is top notch and highlights what a complete disservice Barr has done to the people who worked on it.

"the Office learned that some of the individuals we interviewed or whose conduct we investigated -- including some associated with the Trump Campaign -- deleted relevant communications" or used apps that prevent long-term retention. Congress will have some questions about that.

Another editorial comment: given the small universe of people who made up the Trump Campaign and the proximity of so many of those folks to the President, including in senior positions today, I think Congress would be right to insist these Personal Privacy redactions be removed

I spent 11 years working in a very sophisticated law firm. It's absolutely amazing that this much work was done in two years. I'm very grateful to these professionals.

I'm not going to type all of the process detail, but the meticulousness with which the Special Counsel communicated with others, to me, shows how carefully Mueller has considered the IC and information-sharing post-9/11

This report is a nightmare for Facebook (not great for Twitter and Instagram, either). It's not a lot of new information, but it so crisply communicates the breadth of the IRA disinformation campaign.

"Lightly redacted" can go in the bin of phrases that I think the Attorney General should not have used. This screenshot is from the section on Internet Research Agency. Totally understand why this is redacted...just saying, it's not light.

When serious people have to confront the absurdity of the internet

In describing instructions to Internet Research Agency specialists, the report quotes internal IRA documents: "Main idea: Use any opportunity to criticize Hillary [Clinton] and the rest (except Sanders and Trump - we support them)."

Most of the detail about IRA so far was contained in the criminal complaint filed months ago, but the report serves as a good reminder that when we see hashtags and memes and think "are people this awful/ignorant?" it's a red flag.

As an example: a tweet about how the Civil War was about money instead of slavery was part of this operation and received over 40,000 responses.

I just want to pause and say to our beloved fellow citizens that reading this report as a person of color must be triply sickening, and I'm sorry.

A detail I did not expect: the IRA hired someone to dress like Santa with a Trump mask and walk around New York.

I'll never see Times Square in quite the same way.

Two forms of contact between the Trump Campaign and IRA: 1. lots of reposting and interacting with IRA-generated content online; 2. human beings employed by IRA held themselves out as US persons to the Trump Campaign to seek assistance with political rallies

[please hold ... pausing for a call with a client]

Ok, I'm back.

IRA people reached out to the Trump campaign requesting materials and signage, etc. The investigation did not find evidence that any of the campaign volunteers understood that these requests were coming from foreign nationals.

Congress is going to need more info here. Remember how on the podcast we talked about the fact that something doesn't have to necessarily be a crime to be not at all ok?

Lots of detail on how the GRU (actual Russian military) hacked the DCCC, DNC, and Clinton Campaign. I'd love to talk to @seanmcfate about this section.

If you are in the IT world for any entity in the United States, sections of this report should be required reading. We were sitting ducks.

Julian Assange's hatred of Hillary Clinton is described in pretty stark terms. He's quoted: "She's a bright, well-connected, sadistic sociopath."

[PERMIT ME ONE ALL CAPS MOMENT TO SAY THAT I'M QUOTING A REPORT NOT ENDORSING THE COMMENT PLEASE DON'T EMAIL ME]

This is the fascinating part about Assange -- he thought Democrats, the media, and liberals would come together to restrain a Republican president but that Clinton + a GOP congress would "push for her worse qualities" and be unchecked by liberals.

WikiLeaks also thought of this election as a gateway to greater credibility. If WikiLeaks became "the place" for background on Clinton, people might send more important information to them. Assange and company thought of American democracy as a stepping stone. It's gross.

"The Office cannot rule out that stolen documents were transferred to WikiLeaks through intermediaries who visited during the summer of 2016."

In my experience, attorneys typing "can't rule out" means something like "this happened, we just can't prove it."

Assange used Seth Rich's murder to obscure where he was getting his information. I'm so sorry for that family. Over and over.

"Gates recalled candidate Trump being generally frustrated that the Clinton emails had not been found." This sentence is sandwiched between huge chunks of redacted material.

"According to Gates, by the late summer of 2016, the Trump campaign was planning a press strategy, a communications campaign, and messaging based on the possible release of Clinton emails by WikiLeaks."

The report, with redactions, describes a call Trump took with Gates in the car, and after the call, Trump told Gates more WikiLeaks releases were coming.

The myriad ways the report has to describe the Access Hollywood video is truly something.

"Donald Trump Jr. had direct electronic communications with WikiLeaks during the campaign period."

I knew Trump was obsessed with Hillary Clinton's "missing emails," but I didn't know he was instructing-staff-to-find-them-obsessed.

The cynicism of the hunt for the missing Clinton emails is staggering. It's "Clinton obviously compromised sensitive information to foreign actors, so let's use foreign actors to try to show that she did."

I'm now in the Trump Tower Moscow section

The vetting process for hiring the best people appears to have been...compressed

My summary of the Papadopoulos and Page sections:
- both were poorly vetted
- both substituted ambition for judgment
- both had the idea that their missions in life were to arrange high-level meetings between Trump and Russian government officials

On the Trump Tower meeting re "dirt on Clinton": Russians claimed that funds from illegal activities in Russia were given to Clinton and Democrats, provided no evidence, and moved on to the Magnitsky Act.

Don Jr. said they could talk sanctions post-election and then never responded to attempts from the Russians to follow up on this meeting.

So, the Campaign stopped engaging because the promised dirt was not provided.

My summary of the Paul Manafort section:
Manafort had become a washed up and highly problematic consultant amongst the Ukrainian and Russian political set. He agreed to work on the Trump campaign for free to try to jump start his comeback and "monetize" his connections

He was also trying to collect money he thought was owed to him and to get out of a lawsuit. It's all pretty crass.

Amateur hour in the transition team

Erik Prince and Steve Bannon have different recollections about Prince's meetings with Russians and the Crown Prince in the Seychelles, but I think the bottom line is that Prince was incompetent. The Russians wanted someone higher level and willing to talk more specifically.

Rest of the conspiracy/coordination section contains lots of information that I'd want to follow up on as a journalist, but I'm a mom in Kentucky. So I'm moving on.

In supreme legal shade, the report cites a Brett Kavanaugh opinion on the importance of preventing foreign influence in US politics.

Hmmm

I read all of Volume I. You know what was not mentioned even one time anywhere? Christopher Steele's dossier.

Volume II announces itself as wholly necessitated by the President's own actions. No witch hunt here.

Conclusion from the executive summary of Volume II, which could have easily been provided instead of Barr's letter (I'm souring even more on Barr as this day drags on)

In discussing the process for investigating obstruction, the report says the POTUS declined to be voluntarily interviewed. The Special Counsel believed he could subpoena POTUS but knew it would cause serious delay and had plenty of other ways to understand POTUS's intent.

First mention of the Steele dossier comes in Volume II in describing how the Trump campaign's ties to Russia became a big story in US media (and how everyone attached to the campaign lied publicly and repeatedly about having nothing to do with Russia).

Please hold again...parenting duties call.

Ok, friends. I'm going to record the Nightly Nuance and then shutting it down for today. I'll be back for more of this fun and to answer your questions to the best of my ability tomorrow. Love to all of you. Don't get bogged down in this.

AND it's Friday morning. Let's talk obstruction of justice.

Trump did not like reading about Flynn talking sanctions with the Russian ambassador in the Washington Post. He told Priebus, who told Flynn, who told McFarland to "kill the story." McFarland issued a detail to WaPo that she knew was false.

When Priebus told Trump that Flynn was lying to basically everyone about his discussions with Kislyak, Trump said, "not again, this guy, this stuff."

When Trump scheduled his infamous dinner with Comey, Priebus told him "don't talk about Russia, whatever you do."

Trump said Comey asked for the dinner, which was false. "Substantial evidence corroborates Comey's account of the dinner invitation and the request for loyalty."

Side note: this morning I explained to my 8-year-old that when you start lying about anything, your brain can get into a habit of lying about everything.

McGahn and Priebus decided that Flynn should be terminated and made that recommendation to Trump.

We knew this, but it's still kind of staggering: in the weeks after the inauguration, the White House counsel and chief of staff were spending substantial time assessing whether the National Security Advisor was lying and had criminal exposure.

Chris Christie tried to tell Trump never to talk about Russia because "there's no way to make an investigator shorter but lots of ways to make it longer."

Trump asked Christie to call Comey and tell him that Trump really liked him and that Comey was part of the team. Christie thought that was ridiculous and didn't do it.

Everybody loves to hate on James Comey, but he is one of the only people discussed in this report who seemed to ask at any point, "is this the right thing to do?"

Priebus told McFarland that she was being terminated from deputy NSA but could be ambassador to Singapore and also that they'd like her to write a statement that Trump did not direct Flynn to talk about sanctions with Kislyak. Later, Priebus was like "hey, forget I said that."

"[T]he circumstances of the conversation show that the President was asking Comey to close the FBI's investigation into Flynn."

"After Sessions announced his recusal on March 2, the President expressed anger at Sessions for the decision and then privately asked him to 'unrecuse.'"

McGahn called everybody trying to prevent Sessions from recusing himself -- Sessions' personal counsel, Sessions' chief of state, Mitch McConnell, and Sessions himself over and over. I'm no fan, but Sessions followed the rules under extreme pressure not to.

Trump spent a lot of time on the phone complaining about the investigation. The Deputy Director of of the NSA said Trump's call to Admiral Rogers was "the most unusual thing he had experienced in 40 years of government service."

After Comey's congressional testimony, Trump lashed out at Sessions. "This is terrible, Jeff. It's all because you recused. AG is supposed to be the most important appointment. Kennedy appointed his brother. Obama appointed Holder. ... You left me on an island."

Bannon told Trump not to fire Comey, that the ship had sailed. He said Trump could fire the FBI director but not the FBI.

My goodness.

Bannon tried to tell Trump that claiming Mueller was conflicted because of requesting a golfing fee refund was "ridiculous and petty."

(TFW Steve Bannon tells you you're being petty...)

Don McGahn nearly resigned because Trump asked him repeatedly to tell Rosenstein to fire Mueller.

Trump dictated a (bizarre) speech outline to Corey Lewandowski, that Lewandowski gave to Rick Dearborn to give to Jeff Sessions... because our highest levels of government were functioning like a middle school.

Things got really, really bad between Trump and McGahn. Trump claimed to McGahn that he never told him to fire the Special Counsel. Short summary of McGahn's response: you did. I took notes because I'm a real lawyer, and we do that sort of thing.

pausing because...life. back this afternoon.

This is out of sequence, but I kept thinking about it during my break: Sessions wrote a resignation letter and gave it to Trump. Trump put it in his pocket but didn't accept it. Priebus had to convince Trump to give the letter back -- said it was like a shock collar on the DOJ

When the President wanted McGahn to make a statement that he had never asked for the Special Counsel to be fired, McGahn refused. Trump's personal lawyers called McGahn and told him not to resign under any circumstances. John Kelly described the conversations as "tense."

I want to be fair in my characterizations -- I'm struggling to read this section in any way other than, "well, Trump often believes his own lies so it's possible he didn't think he was instructing anyone to lie."

I also see in this section, like the previous obstruction sections, that Trump's media obsession actually limits his legal exposure. It's possible that he acted in contemplation of criminal proceedings, but more plausible really that he acted based on press coverage.

Wowza. Flynn's lawyers had to tell Trump's lawyers that the White House had to stop having personal calls with Flynn. Trump's lawyers took this as a sign that Flynn was flipping and said they'd tell the President that Flynn had become hostile to him.

The report says Trump's lawyer told Flynn's lawyer to tell Flynn that they'd be reporting his hostility to the President because they thought "Flynn would be disturbed to know that such a message would be conveyed to the President."

Manafort told Gates to "sit tight" because he had talked to the President's lawyers and they were going to "take care of us."

Notably, much of the Manafort obstruction section is comprised of public statements Trump and Giuliani made.

It looks like attorney-client privilege saved Trump from obstruction as to Flynn -- "Because of privilege issues, however, we could not determine whether the President was personally involved in or knew about the specific message his counsel delivered to Flynn's counsel."

Obstruction as to Manafort appears to have been an even closer call. The Special Counsel saw evidence that Trump intended to influence Manafort (away from cooperation with the gov't) and a jury pool. There is a *very* generous "but other possibilities exist" section.

On telling the public there was no relationship with Russia: "Cohen said that he discussed the talking points with with Trump but he did not explicitly tell Trump he thought they were untrue because Trump already knew they were untrue."

Cohen was part of a joint defense agreement with the President and frequently spoke with the President's counsel. Counsel "assured him that there was nothing there and that if they stayed on message the investigations would come to an end soon."

The President's counsel also told Cohen that he was protected and that he wouldn't be protected if he "went rogue."

The President's counsel told Cohen to leave his overtures to Russia about setting up a meeting for Putin and Trump out of his testimony to Congress because it wasn't relevant.

Also, this meeting didn't happen because a Russian official told Cohen it wouldn't be proper protocol for Trump to meet with Putin.

The President's counsel told Cohen that "his client" appreciated Cohen and that Cohen shouldn't muddy the waters. Keep the story tight, and it will be over soon.

(narrator: we see how that turned out)

I'm so confused by the number of people who seem to routinely refer to Trump as "the boss" and "boss man."

"At the time, Cohen believed his legal fees were still being paid by the Trump Organization, which he said was important to him. Cohen believed he needed the power of the President to take care of him, so he needed to defend the President and stay on message."

This section of the report is jarring to read because you go from very polished, professional writing to tweets from the President and back and forth and back and forth.

As with Flynn, the fact that Trump's lawyers did so much of the shake-down communication probably saved Trump from crossing the line into obstruction.

"The President's acts were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests." -- Comey, McGahn, Lewandowski, and Dearborn are the specifically-mentioned "persons who surrounded"

"The President launched public attacks on the investigation and individuals involved in it who could possess information adverse to the President, while in private the President engaged in a series of targeted efforts to control the investigation."

Pages of legal analysis -- including pages about the power of Congress to take action with respect to the actions and issues described in the report

"[I]f we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment."

The end. Amen and amen. More thoughts on the nightly nuance and on Tuesday's podcast. Thanks for hanging in, everyone.