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MINI-THREAD: Here's my analysis of the widening divide between what Attorney General William Barr said publicly about the Russia investigation and special counsel Robert Mueller's actual report. Here are the four major ways Barr twisted Mueller's words. cnn.com/2019/04/19/pol…
1/ One thing was crystal clear from Barr's press conference: No collusion! The attorney general's willingness to echo President Donald Trump's favorite two-word mantra was evident throughout his remarks.
2/ "The special counsel confirmed that the Russian government sponsored efforts to illegally interfere with the 2016 presidential election but did not find that the Trump campaign or other Americans colluded in those schemes," Barr said Thursday morning.
3/ It's true: Mueller did not establish that there was a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russian government to influence the 2016 presidential election. Full stop.
4/ But the report provides much more context. Mueller uncovered "multiple links" connecting Trump aides to Russian officials and that there was at least some willingness to collude -- like Donald Trump Jr. and the Trump Tower meeting -- though collusion never came to fruition.
5/ In the report, Mueller's team concluded that the Trump campaign "expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts" and that the campaign "showed interest in WikiLeaks's releases" and "welcomed their potential" to hurt Clinton.
6/ That isn't criminal, but it isn't pretty. Barr conveniently chose to omit any mention of those findings in his letters to Congress, public testimony on the Hill, and press conference yesterday.
7/ On OBSTRUCTION... In his letter to lawmakers, Barr said Mueller conducted a thorough investigation of whether Trump obstructed justice but didn't offer a conclusion. Barr quoted from the report, saying Mueller struggled with "difficult issues" when assessing obstruction.
8/ Without a definitive ruling from Mueller, Barr stepped in and cleared Trump of obstruction.
9/ Barr was misleading when quoting Mueller about the "difficult issues." Mueller didn't with whether there was enough evidence to bring an obstruction case. The challenge was that they amassed compelling evidence but couldn't indict a President even if they wanted to.
10/ Right before Mueller mentions the "difficult issues" that Barr quoted, Mueller said this: ""...if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state..."
11/ OLC OPINION: Last month and again on Thursday, Barr downplayed the role that Justice Department guidelines played when Mueller considered whether Trump violated the law.
12/ Internal Justice Department policies say that a sitting president cannot be indicted. The policy comes from the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) and it dates back to the Nixon administration. It is binding on all DOJ employees, including Mueller and his team of prosecutors.
13/ "We specifically asked Mueller about the OLC opinion and whether or not he was taking the position that he would have found a crime but for the existence of the OLC opinion," Barr said Thursday. "And he made it very clear several times that that was not his position."
14/ But Mueller's report directly explains how this had a major impact on his internal deliberations. In effect, Mueller framed his entire obstruction investigation around the notion that he couldn't charge Trump even if he found ironclad evidence against him, because of OLC rule
15/ One big question that Barr answered during his press conference was whether Mueller intended for his report to be a roadmap for Congress to follow, perhaps down the path of impeachment.
