Thread by @MollyMcKew

I will provide only trolling commentary of the Barr hearing in this thread:

Before the end of this hearing, there will be a dozen investigations of Clinton and Benghazi will probably be re-opened if Graham's conspiracizing holds up.

As DiFi gives her opening statement, which is an excellent summary of the important parts of the Mueller report, the thought bubble over Barr's head is "blah blah blah"

It seems important to mention that if you are saying "6E" in public you must be careful to annunciate.

Since no one ever seems to mention it: a reminder the Russians hacked the Republicans too.

Barr has so far blamed Mueller for not presenting the report in the correct form and for not coming to a conclusion on his own on obstruction.

Barr's security guy, lurking over his shoulder in hearing coverage, looks like Erik Prince with no hair, and that is almost as distracting as the fact that he is falling asleep, but fighting it. Someone get the man a Coke.

Barr is now resorting to unscripted anecdotal speech, and sounds like a middle school kid explaining why it is absolutely not their fault and also because of communism that they got caught teepeeing a neighbor's house.

Graham: how many people did he indict?

Barr: I can't remember off the top of my head.

Umm what hearing did you think you were coming to?

Everyone is going to keep pointing to RodRos as the guarantor of all things. Sigh.

Barr said destroying documents would be an inherently malignant act inherent to obstruction.

Destroying communications is the exact same thing. Mueller report lists many incidences.

Oh, now it's Comey's fault.

Ok. 🙄

Seriously, Prince va Officer Sleepy

Barr's tortured explanations of what is plausible and that POTUS motive is not corrupt if he believed the accusations against him were unfair were absolutely 😱🔥🔥💩💩

Grassley even calls it the "Democrat National Committee" instead of correct "Democratic National Committee" because who wants to miss a chance to use a slur?

Grassley says he wants an item by item analysis of the Steele dossier and it should have come from Mueller. Ok let's do!

Barr says he doesn't know the scope of the investigation. Is it his first day?

Grassley: who started narrative on Trump-Russia collusion?

BB: I dunno. Let's have an investigation on that too!!

Shoot me.

BB: well I *think* he would've said something if he believed it

🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

The answer is clearly Mueller should testify.

BB casually drops that he is investigating the FBI for leaks. Add it to the list.

Tweeps I am OUT OF COFFEE and going to have to break into my zombie apocalypse stores.

There will be a full Kavanaugh before the end of this hearing.

BB: I don't see any conflict between telling Sessions to unrecuse and get involved in investigation, and the president fully cooperating.

...

BB: why should anyone in the Trump campaign have reported anything to the FBI?

BARR DOESNT EVEN HAVE A COPY OF THE REPORT WITH HIM

BB is just going to jowl his way through every D question. It's hilariously bad.

Every R question is designed to leverage conspiracy architecture.

It is a g*****n embarrassment.

BB: "it's not entirely speculative" to believe that the Steele dossier was the *real* Russian disinformation.

Hoo boy. Cornyn wants to investigate "Obama FBI" thumbs on the scale. 🙄

There is now discussion of whether or not Trump campaign got a "defensive briefing" from the FBI. I think that's been reported on.

Dick Durbin summarizes R questions as the "lock her up defense" 😂😂
A+

To beclown (verb): to make a fool of, to make into a clown. Alternatively: to clown around, make a fool of oneself.

Lee sounds like he will end up as an all-night radio call-in host, answering questions about sex problems. He is building an enemies list.

Re FISA warrants -- BB has no details on who, for how long, why, what the CI effort was. Again-- is it his first day?

It is 100% clear Barr has not read the Mueller report.

It is also 100% clear that he knows zilch about Russia, the Kremlin, key players, objectives.

BB is now reading the dictionary.

During break, I think we should revisit "obviously they were expecting to benefit" from their meetings with the Russians, but there being nothing wrong with that, according to the AG?

"Spying is a good English word" is absolutely the stupidest non-answer this morning.

Ok guys the Amazon fairy is bringing me emergency coffee.

"Collusion conspiracy" is not a thing!!

Mueller was not concerned about press coverage he was concerned about the American people learning anything!!!

Things the FBI made the American public aware of BEFORE the 2016 elections: multiple investigations into Clinton servers, family, hangers-on.

Things the FBI did NOT make the American public aware of until AFTER the election: Concerns re Trump campaign.

This is a NON issue.

Amy Klobuchar has read the report.

Barr -- nope.

Barr is now openly explaining what the president's legal team would be.

So the AG is arguing that when POTUS -- a man who thinks Twitter bots are people -- thinks there is evidence that things are wrong, he can do whatever he wants in response?

Great.

Barr can't answer Sasse's question about Deripaska because he hasn't read the report or been briefed on any of the Russian actors in it.

Sasse is absolutely right that this hearing should be about explaining the substance of the report.

Barr will not be able to answer his questions on what it is illegal for campaigns to do.

Barr doesn't know what the law is on foreign interference in elections.

Barr is interpreting a report on Russian interference for the American public and doesn't know what the law is and HAS NO MESSAGE TO THE PUBLIC ON WHAT THIS MEANS

Barr just acknowledged "non-traditional actors" are critical to Russian and Chinese collection in the US and the American public is unaware.

"There are plausible alternative explanations" -- he channels the inner Kellyanne

[to be clear on the above -- I think Barr is largely playing dumb. But I don't think he has absorbed the details on the report because he doesn't care, and I don't think he is paying attention to what he should be on Russia, election laws, elex finance laws, etc]

This Hawley clip is just gonna loop on Fox for days.

I hear Maduro is looking for coup spox

Good stuff from Joni Ernst on what she calls an "act of aggression" by Russia. How can DoJ help shore up weaknesses? Barr's description of the problem doesn't even have the right rhetoric, but generally fine. He points to IC & FBI's foreign interference task force as responsible

Hironi just made up for all the Assadist garbage we have to hear from Tulsi.

Blackburn is lobbing softballs at Barr so he can help fill narratives on the FBI and Mueller team being rogue.

Barr is conflating who POTUS was accused by, for what. Blackburn: why is it ok for people to express their opinions? This line of questioning is ugh.

This line Rs are seeding that the investigation was a soft coup to "overturn the will of the people" is going to make me bonkers

Barr's security guy looks like he would rather be having dental surgery.

Barr: I don't want to say "release the memo", but...

Twitter: do i get as much caffeine from eating chocolate covered espresso beans as making coffee?

Kamala Harris: Has the president or anyone at the WH ever suggested that you open an investigation against anyone?

Barr: .... uuhhhhhhhhhh. Did you see game of thrones this week? I'm struggling with the word "suggest"

Harris: did you or RodRos review the underlying evidence of the report?

Barr: no.

Oops -- broke thread but

https://twitter.com/MollyMcKew/status/1123656513585913856

SO... he didn't read the full report (at least not enough to absorb detail), and he didn't review the evidence.

Check✅

Crapo trying very hard to find a leaks story.

I SERIOUSLY STILL CANNOT WITH TED CRUZ'S WOLVERINE BEARD IT IS SO WEIRD

it is deeply troubling that the AG keeps saying "the president has been falsely accused" in an expansive way.

Answering Durbin, Barr again shows he hasn't read the report in sufficient detail to remember important facts, such as details Amb Downer provided re convos w G Papa--a topic important enough that Barr says it needs a new investigation (even tho he has ignored current detail)

Amy K: did mueller review trump financials like he said?
Barr: I don't know
Amy K: ... can you find out?
Barr: just ask mueller when he comes.
Amy k: thanks, I'll submit it to you.

Barr describes Mueller's letter as "snitty". Asked to provide his notes on the call with Mueller, Barr says "no. Why should you have them?"

Seriously the worst thing of the day was Barr equivocating on whether or not working with a foreign power during an election is illegal.