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THREAD. Today’s Mueller conference was devastating to Trump. Here’s why 1.First, as I've said for a long time,“cant indict a sitting President” has obvious pitfalls for Trump. Every scholar who says this says the remedy for such a President is impeachment nytimes.com/2018/05/21/opi…
2.The line that Mueller said, that a sitting President cannot be indicted, is acrid with the stench of impeachment. It’s an obvious toss of the baton to Congress. There is no other way to read it.
3.That's why Mueller today said “The Dept’s...opinion explaining the policy against charging a President makes several important points…[it] says that the Constitution requires a process OTHER than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting President of wrongdoing”
4.There’s only one other process and it’s called impeachment. As Rep. Amash said today,
5. SECOND, consider what Mueller decided to highlight from his massive report. He highlighted 2 key things, first, he couldn’t indict Trump even if Trump were guilty as sin, and second, he WOULD clear Trump if he could on the facts he had. Pointedly, Mueller did not clear him.
6. THIRD, Mueller drew attention back to the Report, instead of Barr’s spin about it. Mueller’s essentially saying “Read my lips: read the report.”
7. Just imagine if we had heard first from Mueller & then from Barr, back in March. Instead, Barr tried to preempt news coverage thru a cherry-picked, selective release and distortion of what Mueller’s Report actually said. He didn't do what Mueller asked, release the summaries.
8. I mean, wow, of all people, Chris Christie told ABC today that Mueller today “definitely contradicts” what Barr said on obstruction “in a very concise way.”
9. (And picking up on my first point above, Chris Christie in that clip above says the clear implication from Mueller’s words today is that it’s Congress’ constitutional responsibility now.)
10. FOURTH, Mueller gravely undermined Barr’s credibility. Remember Barr went out & tried to “clear” Trump of obstruction after receiving Report. Mueller made clear today his Report in no way says anything like that. Rather,he said he’d clear Trump if he could on the facts he saw
11. FIFTH, the very fact Mueller (of all people) is in a press conference about his conclusions tells you there is grave concern about the way Barr’s press conferences & public statements have tried to obscure things. A press conference is not where Mueller would want to be.
12. But Mueller evidently felt it necessary. Even though Barr is his boss. While we have focused a lot on how Mueller is saying he couldn’t indict a sitting President, Mueller couldn’t easily “indict” (here I mean it in the nontechnical sense, “criticize”) Barr, his boss, either
13.Thats huge. Imagine your boss went and gave a press conference about your work. You then wrote her 2 letters expressing concern about what she said. She then testifies in Congress. If you later went and gave your own conference,what would that say about how you view your boss?
14. The only nice thing Mueller could bring himself to say about Barr today was this: “We appreciate that the Attorney General made the report largely public. I do not question the Attorney General’s good faith IN THAT DECISION.”
15. Wow. That’s like my saying I don’t question Trump for his decision to publicly explain why he wanted a Muslim Ban. BFD.
16. About a thousand former federal prosecutors have read the Mueller Report and concluded that they would indict anyone who wasn’t the President on the facts presented. The Report itself raises grave concerns about the President’s fitness for office.
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17.And beyond that,there is the problem that even if you can’t indict a President, who wants to have a guy in the job who is only avoiding jail by dint of his Govt title? Don’t we have a higher standard for highest office in the land than “not criminal by reason of technicality”?
18. If you are interested in this last point, this one of many things that @gtconway3d has written so eloquently about.
19.BOTTOM LINE.This all today means 3 things
*an impeachment inquiry is inevitable
*the facts outlined by Mueller suggest Trump will be indicted when he leaves office
*Trump goes down in history as a criminal who violated his oath to take care the laws be faithfully executed
END
*an impeachment inquiry is inevitable
*the facts outlined by Mueller suggest Trump will be indicted when he leaves office
*Trump goes down in history as a criminal who violated his oath to take care the laws be faithfully executed
END
