Seth Abramson Profile picture
Jul 25, 2019 17 tweets 3 min read Read on X
(THREAD) Far and away the worst take on Mueller's testimony is that we learned nothing new from it. In fact, the *new* facts we learned were jaw-dropping. This thread focuses *only* on 10 new things we now know. I hope you'll RETWEET this for anyone you think might be interested.
1. A VAST TRUMP-RUSSIA COUNTERINTELLIGENCE PROBE IS ONGOING. It's exponentially broader than Mueller's probe, it covers "collusion" (a fair term in the counterintelligence sphere) and its findings are being kept from America *and* Congress. The fight to see them began yesterday.
2. FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT CAN'T CONFIRM TRUMP ISN'T COMPROMISED BY RUSSIA. Because "compromise" is a counterintelligence issue, and compromised politicians are national security threats, and no one has seen any FBI counterintelligence report, we don't know if Trump is a threat.
3. MUELLER DIDN'T INVESTIGATE ANYTHING TRUMP WAS ACCUSED OF BESIDES OBSTRUCTION. The non-obstruction allegations against Trump were aiding/abetting, bribery, money laundering, and illegal pre-election receipt of in-kind donations from non-Russians. Mueller looked at none of that.
4. THERE IS SUBSTANTIAL EVIDENCE TRUMP AIDED AND ABETTED COMPUTER CRIMES. Mueller testified—under oath—that Trump gave "hope" and a "boost" to WikiLeaks' "criminal activity" after he knew such activity was afoot. The crime that describes—aiding/abetting—must now be investigated.
5. THERE IS SUBSTANTIAL EVIDENCE TRUMP COMMITTED THE FEDERAL FELONY OF MAKING FALSE STATEMENTS TO LAW ENFORCEMENT. Mueller testified—under oath—that Trump's written answers to the FBI and the Special Counsel were "generally" *untruthful*, as the facts in Mueller's report confirm.
6. TRUMP AND GOP CLAIMS OF "NO COLLUSION," "NO OBSTRUCTION," AND "NO EVIDENCE OF CONSPIRACY OR COORDINATION" ARE ALL FALSE. It isn't news to anyone paying attention, but as much of America isn't, many learned for the first time from Mueller that these GOP talking points are lies.
7. MUELLER SAID TRUMP COULD BE CHARGED WITH OBSTRUCTION POST-PRESIDENCY AND WOULD HAVE BEEN CHARGED NOW IF NOT FOR THE OLC. Mueller's later (confusing) "walk-back" of the second claim—which many had taken as an accidental truth—didn't erase the specter that he meant what he said.
8. ANY TRUMP CRIMES INVOLVING OTHER NATIONS ARE STILL UNREPORTED. Mueller's testimony made clear that evidence involving nations besides Russia—whether past election interference or future election interference, past collusion or future collusion—went to FBI counterintelligence.
9. REPUBLICANS HAVE NO OBJECTIONS TO ANY OF THE DAMNING FACTS IN THE MUELLER REPORT. Media waited with baited breath for Republicans to contest the Report's damning findings rather than just opine about what else Mueller could have looked at—and shockingly, the moment never came.
10. MUELLER ONLY CHOSE NOT TO INTERVIEW TRUMP FACE-TO-FACE BECAUSE HE ADJUDGED HE HAD ENOUGH EVIDENCE OF "CORRUPT INTENT" ON OBSTRUCTION. Mueller resolved a *longstanding* mystery: why didn't he insist on keeping Trump to his public promise of a live interview? Well, now we know.
BONUS. TRUMP WITNESSES "IMPEDED" THE MUELLER INVESTIGATION. Mueller testified under oath—in answers to questions by Rep. Demings—that contrary to Trump and GOP claims that the White House facilitated campaign aides assisting Mueller, the opposite was true: they tried to stop him.
BONUS. MUELLER BELIEVES TRUMP AND HIS AIDES OPENED THEMSELVES TO KREMLIN BLACKMAIL. Mueller told Rep. Correa he "doesn't disagree" that a series of acts answering to behavior by Trump and his aides would be sufficient to give the Kremlin leverage and blackmail material over them.
BONUS. MUELLER SAYS NOT REPORTING FOREIGN AID OFFERS IN A CAMPAIGN CAN BE A CRIME. Trump says it isn't; the GOP is today fighting as hard as they can not to legislate on it—as they think Trump will do (may already have done) it—but Mueller told Rep. Himes it can be a crime *now*.
BONUS. TRUMP AND THE GOP SAY NEITHER MUELLER NOR BARR CAN "EXONERATE" TRUMP ON OBSTRUCTION. One of yesterday's oddest moments came when *multiple* Republicans said no one at DOJ can exonerate Trump on obstruction—meaning Mueller's report is definitionally an impeachment referral.
BONUS. TRUMP'S CAMPAIGN MANAGER PAUL MANAFORT SPENT THE WHOLE CAMPAIGN EXPECTING TO RECEIVE FINANCIAL COMPENSATION (NOT JUST LOAN FORGIVENESS) FROM THE KREMLIN FOR HIS STEWARDSHIP OF TRUMP. Many thought this shocking fact was discussed at length in Mueller's report—but it wasn't.
PS. Mueller also refused to say there was "no evidence" Manafort met with Assange; refused to say there was no evidence Trump's campaign was involved in the theft of HRC/DNC emails; rejected the "hoax" and "witch hunt" slurs; and said Putin could have compromising tapes of Cohen.

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More from @SethAbramson

Mar 27
We have due process for a reason.

ICE used to be a legal operation. Now—without it ever confirming for a judge it has the right person and has a reasonable basis to take irrevocable government action—this is a kidnapping.

If you see something like this, report it to the police.
What the police can do is contact ICE to confirm it conducted an operation that resulted in the seizure of a specific person.

If ICE refuses to confirm the seizure of that person at that time, the police have a Kidnapping on their hands.

They'll be required to act accordingly.
If ICE confirms the seizure of that person at that time, the police can ask when the court hearing for the seized person is so friends and/or family reporting a Kidnapping will be able to attend and speak on the seized person's behalf. If ICE refuses to provide the information...
Read 6 tweets
Mar 22
More than any two men in America, Trump and Musk target for vicious retribution anyone who crosses them.

And more than any two men in America, Trump and Musk complain about media using anonymous sources to report on them.

Just take a moment and sit with those two statements.
The question here is why Trump and Musk have such a penchant for *creating* the phenomena they'll later loudly claim to be victims of.

One answer is that they're both malignant narcissistic sociopaths who can't process empathy and therefore can't put themselves in others' shoes.
But the other answer I have found, as a biographer of both men, is that they desperately need public attention to be on them at all times. They need a piece of all our lives in a way that is actually *clinical*—narcissists literally don't know how to process being widely ignored.
Read 19 tweets
Mar 22
They’re destroying our government—and with it, America.

They’re coming for your Social Security. Your student loans. Your voting systems. Your personal data. Your Medicare. Your freedoms.

They want EVERYTHING. And they are coming for EVERYTHING.

From The Washington Post: Image
Never forget what these people did. They stormed OUR Capitol. They threatened OUR government. They tried to overthrow OUR democracy. They tried to block the presidency WE voted for in 2020.

And when 1,600+ of these lunatic criminals were finally rounded up, they PARDONED them.
Don’t let them rewrite history. THEY attacked our democracy with violence. THEY declared that they’d rather have Vladimir Putin as president than Joe Biden. THEY declared American democracy an outmoded form of government. THEY let billionaires buy our government.

THEY must lose.
Read 9 tweets
Mar 17
(🔐) This isn’t a stunt. It’s long, expert, fully sourced, and includes reams of data—e.g., on casualties.

I hope you’ll RT.

“BREAKING NEWS: The AI Musk Funded Now Asserts There Will More Likely Than Not Be a Second U.S. Civil War This Year or Next”

🔗: sethabramson.substack.com/p/breaking-new…Image
1/ The odds of a second Civil War in the next 20 months are assessed at about 70%, and this assessment was reached after a lengthy conversation between the only bestselling biographer of both Donald Trump _and_ Elon Musk and what is probably the best AI out there at the moment.
2/ More importantly, this conversation _shows its work_. Every claim is sourced, all hard data is historicized, sourced and explained, and the two participants leave no doubt whatsoever as to _exactly_ how this assessment was reached.
Read 7 tweets
Mar 15
Twitter users who aren't Trump biographers love to say they know the Trump-Russia scandal—and know it to be a hoax.

So let's have a contest.

I'll put a 🛎 after the first comment that answers one question correctly: What was Trump's first defense to allegations of a "pee tape"?
{I suppose it goes without saying that—like all "innocent" men—Trump gave many different defenses to the possibility (confirmed as *fact* by the CIA, per the BBC) that Putin has compromising tapes of him, all contradictory. I'm only looking for the first.} bbc.com/news/world-us-…
(PS) One thing I will also do is identify as *close* any reference any commenter makes to a defense that Trump did offer to the allegation, among the possibly dozens he offered.

I will write, "That was a defense! But not the first one." That will make this even more educational.
Read 11 tweets
Mar 14
(🧵) Elongelicals insist this Musk sentiment is right and defend it.

What makes that so interesting isn’t Musk’s antisemitism—he’s a hardcore antisemite—but that he's *encouraging* analogies between 2025 America and Nazi Germany.

OK, let's play them out! thedailybeast.com/musk-boosts-cl…
1/ Hitler was responsible for millions and millions of deaths—some on battlefields in a war he started, some in concentration camps. Which deaths, precisely, is Musk attributing to career German civil servants who were in government before Hitler came to power and stayed at work?
2/ All Western Front battlefield deaths are attributable to Hitler’s psychopathic military adventurism—which was his decision the same way Putin invaded Georgia, Ukraine and Chechnya and the same way Trump is now threatening to invade annex Canada and invade Greenland and Panama.
Read 12 tweets

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