Robert Mueller before the House Intelligence Committee, July 24th 2019. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
The Mueller hearing (July 24th 2019) was where Robert Mueller was questioned by the US Congress for seven hours right before they went home for the summer. Mueller did not say much more than what was already in his 448-page report on the Russiagate scandal issued three months ago. He would not even answer whether he thought President Trump should be impeached. Thus no bombshells.
Mueller warned:
“Over the course of my career, I’ve seen a number of challenges to our democracy. The Russian government’s effort to interfere in our election is among the most serious”
“They’re doing it as we sit here. And they expect to do it again during the next campaign.”
“[it] has and would have long-term damage to the United States that we need to move quickly to address … whatever legislation will encourage us to working together – the FBI, CIA, NSA and the rest – should be pursued. Aggressively. Early.”
When asked if Trump has set a new normal by not reporting interference by a hostile foreign power in an election, Mueller said:
“I hope this is not the new normal but I fear it is.”
Later that day Republicans blocked a Democratic bill that would require political campaigns to report such foreign interference.
Not Hollywood enough: Over the past two years the Democrats have built up Mueller into a Defender of Democracy, the Republicans into a Deep State Villain bent on bringing down a Duly Elected President. In the flesh he appeared to be neither. But one piece of his image did prove true: Mueller as a by-the-book straight arrow. Boringly so. The press on both the left and the right complained about his lack of entertainment value.
Tucker Carlson of Fox News said the hearing “made it crystal clear the whole thing was a hoax.” Mueller was a “daft old man blinking in the sunlight once his curtain was torn away.” He could not answer important questions about the Dirty Dossier (a Fox News conspiracy theory), proving that he does not care about the truth. It is clear that Tucker Carlson’s audience has not read the Mueller Report – or much of anything outside the Republican Bubble.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House spokeswoman, flat-out lied about the hearing even though it is right on the Internet:
“Didn’t take long for Mueller to once again vindicate President @realDonaldTrump. No collusion. No obstruction. And now Mueller all but admits it was all along a total witch hunt.”
In fact, Mueller said, point-blank:
“It is not a witch hunt.”
and that he did not exonerate the president of obstruction of justice. Mueller:
“Obstruction of justice strikes at the core of the government’s effort to find the truth and to hold wrongdoers accountable.”
Which is why Sanders, Carlson and Trump lie and mislead.
Mueller said there was not enough evidence to prove that Trump conspired with Russia – what is often called “collusion” (not a term found in the law) – but Trump did welcome and received help from Russia to win the 2016 election.
– Abagond, 2019.
See also:
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Abagond 
“The Russian government’s effort to interfere in our election is among the most serious” – I don’t care how Mueller “performed” this information – skip the Hollywood drama – this is what Americans need to know – that a foreign agency is trying to take down our government by helping put Trump in office. Trump I believe is beholden to them through financial arrangements, That and the American Extreme Right supported by White Supremacists who have their own agenda to “Make America Theirs Again”. Mueller goes by the book to bring credible and thoroughly provable facts to make a case that won’t fall apart. Our system is guarded by laws and our law makers should not be rushing to be a Kangaroo Court for drama. I agree with Pelosi on this: make sure everything clears the Judicial System – if you can’t prove by verifiable facts that a crime was committed then you have no case. The American Constitution – no matter how many over bloated leaderships we go through – in my opinion, still sets the standards for human survival and development on the planet.
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Whatever horrible or terrible crime Trump committed it will never sway his unhinged cult following.
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Mueller warned that he would not go beyond what was published in the report. Therefore, what was hoped was that the Mueller testimony would give some impetus to the argument that Trump needed to be impeached. In that sense, it WAS a performance for the American people since nothing new would be gleaned. The information should have seemed more authoritative coming from the man himself. Instead Mueller often appeared unenthusiastic about even reading from his own report. From that perspective I’d consider the hearing unsuccessful.
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I agree with Pelosi, in theory, that you don’t want to trivialize impeachment by starting impeachment proceedings for spurious reasons. However impeachment, IMO, is political not legal process that’s why it is in the hands of Congress not the Judiciary. It would be politically unwise to set the bar for impeachment so high that it is impossible to impeach Trump. However Pelosi is politically savvy and likely realizes that there isn’t enough political support for impeaching Trump at present. I don’t think she wants to try and FAIL to impeach him as that would be another own goal just before the 2020 elections.
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So the Russians are going to continue to meddle in our election process securing another win for Trump in 2020.
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Somebody please tell me how the “Russians” got Trump elected? Be specific, no Democratic party talking points, please.
What did they do that billionaires like Sheldon Adelson, the Israeli lobby, Falwell types, gerrymandering republican governors and others didn’t do? Are you people silly enough to buy the nonsense that a few trolls changed the outcome of an election?
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“Let’s go back to 1984, when David Bogatin, an alleged Russian gangster who arrived in the United States a few years earlier with $3 in his pocket, sat down with Trump and bought not one but five condos, for a total of $6 million — about $15 million in today’s dollars. What was most striking about the transaction was that at the time, according to David Cay Johnston’s “The Making of Donald Trump,” Trump Tower was one of only two major buildings in New York City that sold condos to buyers who used shell companies that allowed them to purchase real estate while concealing their identities. Thus, according to the New York state attorney general’s office, when Trump closed the deal with Bogatin, whether he knew it or not, he had just helped launder money for the Russian Mafia.
And so began a 35-year relationship between Trump and Russian organized crime. Mind you, this was a period during which the disintegration of the Soviet Union had opened a fire-hose-like torrent of hundreds of billions of dollars in flight capital from oligarchs, wealthy apparatchiks and mobsters in Russia and its satellites. And who better to launder so much money for the Russians than Trump — selling them multimillion-dollar condos at top dollar, with little or no apparent scrutiny of who was buying them…”
This is from the Washington Post, you can find lots of articles on Trump’s Russian ties – as a former New Yorker everyone knows about “Dirty Donald” and his father before him. He didn’t clean up his act when he hit the White House. I remember Brighton Beach in Brooklyn when the Russian Mob began to take over – nobody wanted to mess with them. ..so it goes a lot deeper than a few internet trolls.
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https://www.vox.com/world/2018/9/12/17764132/trump-fbi-russia-new-york-times-craig-unger
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Somebody please tell me how the “Russians” got Trump elected? Be specific, no Democratic party talking points, please.
If anything, these Russian ‘trolls’ exploited what was already there. The American populace did the rest.
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Trump’s ties with Russian oligarchs and Russian mobsters. Trump even operates like a mobster. Trump’s love of Putin is also evidence of collusion with Russia. I also wonder what other countries is he in bed with? Perhaps the Saudis and the North Koreans, he has deep admiration and desires to be a dictator. If Trump is elected again in 2020 we can kiss our freedoms as Americans goodbye.
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@Herneith: Your post kind of makes sense and it gives me food for thought. I do feel before Trump leaves office something devastating is going happen in this country, and the part about the American populace did do the rest by electing putting this beast in the White House.
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Part of the problem is the outdated electoral college. The American people didn’t actually vote this clown into office – the popular vote went against him.
That said, it is still unnerving that anyone voted for him.
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Thank you dorisjean23 for attempting to answer my question, however, you went off on a tangent about Trump’s penchant for doing business with unsavory types who did something, (what exactly?) to get him elected.
The link you provided for the Unger interview, is full of absurd speculations that I can’t take seriously because they are ahistorical. Yuri Dubinin invites Trump to the USSR in July 1987 and once there, “According to Gen. Kalugin, that was likely the first step in the process to recruit and compromise Trump. Kalugin told me he would not be surprised in the least if the Russians have compromising materials on Trump’s activities in Moscow, something they were quite good at acquiring.”
Do I need to point out to you that this is hearsay and not a fact? Unger is at least 50% certain that the Russians have something on Trump but doesn’t think it matters: “No, and I won’t say that I’m 100 percent certain that it exists. I spoke to several people who assured me that it exists, but I could not corroborate those accounts. I have no idea if they’re right or if any tapes will ever emerge. But in a way, all of that is beside the point. The real evidence of compromise is already out there, and we’re talking about it now.” This is risible bs, lots of prosecutors would love to use such evidence standard to convict.
The ahistorical part of this story is the little known fact that the USSR collapsed in 1991, the Russians were busy shooting each other to grab power. When the smoke cleared, Russia under Yeltsin was a colony of the USA. Given these changes I find it hard to believe in a KGB that managed to stay coherent enough to mount coup in 2016, 29 years after ‘compronising’ Trump.
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Trump likely has shady business deals. His financial ties became more evident to me after he became president. Trump also has a very different “affect” around Putin. He’s usually borderline disrespectful to other world leaders, including historical US allies, yet he seems almost starstruck in the presence of Vladimir.
However, the “Russia probe” never yielded evidence that Russian hacking changed actual votes. Releasing embarrassing information that may have changed people’s minds is not the same thing. It kind of alarms me that this “red scare” is making some, otherwise reasonable, people embrace censorship.
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Origin, as always, you are a voice of sanity on this forum. Trump was racist scum before and after he was elected. Putin is a tough guy, Trump admires that and the fact that he is the only guy who can answer the USA in the language of mega tons. Trump doesn’t want his buildings to go up in smoke.
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@gro jo
Yes, when they’re together you can definitely sense the admiration coming from Trump, just as much as you can sense Putin’s unflattering assessment of his fan!
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The whole thing was a bust.
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It was sad see those Republicans yelling at this poor, tired 74 year old retired Marine veteran like he was a child. And sad to see those jackals on Fox & Friends and the other blathering, flapping jowl buzzards laughing and making sport of him. It’s like podcaster Chauncey De Vega said, “You Big Dummie”, thinking Mueller was going to save the Democrats and deliver you from Trump.” “ How stupid can you be.” I guess there were a lot of delusional folks hoping Mr. Mueller was going to save us. I am hoping we can defeat Trump at the ballot box in 2020.
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I think (hope) that the Democrats didn’t expect Mueller to significantly expand on the report, especially after he repeatedly stated that he wouldn’t go beyond what was written in the report. What they were really angling at was an exposition of what was actually in the report. Since most Americans didn’t, and have no intention, of reading the report–even most who bought the report probably did not wade through its entirety–what the Dems did was produce the movie version of the book, putting its contents in the court of public opinion. Had the contents not been so damning, the Republicans would not have spent so much effort trying to discredit its lead author.
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Being so inept that your attempts to commit crimes fail, is not the same as being innocent.
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