It’s Wednesday.
President Trump finished Tuesday by tweeting 5 more times.
President Trump has not tweet for Wednesday so far.
While normally and typically this article features the headline Trump Tweets: blah blah blah, today however, in light of looming questions over Attorney General William Barr and the Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report, I’m going a tad off book, as it were.
First, in his five tweets that finished Tuesday, the President, shared a picture of himself and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, holding the proclamation that declared Golan Heights as part of the State of Israel.
He then proceeded to tweet 2 video clips of Fox News show host Lou Dobbs.
The President once again, I know shocker, attacked the media for their role in the “Russian Investigation.”
Basically Republican’s including the President, seem outraged that the media dare report on an investigation that included the President, his family, and campaign staffers.
As a Reminder.
January of 2017 days before President Trump was sworn into office, CNN reported of the existence of the now famous Steele Dossier. They did not published the 35 page dossier.
Prior to the linked CNN article above was updated, they were the first to report the dossier, however, BuzzFeed News, actually published the memos. Early January 2017.
In both cases above, the existence of the dossier, is fact, we have read them, they are not fake news. However, the information contained in the memos, has not been proved or disproved as being accurate.
Fast forward.
As I mentioned in Tuesday article it was The New York Times, that uncovered the Trump Tower meeting. In July of 2017 when they broke the story, that again, not fake news, as we know it happened, we know it was set-up to obtain dirt on Hillary Clinton.
Those three stories are a huge focus of attacks by “fake news,” crowds, even though it’s proven the things reported in the reports themselves happened.
Now fast forward to present day.
On Friday as the News Blender reported the Special Counsel turned in his report. Before that news was even hours old, Republicans started a victory lap, saying the “report” cleared President Trump and company of all wrong doing.
Saturday we spent the day waiting for Mueller to send a summary of “principle conclusions,” to Congress, and the public.
That summary finally hit Sunday mid-afternoon evening depending on time zone.
Since Sunday the Republicans have cheered Mueller’s report, never mind they have spent the last two years attacking Mueller, the point is, they aren’t praising the Mueller report, they are praising Barr’s summary of the report for one reason, “Barr adds, “the Special Counsel did not find that the Trump campaign, or anyone associated with it, conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in these efforts, despite multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign.””
They ignore that it’s highly probable that our sitting President did in fact commit obstruction of justice, the legal bar of which is high, however, not all that high to prove worthy of impeachment.
- As noted Barr quotes Mueller as writing, “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”
Moving on once again, on Tuesday it was reported that Barr told Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) that he intends to “within weeks,” not “months,” release the Mueller report, now, this is the wait and see type deals, that we political junkies hate.
According to California Congressional reporter Kate Irby, Graham explained the report would go through the White House, giving them the ability to claim Executive Privilege, for things, they don’t want released publicly.
USA Today reported that according to a unnamed Department of Justice official they spoke to, “the department has “no plans at this time” to provide a copy of the report to the White House before it is made public.”
NBC News also reported that “In an interview on Fox News, Graham said he had spoken with both Barr and President Donald Trump on Tuesday night. He said Trump told him that he had no objection to the report’s being made public and that Barr told him that it was being delayed only for a series of reviews to remove classified information, grand jury information and sensitive materials related to associated cases being brought in other jurisdictions.”
The article goes on to say, “Graham said that the report would be made public and that Barr would appear before the Judiciary Committee some time in April. The Justice Department official said the timeline was “weeks, not months.”
To throw more confusion into the already murky waters that is Washington, D.C., New York Times reporter Peter Baker wrote Tuesday, “House Democrats have demanded that it be sent to them by next Tuesday, but the Justice Department outlined a longer schedule, saying that it will have its own summary ready to send to lawmakers within weeks, though not months.
Is the report being sent to Congress or is just another more in depth summary? Stay tuned.
He also reported, “So far, there are no plans to give a copy of the report to the White House in advance of any public release, according to a Justice Department official.”
Whatever the case may be, one thing that is clear in the murky D.C., waters, the public interest in this case, the fact that we paid for the report, we deserve to see the majority of the report, until we have the context of what Mueller knows, we can not move forward, instead like the Republicans we will simply be looking backwards.
The Hill reports that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has blocked a resolution that called for the Mueller report to become public, there will be more on this story later.
This post will be update within reason.
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