Mueller Complained that Barr’s Letter Misrepresented Report Findings

For those inside and outside of the halls of Congress who have suspected Attorney General William Barr to be more concerned about protecting Der Trumpenführer than allowing the American people to know the truth, new ammunition to support that view now exists in the form of a letter from Robert Mueller to Barr complaining about Barr's mis-characterization of the Mueller Report's findings. Indeed, one Democrat has already called for Barr's resignation and Barr's appearance before Congress today will likely be stormy.  Like so many other Republicans, Barr has seemed only too willing to destroy his own reputation and how he will be viewed by history in a quest to prostitute himself to Trump.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at Mueller's complaint and why anything Barr claims now must be independently established.  Here are excerpts:

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III wrote a letter in late March complaining to Attorney General William P. Barr that a four-page memo to Congress describing the principal conclusions of the investigation into President Trump “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of Mueller’s work, according to a copy of the letter reviewed Tuesday by The Washington Post.

The letter and a subsequent phone call between the two men reveal the degree to which the longtime colleagues and friends disagreed as they handled the legally and politically fraught task of investigating the president. Democrats in Congress are likely to scrutinize Mueller’s complaints to Barr as they contemplate the prospect of opening impeachment proceedings and mull how hard to press for Mueller himself to testify publicly.

Mueller wrote the previously undisclosed private letter to the Justice Department, laying out his concerns in stark terms that shocked senior Justice Department officials, according to people familiar with the discussions.
 The summary letter the Department sent to Congress and released to the public late in the afternoon of March 24 did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this office’s work and conclusions,” Mueller wrote. “There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation. This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations.”
 The letter made a key request: that Barr release the 448-page report’s introductions and executive summaries, and it made initial suggested redactions for doing so, according to Justice Department officials.
 Barr has testified to Congress previously that Mueller declined the opportunity to review his four-page memo to lawmakers that distilled the essence of the special counsel’s findings.
 Mueller said he was concerned that media coverage of the obstruction investigation was misguided and creating public misunderstandings about the office’s work, according to Justice Department officials. Mueller did not express similar concerns about the public discussion of the investigation of Russia’s election interference, the officials said. Barr has testified previously he did not know whether Mueller supported his conclusion on obstruction.
 Throughout the conversation, Mueller’s main worry was that the public was not getting an accurate understanding of the obstruction investigation, officials said.
 In some team members’ view, the evidence they had gathered — especially on obstruction — was far more alarming and significant than how Barr had described it.
 Democrats have accused Barr of downplaying the seriousness of the evidence against the president.

Mueller’s report described 10 significant episodes of possible obstruction of justice but said that because of long-standing Justice Department policy that says a sitting president cannot be indicted and because of Justice Department practice regarding fairness toward those under investigation, his team did not reach a conclusion about whether the president had committed a crime.

Michael Cohen: Trump Knew Roger Stone Talked with WikiLeaks

As Donald Trump kisses the ass of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, his former consigliore, Michael Cohen prepares to spill his guts before Congressional committees.  Among the expected bombshells: Trump knew of the Roger Stone communications with Wikileaks and that Trump knew of the Trump Tower meeting between Donald Jr. and Russian operatives.  Personally, I have always assumed that Trump was fully aware of all of this. A piece in CNN sums up Cohen's coming testimony this way: Cohen calls Trump a "racist," a "con-man" and a "cheat."  The big issue will be whether Cohen has corroborating documentation and/or whether others will knowledge will stop covering for Trump.  Here are excerpts from the CNN piece:

Donald Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen is prepared to testify that Trump was aware of longtime adviser Roger Stone's efforts to reach out to WikiLeaks in advance of its release of damaging information about Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, according to a copy of his public testimony submitted to Congress and obtained by CNN.

In a stunning 20-page statement provided Tuesday night to lawmakers, Cohen details a wide range of allegations against Trump -- from making racist comments about African-Americans to participating during his presidency in an illegal hush-money scheme to keep his alleged extramarital affairs quiet -- as well as suggesting Trump faked a medical condition to get out of serving in the Vietnam War. And Cohen will provide new details saying Trump was engaged in an aggressive pursuit of a major project in Russia in 2016, alleging the [Trump's] President's attorneys edited Cohen's 2017 testimony when he lied to Congress, downplaying the efforts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.

 In short, Cohen calls Trump a "racist," a "conman" and a "cheat." In the testimony, Cohen will allege that, in 2016, he witnessed Trump taking a phone call from Stone, who was on speakerphone.  "Mr. Stone told Mr. Trump that he had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange and that Mr. Assange told Mr. Stone that, within a couple of days, there would be a massive dump of emails that would damage Hillary Clinton's campaign," Cohen will say, according to his prepared testimony. Trump responded, according to Cohen: "Wouldn't that be great." Cohen's allegations, if true, would amount to the first time anyone with direct knowledge has said that [Trump] the President had advance knowledge of the WikiLeaks dump of Clinton emails. Cohen also said [Trump's] the President's personal lawyers "reviewed and edited" his 2017 statements when Cohen lied to Congress about the Trump Organization's pursuit of a massive project in Moscow. Cohen's opening statement also suggests that Trump may have been aware in advance of a 2016 meeting set up by Donald Trump Jr. and Russians at Trump Tower -- something that Trump and his eldest son have long denied. Cohen will tell Congress that he witnessed Trump Jr., in June 2016, tell his father: "The meeting is all set." Cohen acknowledges not knowing for sure that Trump's son's comments were in reference to the meeting with Russians. "I also knew that nothing went on in Trump world, especially the campaign, without Mr. Trump's knowledge and approval," Cohen will say. "So I concluded that Don Jr. was referring to that June 2016 Trump Tower meeting about dirt on Hillary." According to a copy of the opening statement he prepares to deliver to the House Oversight Committee Wednesday, Cohen says Trump lied repeatedly about a number of matters -- and made a host of racist statements. [I]n the testimony, Cohen recounts how he was visiting Trump in February 2017 in the White House when the President assured him his reimbursement checks were coming in the mail. He said Trump made 11 payments of $35,000 each to reimburse him in the hush-money scheme, saying he's providing the House panel with a copy of an August 2017 check signed by[Trump] the President from his personal bank account. "The President of the United States thus wrote a personal check for the payment of hush money as part of a criminal scheme to violate campaign finance laws," Cohen will say.

Get out the pop corn.

Trump Adviser, K. T. McFarland, Lied to Congress

McFarland and Flynn - two liars

The release of additional emails over the weekend have revealed with a high degree of certainty that K. T. McFarland, former deputy national security adviser to Der Trumpenführer, lied in her testimony before Congress.  Specifically, she said she had no knowledge of communications between transition team members and Russian operatives.   Meanwhile, she had engaged in emails that were discussing the efforts of Michael Flynn to communicate with Russian operatives.  It is stunning how much like Trump's transitions team is like Trump's main base of support, evangelical Christians.  With both groups, the only safe assumption to make vis-a-vis anything they say is to assume it's a lie.   Of course, McFarland isn't the only one who seems to have been deliberately lying.  Mike Pence was head of the transition team when all of this was going down and it appears obvious that Pence was lying when he claimed Flynn had lied to him: Pence already knew of the Russian contacts and communications by Flynn.  The New York Times looks at the continuing cavalcade of lies emanating from the Trump/Pence regime.  Here are highlights:

A leading Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee questioned on Monday whether a high-ranking official in Donald J. Trump’s transition team had been deceptive over the summer about her knowledge of discussions between Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser, and a former Russian ambassador.

K. T. McFarland served on the presidential transition team before becoming the White House deputy national security adviser. In July, she was questioned in writing by Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, on whether she had ever spoken to Mr. Flynn about his contacts with Sergey I. Kislyak, who was then the Russian ambassador to Washington, before Mr. Trump took office.

“I am not aware of any of the issues or events described above,” Ms. McFarland wrote in response, sidestepping a direct answer to the question.

An email exchange obtained by The New York Times indicates that Ms. McFarland was aware at the time of a crucial Dec. 29 phone call between Mr. Flynn and Mr. Kislyak that was intercepted by American intelligence.

If senators on the Foreign Relations Committee find that Ms. McFarland was evasive in her testimony, it could complicate her nomination to become ambassador to Singapore. Repeated attempts to reach Ms. McFarland, who left her post as deputy national security adviser in May, were unsuccessful.

In his written questions, Mr. Booker asked, “Did you ever discuss any of General Flynn’s contacts with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak directly with General Flynn?”

In a statement on Monday, Mr. Booker said that he was concerned that Ms. McFarland might have given “false testimony” in her answers.

“If this is the case, this is an alarming development, and another example of a pattern of deception on the part of Trump’s closest associates regarding their connections and communications to Russian government officials,” he said.

Court documents released on Friday, along with Mr. Flynn’s guilty plea, indicate that senior members of Mr. Trump’s transition team were well aware of his discussions with the Russian ambassador about the Obama administration’s sanctions. Mr. Flynn talked to Mr. Kislyak by phone on Dec. 29, the day the sanctions took effect, and several days later.

Mr. Flynn then briefed senior transition team members about his discussions with Mr. Kislyak, the records show.  Ms. McFarland worked so closely with Mr. Flynn on the transition team that her colleagues sometimes referred to her as his “brain.”

 My thoughts? Lock her up.

What Does It Take From Trump Voters to Realize they Were Conned?

In the wake of yesterday's damning Congressional hearings that confirmed that the FBI is investigating possible - I'd say likely - collusion between Der Trumpenführer's campaign and Russian agents/military intelligence, delusional supporters nonetheless turned out at a rally in Kentucky.  It is breath taking that self-styled "real Americans" continue to fall for the ploys of a carnival barker who may be guilty of treason.   Apparently, these people are willing to believe just about anything rather than admit that they were duped by a con artist.  And, it's not as if evidence of Trump's dishonest and mental health issues were not on display both before and during the 2016 presidential campaign.  Frighteningly, many Congressional Republicans are little better as they attempt to circle the wagons around a malignant narcissist who may well lead the GOP to disaster.  A story in the New York Times looks at Der Trumpenführer's continued behavior that is seeming only making his situation worse. Here are highlights:

WASHINGTON — President Trump began Monday as he has started so many other presidential mornings — by unleashing a blistering Twitter attack on critics who suggested his 2016 campaign colluded with the Russians.

By the afternoon the director of the F.B.I., James B. Comey, had systematically demolished his arguments in a remarkable public takedown of a sitting president. Even a close ally of Mr. Trump, Representative Devin Nunes, Republican of California and the House Intelligence Committee chairman, conceded that “a gray cloud” of suspicion now hung over the White House by the end of the day’s hearings.

But it’s the obsessiveness and ferocity of Mr. Trump’s pushback against the Russian allegations, often untethered from fact or tact, that is making an uncertain situation worse.

Mr. Trump’s allies have begun to wonder if his need for self-expression, often on social media, will exceed his instinct for self-preservation, with disastrous results both for the president and for a party whose fate is now tightly tied to his.

Mr. Trump’s fixation on fighting is undermining his credibility at a time when he needs to toggle from go-it-alone executive action to collaborative congressional action on ambitious health care, budget and infrastructure legislation.

A Gallup poll released Monday found Mr. Trump with an abysmal 37 percent approval rating . . . .

The problem, from the perspective of Mr. Trump’s beleaguered political fire brigade, is that the president insists on dealing with crises by creating new ones — so surrogates, repeating talking points the president himself ignores, say they often feel like human shields. . . . . this president, a proponent of do-it-yourself crisis communications with boundless self-confidence in his capacity to shape the story, seems determined to hug his Russian hand grenade.

“His tweeting defines him, and not in a good way,” said Geoff Garin, a veteran Democratic pollster. “Voters not only think Trump’s use of Twitter is unpresidential, they also see the tone and content of his tweets as an indication that he is lacking in self-control.” . . . Mr. Comey seemed to tacitly agree.

One can only hope that this national nightmare ends soon and that Mike Pence goes down in the collapse of Trump's insane and irresponsible regime.  When this happens, those who prostituted themselves to Trump need to likewise be held accountable.

Vulture Capitalism and Pharmaceutical Companies

In the 2012 election cycle Mitt Romney was his own symbol of vulture capitalism - the GOP's god after tax cuts for the wealthy - and it came back to haunt him.  Now, as we begin the 2016 election cycle, Martin Shkreli, the former hedge fund manager known as the “Pharma bro,” has singlehandedly underscored the evils of unfettered capitalism.  Shkreli accomplished this by buying the rights to Daraprim, a drug used to treat severe infections in AIDS patients and infants, and then increasing the price to consumers by 5000%.  Drug prices in America are out of control - one can get the identical drugs in Canada for far less - and perhaps Shkeli's greed will trigger some much needed oversight of the shockingly greedy pharmaceutical industry.  A piece in Think Progress looks at the phenomenon.  Here are highlights:

Is the “Pharma bro” coming to Congress? He will if Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) gets his way.

Cummings, the Ranking Member of the House Committee On Oversight And Government Reform, has requested a hearing next week to question Martin Shkreli, the former hedge fund manager known as the “Pharma bro.”

Shkreli has attracted attention since he hiked the price of Daraprim, a drug used to treat severe infections in AIDS patients and infants, by 5000%. Shkreli is the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals.
In an interview, Cummings called Shkreli’s actions “criminal.”

As a member of the Democratic minority, Cummings cannot unilaterally call the hearing. But he wrote a letter to Chairman Jason Chaffetz on Tuesday, requesting a hearing be scheduled.

Cummings notes that the committee had previously “agreed unanimously to investigate the increasing price of certain prescription drugs” but “has held no hearings and has issued no document requests to drug companies this year.”

Tuesday night, Shkreli told ABC News he would reduce the price of Daraprim. He would not specify the new price.

We need a national health care system that would bar sleaze bags like Shkreli from engaging in such vile conduct.