Mueller's investigation

[Turtle]

He won't release anything noteworthy IMHO

His problem is he doesn't know how to tell what is noteworthy. Also this ignorance was passed on to some of his kids.

[Addie]

Further to Kendra.

WaPo: U.S. judge: Do Trump’s tweets or White House lawyers speak for president on declassifying entire Russia probe? ...


At Friday’s hearing, however, Judge Reggie B. Walton of the U.S. District Court in D.C. expressed bafflement at the claim that President Trump’s words were not to be believed.

“I think the American public has a right to rely on what the president says his intention is,” Walton said.

“It seems to me when a president makes a clear, unambiguous statement of what his intention is, that I can’t rely on the White House Counsel’s Office saying, ‘Well, that was not his intent,’ ” the judge said in a hearing conducted by videoconference because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Walton directed the department by noon Tuesday to clarify with Trump or “an individual who has conferred directly with the president” whether Trump had intended to order the declassification and release of Mueller report materials without redaction. The judge cited the urgency of releasing as much information as possible in the remaining days before the election.

“I think I need something more emphatic that this is, in fact, the president’s position, and not just the White House counsel’s position,” Walton said. “If we’re going to get this information out before the election, we need to get to this next week.”

The ruling came in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by BuzzFeed and CNN to obtain Mueller-probe documents.

Arguing for BuzzFeed and the journalist Jason Leopold, attorney Matthew Topic told the court, “We wholeheartedly agree.”

[Kendra]

TY Addie. Now if Tuesday noon would get here.

[ZekeB]

He won't release anything noteworthy IMHO

His problem is he doesn't know how to tell what is noteworthy. Also this ignorance was passed on to some all of his adult kids.

Minor fix.

[Addie]

Tweet text:Mueller, She Wrote Podcast
@MuellerSheWrote
WHOA: Former Mueller team member JOINS the Vance/Manhattan DA/Mazars case. We learned this week that there was a SECRET fourth team on the Mueller probe looking into trump's finances (Egypt +). I wonder if he was on that team. Dude has argued over 100 cases in front of SCOTUS.

Charlie Savage
@charlie_savage
Michael Dreeben, formerly of the Mueller special counsel's office, has joined the legal team helping the Manhattan district attorney, Cy Vance, fight in the Supreme Court over subpoena for Trump's taxes and related financial records, new filing shows. https://supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/2 ... sition.pdf.

[Kendra]

JUST IN: Chief of staff MEADOWS tells a court that Trump didn't mean it when he said he was ordering the declassification of all Russia-probe documents.

Trump was just referring to his delegation of declassification authority to AG Barr, Meadows says.

[Slim Cognito]

Meadows is saying trump didn't actually WANT the Russia docs declassified, he was just telling Barr he COULD declassify them if he wanted to? Have I got that right? Cuz, if Biden tried an explanation like that, there'd be a BIDEN SENILE!!! chyron running 24/7 on Fox News in a font so big it would cover the bottom half of the screen.

[bob]

In other words, I believe the DOJ will land on "tweets aren't legally binding."

:

JUST IN: Chief of staff MEADOWS tells a court that Trump didn't mean it when he said he was ordering the declassification of all Russia-probe documents.

Trump was just referring to his delegation of declassification authority to AG Barr, Meadows says.

The impeached president can say anything on Twitter without consequence (to himself).

Over/under on how many lawyers and how many hours it took Meadows to come up that whopper.

[Kendra]

Can't. Stop. Laughing.

Has the judge responded to this nonsense yet?

[Gregg]

Judge needs to hear it from Trump, drag his fat ass into the courtroom.

[pipistrelle]

Awww, Rod locked down his account. Someone musta hurt his fee fees.

1D909063-66DD-4A26-8EA7-3EABC915BCAE.jpeg

[Addie]

Cross-posting

Associated Press: House asks justices to put off case over Russia grand jury

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives is asking the Supreme Court to put off upcoming arguments about whether Congress should have access to secret grand jury testimony from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.

The House Judiciary Committee that takes office in January “will have to determine whether it wishes to continue pursuing the application for the grand-jury materials that gave rise to this case,” Douglas Letter, the top lawyer for the House said in a written filing Tuesday. Letter noted that President Donald Trump’s defeat in his bid for reelection could affect the committee’s decision.

The case is scheduled to be argued on Dec. 2.

The material initially was sought in the summer of 2019 as part of the committee’s investigation of possible misconduct by Trump, including whether he obstructed Mueller’s investigation. Mueller’s 448-page report, issued in April 2019, “stopped short” of reaching conclusions about Trump’s conduct to avoid stepping on the House’s impeachment power, the federal appeals court in Washington said in March when it ruled that the materials should be turned over.

By the time of the appellate ruling, Trump had been impeached by the House for his efforts to get Ukraine to announce an investigation of Democrat Joe Biden, and acquitted by the Senate.

The Supreme Court effectively kept the grand jury documents secret through the election in a series of orders in the spring and early summer.

Now it’s possible the justices might never have to reach a definitive ruling in a sensitive dispute between the executive and legislative branches of government. Sekrit Stuffs!

Democrats had suggested that previously undisclosed details from the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election could reveal new misconduct that could have potentially formed the basis of new articles of impeachment.

But it’s unclear how many new, or incendiary, revelations might be contained in the grand jury transcripts. Mueller’s report, though redacted in parts, revealed significant information about the president’s efforts to choke off the investigation and raised substantial questions about whether he had committed obstruction of justice.

[pipistrelle]

Awww, Rod locked down his account. Someone musta hurt his fee fees. 1D909063-66DD-4A26-8EA7-3EABC915BCAE.jpeg

From a few of his earlier tweets, it looks like a lot of responses were from QAnon and Pepe the Frog types with childish memes. Not a good look, but one well deserved.

[Addie]

New York Times OpEd - Andrew Weissmann: Should Trump Be Prosecuted?

Being president should mean you are more accountable, not less, to the rule of law.

Mr. Weissmann was a senior prosecutor in the Mueller investigation.


When the Biden administration takes office in 2021, it will face a unique, fraught decision: Should Donald Trump be criminally investigated and prosecuted?

Any renewed investigative activity or a criminal prosecution would further divide the country and stoke claims that the Justice Department was merely exacting revenge. An investigation and trial would be a spectacle that would surely consume the administration’s energy.

But as painful and hard as it may be for the country, I believe the next attorney general should investigate Mr. Trump and, if warranted, prosecute him for potential federal crimes.

I do not come to this position lightly. Indeed, we have witnessed two U.S. presidential elections in which large crowds have found it acceptable to chant with fervent zeal that the nominee of the opposing party should be jailed. We do not want to turn into an autocratic state, where law enforcement authorities are political weapons of the reigning party.

But that is not sufficient reason to let Mr. Trump off the hook.

Mr. Trump’s criminal exposure is clear. I was a senior member of the investigation led by the former special counsel Robert Mueller to determine whether Russia attempted to subvert our fundamental democratic source of political legitimacy: our electoral system. Among other things, he was tasked with determining whether Mr. Trump interfered with our fact-finding into this issue.

We amassed ample evidence to support a charge that Mr. Trump obstructed justice. That view is widely shared. Shortly after our report was issued, hundreds of former prosecutors concluded that the evidence supported such a charge.

Adding:

Mediaite: Mueller Investigation Prosecutor Calls on Next Attorney General to Investigate, Prosecute Trump: ‘Mr. Trump’s Criminal Exposure is Clear’

[Kendra]

I don't have a link yet, but saw a brief mention that Chuck Rosenberg was going to interview Mueller on his The Oath podcast.

[Addie]

Associated Press: Robert Mueller does rare interview in ‘Oath’ podcast

I don't have a link yet, but saw a brief mention that Chuck Rosenberg was going to interview Mueller on his The Oath podcast.

[Kendra]

Associated Press: Robert Mueller does rare interview in ‘Oath’ podcast

I don't have a link yet, but saw a brief mention that Chuck Rosenberg was going to interview Mueller on his The Oath podcast.

Thanks. I think Chuck is going to be on Deadline WH today to talk about it. I forget now where I saw a link today, but apparently they DON'T discuss the investigation, just Mueller's career/life before that.