Preface : I have a hunch this post may be a failure of formatting, and I stopped short of covering all the beats because of time constraints, but an attempt was made. I made a public commitment, where “more streamlined” became mission creep. Try reading this plus the Lawfare article I linked earlier, and you will be in decent stead. I do hope to impress upon the reader the importance of setting the record straight on this topic when (a) it has become so salient in the public discourse and (b) there is a concerted effort to deceive the public about its contents and significance.
Introduction : From what I have seen up to now, the Mueller Special Counsel investigation has been exemplary as one of the most complex and most professionally-conducted investigations in American history. That's something to be glad of in a way. I had hoped that Mueller would be particularly aggressive in pushing the boundaries of his office's authority (which has been circumscribed since the time of the 20th century "independent counsel"), but in the end he narrowly tailored his scope and procedure and did it by the book, without excess or grandstanding. Figures that the Clintons get to deal with individuals like Ken Starr and James Comey, whereas Donald Trump gets Bob Mueller.
I have not read more than 10%20% 30% of the report myself, because it’s a novel-length legal document. All my understanding of what the report itself says comes from reading the report executive summaries (not Barr's!), key subsections, knowledgeable commentary and analysis of the report contents from a variety of sources, and reference against contents excerpted in news and commentary. If you found something interesting in the meat of the report, or think my claims or assessments are affected by something within the report not mentioned, feel free to comment.
There are many funny parts in the report, such as when Trump is reported to have declared "I'm fucked!" upon learning of the special counsel's commission, or the stark jurisprudential notice that it’s "well-settled principle that false exculpatory statements are evidence-often strong evidence-of guilt". Others cohere to develop the narrative of the 2016 campaign. I’m attempting to streamline things however. I won’t be discussing findings (mostly heretofore publicized) about the mechanics of Russia’s election interference. I won’t give a thorough rundown of individuals in the campaign or their histories and roles (some individuals who figure heavily are Flynn, Cohen, Page, Papadopoulos, and Nader). I won't be discussing peripheral matters such as Barr's deceptive conduct and modified limited hangout either.
What follows are some key elements (not comprehensive!) of the report that in elucidation hopefully accomplish my two goals of giving people without much familiarity a feel for the major findings of the investigation while also bringing attention to matters that in my opinion don’t often receive proper attention or context. Accompanied by some editorializing and split, as is the report, between Russia and Obstruction sections.
Update: This Vox article specifies all the redactions by type and location, which is helpful. Almost all grand jury and ongoing matter related, and as I judged at a glance they’re concentrated on Wikileaks and Roger Stone. What redactions may mean, what redactions are appropriate, and what the President’s or Barr’s motivations may have been in selecting them is covered well by other writers.
Russia
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
What is NOT in the report: Most of the broad strokes of the report are or have been public knowledge (including, of course, revelations from Special Counsel indictments).
There is a common misinformed framing in much coverage of the report rollout that Mueller “cleared” Trump of conspiracy/collusion, or “found no” such, “rejected”, etc. Here is the primary conclusion of the report, which logically does not in itself either confirm or disconfirm any particular formulation of the Trump campaign’s postures or intent. Anyone who claims that ‘The report agrees/disagrees Trump was X with/to/by Russia’ is mistaken or lying. Same thing with obstruction, as we will see.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
As set forth in detail in this report, the Special Counsel's investigation established that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election principally through two operations. First, a Russian entity carried out a social media campaign that favored presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and disparaged presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Second, a Russian intelligence service conducted computer-intrusion operations against entities, employees, and volunteers working on the Clinton Campaign and then released stolen documents. The investigation also identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign. Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.
As far as the report goes, all that is available to the reader is to study the history of the campaign and Trump’s behavior and develop one’s own interpretation. In fact there is plenty to see, some of which will be reviewed later. Legally-speaking, the only surface-level determinations contained in the text are where prosecutors determined there was not enough evidence to convict over campaign activities – or that the prosecution does not meet DOJ guidelines that “the admissible evidence will probably be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction.” Nothing more or less. To be clear, interpret “the investigation did not establish” as meaning ‘the investigation did not prove’, whereas “the investigation did not identify evidence” is juxtaposed in other areas and probably does mean ‘zero/close-to-zero evidence’ where it appears.
A statement that the investigation did not establish particular facts does not mean there was no evidence of those facts.
Mueller explicitly lays out that he is not using the popular framing of "collusion", but coordination underlying criminal conspiracy. We've known that for 2 years, but you have to work with the narratives you're given. Crucially, Mueller judged that to be justiciable under conspiracy laws campaign activities must involve a concrete agreement.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
In evaluating whether evidence about collective action of multiple individuals constituted a crime, we applied the framework of conspiracy law, not the concept of "collusion."
[...]
In connection with that analysis, we addressed the factual question whether members of the Trump Campaign "coordinat[ed]"-a term that appears in the appointment order-with Russian election interference activities. Like collusion, "coordination" does not have a settled definition in federal criminal law. We understood coordination to require an agreement-tacit or express- between the Trump Campaign and the Russian government on election interference. That requires more than the two parties taking actions that were informed by or responsive to the other's actions or interests. We applied the term coordination in that sense when stating in the report that the investigation did not establish that the Trump Campaign coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.
There's a reason Trump and mass media adopted the term collusion, without really bothering to define it: it shifts and dilutes expectations and is accessible to laymen. Insofar as no one who applied “collusion” was really applying it in a rigorous sense synonymous with criminal conspiracy or some other offense, I’m not interested in policing that fence. A safe assumption would be that it was applied with the vague sense of 'working together'. With that sense, let’s outline: Russia was doing hacks and funneling the documents through Wikileaks to harm Trump’s opponent, while Trump aimed to optimize leaks with Wikileaks to manipulate the public discourse, in public lying about it and deflecting responsibility from Russia. It is indisputably established in that chain that Trump colluded with Wikileaks, and that Wikileaks colluded with Russia. It is reasonable to ponder what more direct associations may have developed. What an investigation aims to discover in the contacts and the collusion is how, why, to what extent, and finally whether there is criminal liability. All the decisions on liability are purported to be fleshed out, yet the formal posture of the report on these other questions should be understood as: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. A theory of the exact nature of conscious mutual cooperation between Trump and the Russian government thus remains up to our own interpretation, just as the case was before the report was submitted.
The report as a document is doggedly focused on prosecutorial aspects of the case. AFAIK it contains zero classified information (which by regulation is specially marked, distinct from redaction). Without speculating too much about what may lie beneath the redactions or with spinoff investigations, it is notable that in the visible report Mueller says nothing or almost nothing about the counterintelligence investigation against Russia in the context of Trump. There is the major indictment against the hack/leak from the GRU, and the Internet operations of the Internet Research Agency (IRA), but practically nothing about the Russian side of the Trump-Russia nexus. It would seem obvious, for example, that the various Trump-Putin meetings are of relevance. I am not aware if anywhere in the report Mueller describes how he assessed the prospect of any specific planned or executed (post-inauguration) Trump policy being on the basis of a deal with Russia - or other scenarios of compromise. But in the next section of this post I quote him referencing awareness of the possibility of such a pillar of interference, and we do know from reporting in January there is some sort of counterintelligence investigation into Trump personally, opened post-Comey firing. It is ongoing.[/I] Topics such as the NRA and Cambridge Analytica are not mentioned at all in the public report, even though we know Mueller turned his attention to bothorganizations.
If any of this is acknowledged by Mueller, it is done obliquely such as in this passage labeling the Special Counsel’s Russia volume a summary (the Obstruction volume is not labeled a summary):
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Those communications [summaries of foreign intelligence and counterintelligence information to FBIHQ and FBI Field Offices] and other correspondence between the Office and the FBI contain information derived from the investigation, not all of which is contained in this Volume. This Volume is a summary. It contains, in the Office's judgment, that information necessary to account for the Special Counsel's prosecution and declination decisions and to describe the investigation's main factual results.
What Mueller looked for: Mueller narrowly tailored his investigation to the mandate he was given by Rod Rosenstein, and assessed links between the Trump campaign and Russian efforts with regard to "election interference with the 2016 presidential election and related matters" specifically as the locus of potential wrongdoing.
Despite the original appointment order allowing a broader interpretation in my opinion:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
(i) any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump; and
(ii) any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation; and
(iii) any other matters within the scope of 28 C.F.R. § 600.4(a).
(One thing I don’t recall and am unclear on Is how “Russian government” was defined for this purpose, whether it only included formal employees or also some other agentive relationship.)
Therefore Mueller was looking through the lens of Russian “active measures”: the hack/leak by GRU and the social media influence operation by IRA. In other words the object of investigation was, did Trump or his campaign make an agreement to coordinate with the Russian government on hacking, leaking, or trolling, and did they materially follow through on such an agreement? Though the phrase does not appear with regard to Russia (see below on “exchange”), one should be aware that frequently a conspiracy is conducted in furtherance or pursuit of a quid pro quo bargain.
From the Executive Summary, Mueller outlines the patterns he observed on the relationship between the Trump campaign and Russia-linked persons. Russian outreach consisted of “business connections, offers of assistance to the Campaign, invitations for candidate Trump and Putin to meet in person, invitations for Campaign officials and representatives of the Russian government to meet, and policy positions seeking improved U.S.-Russian relations”, but no crime with respect to interference was established.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
The social media campaign and the GRU hacking operations coincided with a series of
contacts between Trump Campaign officials and individuals with ties to the Russian government.
The Office investigated whether those contacts reflected or resulted in the Campaign conspiring
or coordinating with Russia in its election-interference activities. Although the investigation
established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and
worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from
information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that
members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its
election interference activities.
The whole outline of 3-4 pages is reproduced below. Highlights (including some details pulled from outside the summary) are:
Trump tower, not in my post.
Foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos (who had been specialized in Middle East energy policy) in March 2016 had joined the Trump campaign and met Joseph Mifsud, who in a later meeting approached Papadopoulos about arranging a Trump-Putin meeting. In April, Mifsud traveled to Moscow and upon his return revealed to Papadopoulos that the Russian government possessed Clinton-related emails, which could be released anonymously to damage the Clinton campaign. (Neither Papadopoulos nor anyone else in the campaign could say if they remembered whether he shared the email revelations with the campaign.) Papadopoulos spent months trying to arrange a Trump-Putin meeting, but no meeting took place. The report mirrors others in characterizing the investigation into Russian coordination with the Trump campaign as beginning on July 31, after Papadopoulos spilled some of these details to a “representative of a foreign government” (known to be Australia) and after the Wikileaks leaks of the DNC emails. (Searching "July 31" in the report reveals other interesting correspondences...)
June 9 Trump Tower meeting, see below in-depth.
Carter Page, a Russia foreign policy advisor on the Trump campaign (for years identified by the FBI as a probable foreign agent) traveled to Moscow in July 2016 during the course of the campaign. Page delivered foreign policy speeches there, and met with a business contact and others linked/part of the Russian government. Following a grand-jury related redaction the report reads “The Office was unable to obtain additional evidence or testimony about who Page may have met or communicated with in Moscow; thus, Page's activities in Russia-as described in his emails with the Campaign-were not fully explained.“ Page formally parted with the campaign in September.
Wikileaks, see below in-depth.
Manafort, see below in-depth.
Post-election meetings and Seychelles meeting, not in my post.
Mueller finally synopsizes the post-inauguration period, passing the advent of the Congressional investigations into Trump-Russia up to the Comey firing and Special Counsel appointment.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
2015. Some of the earliest contacts were made in connection with a Trump Organization
real-estate project in Russia known as Trump Tower Moscow. Candidate Trump signed a Letter
of lntent for Trump Tower Moscow by November 2015, and in January 2016 Trump Organization
executive Michael Cohen emailed and spoke about the project with the office of Russian
government press secretary Dmitry Peskov. The Trump Organization pursued the project through
at least June 2016, including by considering travel to Russia by Cohen and candidate Trump.
Spring 2016. Campaign foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos made early contact
with Joseph Mifsud, a London-based professor who had connections to Russia and traveled to
Moscow in April 2016. Immediately upon his return to London from that trip, Mifsud told
Papadopoulos that the Russian government had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands
of emails. One week later, in the first week of May 2016, Papadopoulos suggested to a
representative of a foreign government that the Trump Campaign had received indications from
the Russian government that it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of
information damaging to candidate Clinton. Throughout that period of time and for several months
thereafter, Papadopoulos worked with Mifsud and two Russian nationals to arrange a meeting
between the Campaign and the Russian government. No meeting took place.
Summer 2016. Russian outreach to the Trump Campaign continued into the summer of
2016, as candidate Trump was becoming the presumptive Republican nominee for President. On
June 9, 2016, for example, a Russian lawyer met with senior Trump Campaign officials Donald
Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and campaign chairman Paul Manafort to deliver what the email
proposing the meeting had described as "official documents and information that would
incriminate Hillary." The materials were offered to Trump Jr. as "part of Russia and its
government's support for Mr. Trump." The written communications setting up the meeting
showed that the Campaign anticipated receiving information from Russia that could assist
candidate Trump's electoral prospects, but the Russian lawyer's presentation did not provide such
information.
Days after the June 9 meeting, on June 14, 2016, a cybersecurity firm and the DNC
announced that Russian government hackers had infiltrated the DNC and obtained access to
opposition research on candidate Trump, among other documents.
In July 2016, Campaign foreign policy advisor Carter Page traveled in his personal capacity
to Moscow and gave the keynote address at the New Economic School. Page had lived and worked
in Russia between 2003 and 2007. After returning to the United States, Page became acquainted
with at least two Russian intelligence officers, one of whom was later charged in 2015 with
conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent of Russia. Page's July 2016 trip to Moscow and his
advocacy for pro-Russian foreign policy drew media attention. The Campaign then distanced itself
from Page and, by late September 2016, removed him from the Campaign.
July 2016 was also the month WikiLeaks first released emails stolen by the GRU from the
DNC. On July 22, 2016, WikiLeaks posted thousands of internal DNC documents revealing
information about the Clinton Campaign. Within days, there was public reporting that U.S.
intelligence agencies had "high confidence" that the Russian government was.behind the theft of
emails and documents from the DNC. And within a week of the release, a foreign government
informed the FBI about its May 2016 interaction with Papadopoulos and his statement that the
Russian government could assist the Trump Campaign. On July 31, 2016, based on the foreign
government reporting, the FBI opened an investigation into potential coordination between the
Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign. Separately, on August 2, 2016, Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort met in New York
City with his long-time business associate Konstantin Kilimnik, who the FBI assesses to have ties
to Russian intelligence. Kilimnik requested the meeting to deliver in person a peace plan for
Ukraine that Manafort acknowledged to the Special Counsel's Office was a "backdoor" way for
Russia to control part of eastern Ukraine; both men believed the plan would require candidate
Trump's assent to succeed (were he to be elected President). They also discussed the status of the
Trump Campaign and Manafort's strategy for winning Democratic votes in Midwestern states.
Months before that meeting, Manafort had caused internal polling data to be shared with Kilimnik,
and the sharing continued for some period of time after their August meeting.
Fall 2016. On October 7, 2016, the media released video of candidate Trump speaking in
graphic terms about women years earlier, which was considered damaging to his candidacy. Less
than an hour later, WikiLeaks made its second release: thousands of John Podesta's emails that
had been stolen by the GRU in late March 2016. The FBI and other U.S. government institutions
were at the time continuing their investigation of suspected Russian government efforts to interfere
in the presidential election. That same day, October 7, the Department of Homeland Security and
the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint public statement "that the Russian
Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions,
including from US political organizations." Those "thefts" and the "disclosures" of the hacked
materials through online platforms such as WikiLeaks, the statement continued, "are intended to
interfere with the US election process."
Post-2016 Election. Immediately after the November 8 election, Russian government
officials and prominent Russian businessmen began trying to make inroads into the new
administration. The most senior levels of the Russian government encouraged these efforts. The
Russian Embassy made contact hours after the election to congratulate the President-Elect and to
arrange a call with President Putin. Several Russian businessmen picked up the effort from there.
Kirill Dmitriev, the chief executive officer of Russia's sovereign wealth fund, was among
the Russians who tried to make contact with the incoming administration. In early December, a
business associate steered Dmitriev to Erik Prince, a supporter of the Trump Campaign and an
associate of senior Trump advisor Steve Bannon. Dmitriev and Prince later met face-to-face in
January 2017 in the Seychelles and discussed U.S.-Russia relations. During the same period,
another business associate introduced Dmitriev to a friend of Jared Kushner who had not served
on the Campaign or the Transition Team. Dmitriev and Kushner's friend collaborated on a short
written reconciliation plan for the United States and Russia, which Dmitriev implied had been
cleared through Putin. The friend gave that proposal to Kushner before the inauguration, and
Kushner later gave copies to Bannon and incoming Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
On December 29, 2016, then-President Obama imposed sanctions on Russia for having
interfered in the election. Incoming National Security Advisor Michael Flynn called Russian
Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and asked Russia not to escalate the situation in response to the
sanctions. The following day, Putin announced that Russia would not take retaliatory measures in
response to the sanctions at that time. Hours later, President-Elect Trump tweeted, "Great move
on delay (by V. Putin)." The next day, on December 31 , 2016, Kislyak called Flynn and told him
the request had been received at the highest levels and Russia had chosen not to retaliate as a result
of Flynn's request.
On January 6, 2017, members of the intelligence community briefed President-Elect Trump
on a joint assessment-drafted and coordinated among the Central Intelligence Agency, FBI, and
National Security Agency-that concluded with high confidence that Russia had intervened in the
election through a variety of means to assist Trump's candidacy and harm Clinton's. A
declassified version of the assessment was publicly released that same day.
Between mid-January 2017 and early February 2017, three congressional committees-the
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence (SSCI), and the Senate Judiciary Committee (SJC)-announced that they would
conduct inquiries, or had already been conducting inquiries, into Russian interference in the
election. Then-FBI Director James Corney later confirmed to Congress the existence of the FBI's
investigation into Russian interference that had begun before the election. On March 20, 2017, in
open-session testimony before HPSCI, Corney stated:
I have been authorized by the Department of Justice to confirm that the FBI, as part
of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government's efforts
to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, and that includes investigating the
nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and
the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the
campaign and Russia's efforts .... As with any counterintelligence investigation,
this will also include an assessment of whether any crimes were committed.
The investigation continued under then-Director Corney for the next seven weeks until May 9,
2017, when President Trump fired Comey as FBI Director-an action which is analyzed in
Volume II of the report.
On May 17, 2017, Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed the Special Counsel
and authorized him to conduct the investigation that Corney had confirmed in his congressional
testimony, as well as matters arising directly from the investigation, and any other matters within
the scope of 28 C.F.R. § 600.4(a), which generally covers efforts to interfere with or obstruct the
investigation.
President Trump reacted negatively to the Special Counsel's appointment. He told advisors
that it was the end of his presidency, sought to have Attorney General Jefferson (Jeff) Sessions
unrecuse from the Russia investigation and to have the Special Counsel removed, and engaged in
efforts to curtail the Special Counsel's investigation and prevent the disclosure of evidence to it,
including through public and private contacts with potential witnesses. Those and related actions
are described and analyzed in Volume II of the report.
Mueller explained the prosecutorial standard he adheres to, which can be abbreviated as three stages in (1) Criminality, (2) Sustainability, and (3) Necessity:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
In reaching the charging decisions described in Volume 1 of the report, the Office
determined whether the conduct it found amounted to a violation of federal criminal law
chargeable under the Principles of Federal Prosecution. See Justice Manual § 9-27.000 et seq.
(2018). The standard set forth in the Justice Manual is whether the conduct constitutes a crime; if
so, whether admissible evidence would probably be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction;
and whether prosecution would serve a substantial federal interest that could not be adequately
served by prosecution elsewhere or through non-criminal alternatives.
Mueller lists the charges already delivered to the Russian organizations and individuals, but repeats that there was not sufficient evidence to charge Trump campaign individuals for the eligible crimes (described below), except for the various charges for lying to materially impair the investigation (Flynn, Papadopoulos, Cohen, Manafort).
Miscellaneously, Mueller established that Jeff Sessions’ campaign meetings with the Russian ambassador were of no account, and did not find a connection between a GOP platform change on Ukraine assistance was directed by Trump or Russia.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
The Office investigated several other events that have been publicly reported to involve potential Russia-related contacts. For example, the investigation established that interactions between Russian Ambassador Kislyak and Trump Campaign officials both at the candidate’s April 2016 foreign policy speech in Washington, D.C., and during the week of the Republican National Convention were brief, public, and non-substantive. And the investigation did not establish that one Campaign official’s efforts to dilute a portion of the Republican Party platform on providing assistance to Ukraine were undertaken at the behest of candidate Trump or Russia.
Mueller identified several possible statutory offenses that could plausibly apply within the scope or theory he adopted:
18 U.S. Code § 371. Conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud United States
If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
Mueller terms this the "general" conspiracy clause. Consistent with what I said previously, because Mueller could not identify a concrete agreement by any actor in connection with the "active measures", or active participation therein, he did not charge anyone with a conspiracy statute related to Russia.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
The Office considered in particular whether contacts between Trump Campaign officials and Russia-linked individuals could trigger liability for the crime of conspiracy-either under statutes that have their own conspiracy language (e.g. , 18 U.S.C. §§ 1349, 195l(a)), or under the general conspiracy statute (18 U.S.C. § 371). The investigation did not establish that the contacts described in Volume I, Section IV, supra, amounted to an agreement to commit any substantive violation of federal criminal law- including foreign-influence and campaign-finance laws, both of which are discussed further below. The Office therefore did not charge any individual associated with the Trump Campaign with conspiracy to commit a federal offense arising from Russia contacts, either under a specific statute or under Section 371 's offenses clause. The Office also did not charge any campaign official or associate with a conspiracy under Section 371 's defraud clause. That clause criminalizes participating in an agreement to obstruct a lawful function of the U.S. government or its agencies through deceitful or dishonest means. See Dennis v. United States, 384 U.S. 855, 861 (1966); Hammerschmidt v. United States, 265 U.S. 182, 188 (1924); see also United States v. Concord Mgmt. & Consulting LLC, 34 7 F. Supp. 3d 38, 46 (D.D.C.2018). The investigation did not establish any agreement among Campaign officials or between such officials and Russia-linked individuals-to interfere with or obstruct a lawful function of a government agency during the campaign or transition period. And, as discussed in Volume I, Section V.A, supra, the investigation did not identify evidence that any Campaign official or associate knowingly and intentionally participated in the conspiracy to defraud that the Office charged, namely, the active-measures conspiracy described in Volume I, Section II, supra.
Accordingly, the Office did not charge any Campaign associate or other U.S. person with conspiracy to defraud the United States based on the Russia-related contacts described in Section IV above.
Mueller lists the triggering conditions of being a "foreign agent", per the crime of acting as an unregistered foreign agent. Manafort/Gates had violated FARA while working in Ukraine prior to the Trump campaign, and Flynn was charged and confessed to violating FARA while working as a Turkish agent, but Mueller could not establish that the actions of any Trump campaign member met the criteria to be considered a Russian agent.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) generally makes it illegal to act as an agent
of a foreign principal by engaging in certain (largely political) activities in the United States
without registering with the Attorney General. 22 U.S.C. §§ 611-621. The triggering agency
relationship must be with a foreign principal or "a person any of whose activities are directly or
indirectly supervised, directed, controlled, financed, or subsidized in whole or in major part by a
foreign principal." 22 U.S.C. § 61 l(c)(l). That includes a foreign government or political party
and various foreign individuals and entities. 22 U.S.C. § 611(6). A covered relationship exists if
a person "acts as an agent, representative, employee, or servant" or "in any other capacity at the
order, request, or under the [foreign principal's] direction or control." 22 U.S.C. § 61 l(c)(l). It
is sufficient if the person "agrees, consents, assumes or purports to act as, or who is or holds
himself out to be, whether or not pursuant to contractual relationship, an agent of a foreign
principal." 22 U.S.C. § 61 l(c)(2).
The triggering activity is that the agent "directly or through any other person" in the United
States (1) engages in "political activities for or in the interests of [the] foreign principal," which
includes attempts to influence federal officials or the public; (2) acts as "public relations counsel,
publicity agent, information-service employee or political consultant for or in the interests of such
foreign principal"; (3) " solicits, collects, disburses, or dispenses contributions, loans, money, or
other things of value for or in the interest of such foreign principal"; or ( 4) "represents the interests
of such foreign principal" before any federal agency or official. 22 U .S.C. § 611 ( c )(1 ).
The investigation uncovered extensive evidence that Paul Manafort's and Richard Oates's
pre-campaign work for the government of Ukraine violated FARA. Manafort and Gates were
charged for that conduct and admitted to it when they pleaded guilty to superseding criminal
informations in the District of Columbia prosecution.
[...]
In addition, the investigation produced evidence of FARA violations involving Michael
Flynn. Those potential violations, however, concerned a country other than Russia (i.e., Turkey)
and were resolved when Flynn admitted to the underlying facts in the Statement of Offense that
accompanied his guilty plea to a false-statements charge.
In particular, the Office did not find evidence likely to prove
beyond a reasonable doubt that Campaign officials such as Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos,
and Carter Page acted as agents of the Russian government-or at its direction control, or
request-during the relevant time period.
Campaign finance laws
Relevant to June 9 Trump Tower meeting and Wikileaks activities. I will address this topic later.
Mueller intimates that a potential broader conspiracy involving quid pro quo exchange was assessed in the course of the investigation, but failed to establish any such. AFAICT this is another cryptic passage that hints at inquiries beyond strict election interference but doesn't seem to correspond to any treatment within the report.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
The Office identified multiple contacts-"links," in the words of the Appointment Order between Trump Campaign officials and individuals with ties to the Russian government. The Office investigated whether those contacts constituted a third avenue of attempted Russian interference with or influence on the 2016 presidential election. In particular, the investigation examined whether these contacts involved or resulted in coordination or a conspiracy with the Trump Campaign and Russia, including with respect to Russia providing assistance to the Campaign in exchange for any sort of favorable treatment in the future. Based on the available information, the investigation did not establish such coordination.
I will provide these later.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Wikileaks and Trump’s hunt for emails:
Russian contacts:
Evidentiary problems:
Mueller explaining information-gathering and evidence:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
The report describes actions and events that the Special Counsel's Office found to be supported by the evidence collected in our investigation. In some instances, the report points out the absence of evidence or conflicts in the evidence about a particular fact or event. In other instances, when substantial, credible evidence enabled the Office to reach a conclusion with confidence, the report states that the investigation established that certain actions or events occurred. A statement that the investigation did not establish particular facts does not mean there was no evidence of those facts.
The standard used to “establish” something is naturally enough “proof beyond a reasonable doubt”, or “certainty”.
One of the most disheartening aspects of the report is its revelation that the Special Counsel, and by extension the feds, are not omniscient after all. When people lied or withheld information, this was to the detriment of the investigation – it turns out getting people to talk is a big part of it. On the other hand, when the only information available is based on someone’s account to you, that is also a limitation when establishing facts. Taking the 5th to avoid divulging self-incriminatory information is a Constitutional right, but deleting, destroying, or concealing evidence is a little more shady. Moreover, much documentary material could not be accessed having been transmitted through secure/encrypted means, or simply by existing outside the United States beyond the jurisdiction of the feds.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
The investigation did not always yield admissible information or testimony, or a complete picture of the activities undertaken by subjects of the investigation. Some individuals invoked their Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination and were not, in the Office's judgment, appropriate candidates for grants of immunity. The Office limited its pursuit of other witnesses and information-such as information known to attorneys or individuals claiming to be members of the media-in light of internal Department of Justice policies.
[...]
Some of the information obtained via court process, moreover, was presumptively covered by legal privilege and was screened from investigators by a filter ( or "taint") team. Even when individuals testified or agreed to be interviewed, they sometimes provided information that was false or incomplete, leading to some of the false-statements charges described above. And the Office faced practical limits on its ability to access relevant evidence as well-numerous witnesses and subjects lived abroad, and documents were held outside the United States.
Further, the Office learned that some of the individuals we interviewed or whose conduct we investigated-including some associated with the Trump Campaign---deleted relevant communications or communicated during the relevant period using applications that feature encryption or that do not provide for long-term retention of data or communications records. In such cases, the Office was not able to corroborate witness statements through comparison to contemporaneous communications or fully question witnesses about statements that appeared inconsistent with other known facts.
Mueller warns that he cannot guarantee the completeness of the report's determinations taking into account potentially-insufficient evidence.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Accordingly, while this report embodies factual and legal determinations that the Office believes to be accurate and complete to the greatest extent possible, given these identified gaps,
the Office cannot rule out the possibility that the unavailable information would shed additional light on (or cast in a new light) the events described in the report.
Relevant note on Trump vis-à-vis Manafort’s prosecution: “The President said that flipping was "not fair" and "almost ought to be outlawed."” And as reported in an NBC article from January 2018, “Donald Trump is telling friends and aides in private that things are going great — for him. Some reasons: He's decided that a key witness in the Russia probe, Paul Manafort, isn't going to "flip" and sell him out, friends and aides say. He believes Robert Mueller, who heads the investigation, can be crushed, if necessary, without being fired.”
One may reflect, as Mueller did, on the difference in Trump’s messaging between Manafort (who never “flipped”) and Cohen (who very vocally did). Manafort appears to have been one of the most important witnesses as to the events of the 2016 campaign, but he was one of the most uncooperative, what with violating the cooperation agreement by lying, colluding against the investigation with the President, etc. I imagine his anti-cooperation was singularly damaging to the investigation. Elsewhere in the report (reaching into Obstruction) Mueller concludes that Trump had intended for Manafort to believe that a pardon would be forthcoming, which would calibrate cooperativeness vs. mendacity.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
With respect to Manafort, there is evidence that the President's actions had the potential to influence Manafort's decision whether to cooperate with the government. The President and his personal counsel made repeated statements suggesting that a pardon was a possibility for Mana fort, while also making it clear that the President did not want Manafort to "flip" and cooperate with the government.
Evidence concerning the President's conduct towards Manafort indicates that the President intended to encourage Manafort to not cooperate with the government.
[…]
In light of the President's counsel's previous statements that the investigations "might get cleaned up with some presidential pardons" and that a pardon would be possible if the President "come[s] to the conclusion that you have been treated unfairly," the evidence supports the inference that the President intended Manafort to believe that he could receive a pardon, which would make cooperation with the government as a means of obtaining a lesser sentence unnecessary.
Donald Trump and Donald Jr. both refused to be interviewed in person or to submit grand jury testimony. There are relatively few redactions in the Obstruction volume of the report, but one redaction appears to cover details of the refusal. Trump did submit written answers to some questions, but most of it was not addressed or Trump’s response was ‘don’t know, don’t remember’. Mueller “viewed the written answers to be inadequate.” Two very important questions that went unanswered:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
II h. Did you have any discussions prior to January 20, 2017, regarding a potential pardon or other action to benefit Julian Assange? If yes, describe who you had the discussion(s) with, when, and the content of the discussion(s).
IV i. What consideration did you give to lifting sanctions and/or recognizing Russia’s annexation of Crimea if you were elected? Describe who you spoke with about this topic, when, the substance of the discussion(s).
My Internet Lawyer hat on evidentiary problems:
Let’s say, as part of an investigation, you assume the targets have some sort of quid pro quo, a corrupt bargain, and that this leads them to break laws that invoke conspiracy. How does one go about establishing quid pro quo? One needs the pro – the “for”, the agreement to exchange. You could have favorable actions taken on both ends, but there must be a bridge between them. Otherwise it could conceivably be a coincidence, however outlandish. If you don’t have a deal, you don’t have a crime. There’s the rub. So how does one uncover an agreement in the process of investigating? There are some three main evidentiary modes: witness testimony/suspect confession; documentary; signals intelligence.
Witness testimony is fallible because the witness or subject can lie, and you need another witness or a different mode of evidence that contradicts or corroborates them to advance the case ifthere is any level of complexity. This is what’s behind the principle of “rolling” witnesses, nailing a lower-level witness and inducing them through lenience to cooperate by confessing to lesser crimes and providing documents and testimony – ideally like dropping a row of dominoes.
But again, individuals have different levels of knowledge, and they may lie or obstruct. That’s where documents are helpful. Documents can build case knowledge and help catch witnesses on peripheral lies or distortions, leading them to clean up their testimony. A written agreement, or individuals corresponding in a way that implies, references, or acknowledges a written agreement, is ideal. But this is hard to identify if you can’t get access to sources, or if witnesses destroy or conceal evidence. (Recall here that both Manafort and Stone’s properties were subjected to unannounced FBI raids to prevent evidence loss.) A textual agreement may not even exist if you aren’t investigating two large organizations who might be expected to create more institutional records of such things, or if the targets just weren’t stupid enough to take notes on a "criminal conspiracy".
That’s why signals intelligence is a great thing, in an age where so much is exchanged through the Internet, or over telephone. Obtaining technical records or intercepted communications allowing comfortable cross-checking of facts and testimony enables the investigator to box suspects in. The USA famously has a world-beating sigint apparatus. However this too has limitations. If connections or communications are encrypted, and the content is not intercepted for decryption, it may be impossible to learn even whether communication took place. Disposable written communications are immune to sig-int. Face-to-face conversations, especially those involving intermediaries or taking place overseas, are immune to sigint (unless the subjects were being monitored beforehand). Moreover, because sigint is so potent and intensive, the investigator may not wish to proceed in a way that exposes means and methods, or that exposes friendly facilitators (i.e. informants or spies) to repercussions.
Imagine that at the June 9 Trump Tower meeting the highest campaign officials below Trump himself heard from the Russians details of the hacks and emails and the potential for the Trump brand in Russia, and they replied with an examination of policy changes that could ‘advance the US-Russia relationship.’ Assume sigint has not been withheld for secrecy concerns (though I wouldn’t be surprised). The principals having given their side of the story with protestation that nothing of substance occurred, how would an investigator go about proving this culpable coordination? Much less when Mike Flynn personally met Putin in December 2015 (when he was already unofficially working with Trump), how would an investigator prove what, if anything, was exchanged or communicated between the two? Trump is very much in the position of an insulated mob boss here.
Obstruction of Justice
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
The first thing you should read about obstruction is that Mueller refuses to make any formal conclusion other than ‘make up your own damn mind’:
Because we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment, we did not draw ultimate conclusions about the President's conduct. The evidence we obtained about the President's actions and intent presents difficult issues that would need to be resolved if we were making a traditional prosecutorial judgment. At the same time, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.
The above paragraph appears in core form 3 times in the report, so it must be pretty important: the end of the introduction to the Obstruction volume, as the conclusion of the Executive Summary of the volume, and as the conclusion to the whole volume. *Hmmm.jpg*
Obstruction is the less interesting and more straightforward part of the report for me in doing an overview – despite it holding so many damning details, I am nevertheless largely putting those details outside the scope of this post - but it appears to have been Mueller's priority in making an end of the Special Counsel investigation when he did. That is, we know Mueller wanted to prioritize the obstruction matter because in explaining why he did not pursue subpoenas of the President and others (Trump and Don Jr. refused to testify), or wait for further discovery in other matters, it’s revealed he felt the obstruction material was already substantial enough that it would be undesirable to delay presenting the results to Congress.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
We also sought a voluntary interview with the President. After more discussion, the President declined to be interviewed.
[REDACTED]
During the course of our discussions, the President did agree to answer written questions on certain Russia-related topics, and he provided us with answers. He did not similarly agree to provide written answers to questions on obstruction topics or questions on events during the transition. Ultimately, while we believed that we had the authority and legal justification to issue a grand jury subpoena to obtain the President's testimony, we chose not to do so. We made that decision in view of the substantial delay that such an investigative step would likely produce at a late stage in our investigation. We also assessed that based on the significant body of evidence we had already obtained of the President's actions and his public and private statements describing or explaining those actions, we had sufficient evidence to understand relevant events and to make certain assessments without the President's testimony.
We thus weighed the costs of potentially lengthy constitutional litigation, with resulting delay in finishing our investigation, against the anticipated benefits for our investigation and report.
(Of course he could hypothetically have broken off obstruction from the rest of the report and continued investigating other matters, but the Special Counsel rules only mention that "[a]t the conclusion of the Special Counsel's work, he ... shall provide the Attorney General a confidential report explaining the prosecution or declination decisions", and as noted above Mueller was very by-the-book.)
Mueller spends a good deal of the report explaining his legal theories of investigating, reporting on, and/or charging the President. Much of it functions as a pre-emptive takedown of Barr's narratives, laying out judicial precedent on separation of powers doctrines and other matters. A good place to start would be the Summary subsection “STATUTORY AND CONSTITUTIONAL DEFENSES”, it’s of a subtle mordancy apt to give the British a run for their money. Indeed, there is a marked shift in the language of sufficiency to reach certain conclusions between the Russia volume and the Obstruction volume. One example is when, discussing executive powers:
A general ban on corrupt action does not unduly intrude on the President's responsibility to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." U.S. CONST. ART IT, §§ 3. 1090 To the contrary, the concept of "faithful execution" connotes the use of power in the interest of the public, not in the office holder's personal interests.
Mueller iterates and analyzes numerous potential episodes of obstruction. I don't want to present a paraphrase that erases the nuance and style of Mueller's thorough analyses, but the spoiler is that there's a lot of obstructive conduct, yes. To establish obstruction under the statute Mueller references one needs to identify the obstructive act(us rea), intent (mens rea), and a nexus between obstructive act and official proceeding. Here are two handy tables offering an overview of the findings. (be aware that the episode related to Roger Stone is too redacted to glean much.)
Interesting tidbit: When Trump was trying to get Attorney General Sessions to unrecuse and take control of the investigations in early 2017, his official instructions would likely have had the effect of stopping investigation not only into the Trump campaign and Trump himself, but broadly into Russian espionage and interference related to the election. Though as mentioned Mueller never comes out to say such things directly, commentary on the obstruction report tends to observe that the effort to get Sessions to unrecuse was one of the most substantially obstructive episodes that Mueller reviewed.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
The message said that Sessions should publicly announce that, notwithstanding his recusal from the Russia investigation, the investigation was "very unfair" to the President, the President had done nothing wrong, and Sessions planned to meet with the Special Counsel and "let [him] move forward with investigating election meddling for future elections." Lewandowski said he understood what the President wanted Sessions to do.
[…]
The dictated message went on to state that Sessions would meet with the Special Counsel to limit his jurisdiction to future election interference: Now a group of people want to subvert the Constitution of the United States. T am going to meet with the Special Prosecutor to explain this is very unfair and let the Special Prosecutor move forward with investigating election meddling for future elections so that nothing can happen in future elections.
Mueller concludes that obstructive conduct may or may not implicate underlying crimes – “The injury to the integrity of the justice system is the same regardless of whether a person committed an underlying wrong.” (Though Trump is widely understood to have committed an underlying crime with respect to Cohen and campaign finance.) On suggested motives, he muses:
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
As described in Volume I, the evidence uncovered in the investigation did not establish that the President or those close to him were involved in the charged Russian computer-hacking or active-measure conspiracies, or that the President otherwise had an unlawful relationship with any Russian official. But the evidence does indicate that a thorough FBI investigation would uncover facts about the campaign and the President personally that the President could have understood to be crimes or that would give rise to personal and political concerns. Although the President publicly stated during and after the election that he had no connection to Russia, the Trump Organization, through Michael Cohen, was pursuing the proposed Trump Tower Moscow project through June 2016 and candidate Trump was repeatedly briefed on the progress of those efforts.498 In addition, some witnesses said that Trump aware that [REDACTED] at a time when public reports stated that Russian intelligence officials were behind the hacks, and that Trump privately sought information about future WikiLeaks releases.499 More broadly, multiple witnesses described the President's preoccupation with press coverage of the Russia investigation and his persistent concern that it raised questions about the legitimacy of his election.5
In this investigation, the evidence does not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference. But the evidence does point to a range of other possible personal motives animating the President's conduct. These include concerns that continued investigation would call into question the legitimacy of his election and potential uncertainty about whether certain events-such as advance notice of WikiLeaks's release of hacked information or the June 9, 2016 meeting between senior campaign officials and Russians could be seen as criminal activity by the President, his campaign, or his family
Money shot on obstruction:
Our investigation found multiple acts by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations, including the Russian-interference and obstruction investigations.
[…] The President's efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests.
On impeachment and indictment Mueller crucially says (to be read in full):
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
First, a traditional prosecution or declination decision entails a binary determination to initiate or decline a prosecution, but we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment. The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has issued an opinion finding that "the indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions" in violation of "the constitutional separation of powers."1 Given the role of the Special Counsel as an attorney in the Department of Justice and the framework of the Special Counsel regulations, see 28 U.S.C. § 515; 28 C.F.R. § 600.7(a), this Office accepted OLC's legal conclusion for the purpose of exercising prosecutorial jurisdiction. And apart from OLC's constitutional view, we recognized that a federal criminal accusation against a sitting President would place burdens on the President's capacity to govern and potentially preempt constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct.2
As for constitutional defenses arising from the President's status as the head of the Executive Branch, we recognized that the Department of Justice and the courts have not definitively resolved these issues. We therefore examined those issues through the framework established by Supreme Court precedent governing separation-of-powers issues. The Department of Justice and the President's personal counsel have recognized that the President is subject to statutes that prohibit obstruction of justice by bribing a witness or suborning perjury because that conduct does not implicate his constitutional authority. With respect to whether the President can be found to have obstructed justice by exercising his powers under Article II of the Constitution, we concluded that Congress has authority to prohibit a President's corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice. Under applicable Supreme Court precedent, the Constitution does not categorically and permanently immunize a President for obstructing justice through the use of his Article II powers. The separation-of-powers doctrine authorizes Congress to protect official proceedings, including those of courts and grand juries, from corrupt, obstructive acts regard less of their source. We also concluded that any inroad on presidential authority that would occur from prohibiting corrupt acts does not undermine the President's ability to fulfill his constitutional mission. The term "corruptly" sets a demanding standard. It requires a concrete showing that a person acted with an intent to obtain an improper advantage for himself or someone else, inconsistent with official duty and the rights of others. A preclusion of "corrupt" official action does not diminish the President's ability to exercise Article II powers. For example, the proper supervision of criminal law does not demand freedom for the President to act with a corrupt intention of shielding himself from criminal punishment, avoiding financial liability, or preventing personal embarrassment. To the contrary, a statute that prohibits official action undertaken for such corrupt purposes furthers, rather than hinders, the impartial and evenhanded administration of the law. It also aligns with the President's constitutional duty to faithfully execute the laws. Finally, we concluded that in the rare case in which a criminal investigation of the President's conduct is justified, inquiries to determine whether the President acted for a corrupt motive should not impermissibly chill his performance of his constitutionally assigned duties. The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the President's corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law.
A possible remedy through impeachment for abuses of power would not substitute for potential criminal liability after a President leaves office. Impeachment would remove a President from office, but would not address the underlying culpability of the conduct or serve the usual purposes of the criminal law. Indeed, the Impeachment Judgment Clause recognizes that criminal law plays an independent role in addressing an official's conduct, distinct from the political remedy of impeachment. See U.S. CONST. ART. l, § 3, cl. 7. Impeachment is also a drastic and rarely invoked remedy, and Congress is not restricted to relying only on impeachment, rather than making criminal law applicable to a former President, as OLC has recognized. A Sitting President's Amenability to Indictment and Criminal Prosecution, 24 Op. O.L.C. at 255 ("Recognizing an immunity from prosecution for a sitting President would not preclude such prosecution once the President's term is over or he is otherwise removed from office by resignation or impeachment.").
On why Mueller did not want to explicitly conclude that the President committed a crime without charging that crime (because irremediable disparagement):
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Third, we considered whether to evaluate the conduct we investigated under the Justice Manual standards governing prosecution and declination decisions, but we determined not to apply an approach that could potentially result in a judgment that the President committed crimes. The threshold step under the Justice Manual standards is to assess whether a person's conduct "constitutes a federal offense." U.S. Dep't of Justice, Justice Manual§ 9-27.220 (2018) (Justice Manual). Fairness concerns counseled against potentially reaching that judgment when no charges can be brought. The ordinary means for an individual to respond to an accusation is through a speedy and public trial, with all the procedural protections that surround a criminal case. An individual who believes he was wrongly accused can use that process to seek to clear his name. In contrast, a prosecutor's judgment that crimes were committed, but that no charges will be brought, affords no such adversarial opportunity for public name-clearing before an impartial adjudicator.5
All that reads (not just) to me like lawyer-talk for:
'I don't want to tie this up on the whim of the Supreme Court, so I'm hewing to department regulations on not indicting a sitting President. Congress, here are my referrals on obstruction. For any malfeasance not to be resolved through the political, constitutional process, after the President leaves office it's open season on the Trump family for state and federal prosecutors.'
Last edited by Montmorency; 04-25-2019 at 09:01.
Vitiate Man.
History repeats the old conceits
The glib replies, the same defeats
A literal illegal militia (terrorist group) and the federal government doesn't care. Part of their duty on the border is to secure, that goes both ways. Dissapointed but not surprised.
It's insane and in a just world there would be a swift federal response to these terroristic exercises of power(to put it mildly). From the article it seems like the New Mexico state government has a very restrained response. That's pretty standard issue with these types of groups, typically they fizzle out and go home. Granted, no one has ever inflamed them like this before, maybe their deranged moral mission will sustain them. I would hope not.
They have crossed the Rubicon. The people crossing the border are the Hegelian other. They are not a group of people but rather a philosophical threat. They represent tiny tears at these peoples identity. We are witnessing an othering in real time. The scariest part is that we have an administration feeding this from the bottom up.
These groups in the interior are often more numerous and much better armed than the local and state LEOs that they are often pitted against. What kind of polity can hope to sustain itself when it can not enforce itself? What do you do as an LEO when you are the weaker party and the citizens won't listen to the literal rule of law?
Just a total humanitarian disaster.
A book just came out, The House of the Pain of Others: Chronicle of a Small Genocide, about a pogrom a hundred years in Mexico against Chinese laborers. Also sounds up your alley.
Hatred and resentment were fomented per all the pretexts used against Mexicans and Latinos in America today, that they don't integrate, that they steal jobs, etc.
300 Celestials were struck down by roving revolutionaries in 1911, in self-defense the Mexicans claimed.
Vitiate Man.
History repeats the old conceits
The glib replies, the same defeats
So Rod Rosenstein. And Barr lying some more. When will we learn to stop giving these people the benefit of the doubt? I'm including myself. It's incredible credulousness.
"The raspberry road that led to Abu Ghraib was paved with bland assumptions that people who had repeatedly proved their untrustworthiness, could be trusted. There is much made by people who long for the days of their fourth form debating society about the fallacy of "argumentum ad hominem". There is, as I have mentioned in the past, no fancy Latin term for the fallacy of "giving known liars the benefit of the doubt", but it is in my view a much greater source of avoidable error in the world." - This quote will be even more relevant below
And I was wrong to present this as something novel, it is indeed stale news.
Originally Posted by Montmorency
In other (slightly stale?) news about dangerous collusion:
It turns out the Border Patrol has always worked with racist private militias. In fact, the whole premise of the Border Patrol's founding in 1924 was as a white supremacist paramilitary to rationalize the long-standing white settler violence in the southwest under auspices of government. This was the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution and the height of the national Ku Klux Klan and the same year of the legislative closing of America (National Origins Act) to pretty much all Eastern European and Asian immigration on the basis of eugenic theories. Being very politically active, the Border Patrol (at first) opposed the interest of agribusinesses in the movement of Mexican labor, participated in CIA training of brutal Latin American security forces during the Cold War, and engaged in systematic campaigns of crimes against humanity throughout the 20th century along the border, where no (other) law exists. Remind one of anything?
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
John Crewdson, for instance, won a Pulitzer in 1980 for a series of articles published in the New York Times, including one titled “Border Sweeps of Illegal Aliens Leave Scores of Children in Jails,” yet his 1983 book based on the series, “The Tarnished Door,” is out of print. Crewdson’s reporting on the Border Patrol and the immigration system deserves a revival, for it provides an important back-history to the horrors we are witnessing today.
Patrollers, he reported, regularly engaged in beatings, murder, torture, and rape, including the rape of girls as young as 12. Some patrollers ran their own in-house “outlaw” vigilante groups. Others maintained ties with groups like the Klan. Border Patrol agents also used the children of migrants, either as bait or as a pressure tactic to force confessions. When coming upon a family, agents usually tried to apprehend the youngest member first, with the idea that relatives would give themselves up so as not to be separated. “It may sound cruel,” one patroller said, but it often worked.
Separating migrant families was not official government policy in the years Crewdson was reporting on abuses. But left to their own devices, Border Patrol agents regularly took children from parents, threatening that they would be separated “forever” unless one of them confessed that they had entered the country illegally. Mothers especially, an agent said, “would always break.” Once a confession was extracted, children might be placed in foster care or left to languish in federal jails. Others were released into Mexico alone, far from their homes — forced to survive, according to public defenders, by “garbage-can scrounging, living on rooftops and whatever.” Ten-year-old Sylvia Alvarado, separated from her grandmother as they crossed into Texas, was kept in a small cinderblock cell for more than three months. In California, 13-year-old Julia Pérez, threatened with being arrested and denied food, broke down and told her interrogator that she was Mexican, even though she was a U.S. citizen. The Border Patrol released Pérez into Mexico with no money or way to contact her U.S. family. Such cruelties weren’t one-offs, but part of a pattern, encouraged and committed by officers up the chain of command. The violence was both gratuitous and systemic, including “stress” techniques later associated with the war in Iraq.
The practice, for instance, as recently reported, of placing migrants in extremely cold rooms — called hieleras, or “ice boxes” — goes back decades, at least to the early 1980s, with Crewdson writing that it was a common procedure. Agents reminded captives that they were subject to their will: “In this place, you have no rights.”
Some migrants, being sent back to Mexico, were handcuffed to cars and made to run alongside them to the border. Patrollers pushed “illegals off cliffs,” a patrol agent told Crewdson, “so it would look like an accident.” Officers in the patrol’s parent agency, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, traded young Mexican women they caught at the border to the Los Angeles Rams in exchange for season tickets, and supplied Mexican prostitutes to U.S. congressmen and judges, paying for them out of funds the service used to compensate informants. Agents also worked closely with Texas agriculturalists, delivering workers to their ranches (including to one owned by Lyndon B. Johnson when he was in the White House), then raiding the ranches just before payday and deporting the workers. “The ranchers got their crops harvested for free, the INS men got fishing and hunting privileges on the ranches, and the Mexicans got nothing,” Crewdson reported.
Something else I learned this week? The Bush-era formula of "enhanced interrogation" is actually a direct English translation and implementation of the Nazi concept of "Verschärfte Vernehmung":
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
The phrase "Verschärfte Vernehmung" is German for "enhanced interrogation". Other translations include "intensified interrogation" or "sharpened interrogation". It's a phrase that appears to have been concocted in 1937, to describe a form of torture that would leave no marks, and hence save the embarrassment pre-war Nazi officials were experiencing as their wounded torture victims ended up in court. The methods, as you can see above, are indistinguishable from those described as "enhanced interrogation techniques" by the president. As you can see from the Gestapo memo, moreover, the Nazis were adamant that their "enhanced interrogation techniques" would be carefully restricted and controlled, monitored by an elite professional staff, of the kind recommended by Charles Krauthammer, and strictly reserved for certain categories of prisoner. At least, that was the original plan.
Also: the use of hypothermia, authorized by Bush and Rumsfeld, was initially forbidden. 'Waterboarding" was forbidden too, unlike that authorized by Bush. As time went on, historians have found that all the bureaucratic restrictions were eventually broken or abridged. Once you start torturing, it has a life of its own. The "cold bath" technique - the same as that used by Bush against al-Qahtani in Guantanamo - was, according to professor Darius Rejali of Reed College,
pioneered by a member of the French Gestapo by the pseudonym Masuy about 1943.
[...]
The Nazi defense of the techniques is almost verbatim that of the Bush administration...
[...]
Freezing prisoners to near-death, repeated beatings, long forced-standing, waterboarding, cold showers in air-conditioned rooms, stress positions [Arrest mit Verschaerfung], withholding of medicine and leaving wounded or sick prisoners alone in cells for days on end - all these have occurred at US detention camps under the command of president George W. Bush. Over a hundred documented deaths have occurred in these interrogation sessions.
[...]
What I am reporting is a simple empirical fact: the interrogation methods approved and defended by this president are not new. Many have been used in the past. The very phrase used by the president to describe torture-that-isn't-somehow-torture - "enhanced interrogation techniques" - is a term originally coined by the Nazis. The techniques are indistinguishable. The methods were clearly understood in 1948 as war-crimes. The punishment for them was death.
Was this ever brought up on the Org, before my time, that America tried the Nazis at Nuremburg for what the Bush administration did in Iraq?
This old quote from Mein Kampf never stops giving:
Originally Posted by Adolf Hitler
At present there exists one State which manifests at least some modest attempts that show a better appreciation of how things ought to be done in this matter. It is not, however, in our model German Republic but in the U.S.A. that efforts are made to conform at least partly to the counsels of commonsense. By refusing immigrants to enter there if they are in a bad state of health, and by excluding certain races from the right to become naturalized as citizens, they have begun to introduce principles similar to those on which we wish to ground the People's State.
Back in Europe, Hungary's Orban has reacted to a critical labor shortage not by easing off the ethnonationalism but by taking strides back toward slave labor.
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
“Budapest is almost empty of workers,” he said.
[...]
...Laszlo Parragh, the president of Hungary’s chamber of commerce, lamented last year that the country lacked “white-skinned workers with Christian roots.”
[...]
The labor shortage has grown so acute that the government recently pushed through a contentious bill to address it. Widely referred to as the slave law, it allows employers to require up to 400 hours of overtime annually from its workers, while delaying compensation for up to three years. Mr. Orban’s Fidesz party promoted the measure as good for workers, saying it would let “those who want to work more earn more.”
Maybe we can discuss another time how in America, the government and the courts view being a unionist as worse than being a fascist...
"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition …There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect." - Frank Wilhoit
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
There is no such thing as liberalism — or progressivism, etc.
There is only conservatism. No other political philosophy actually exists; by the political analogue of Gresham’s Law, conservatism has driven every other idea out of circulation.
There might be, and should be, anti-conservatism; but it does not yet exist. What would it be? In order to answer that question, it is necessary and sufficient to characterize conservatism. Fortunately, this can be done very concisely.
Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit:
There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
There is nothing more or else to it, and there never has been, in any place or time.
For millenia, conservatism had no name, because no other model of polity had ever been proposed. “The king can do no wrong.” In practice, this immunity was always extended to the king’s friends, however fungible a group they might have been. Today, we still have the king’s friends even where there is no king (dictator, etc.). Another way to look at this is that the king is a faction, rather than an individual.
As the core proposition of conservatism is indefensible if stated baldly, it has always been surrounded by an elaborate backwash of pseudophilosophy, amounting over time to millions of pages. All such is axiomatically dishonest and undeserving of serious scrutiny. Today, the accelerating de-education of humanity has reached a point where the market for pseudophilosophy is vanishing; it is, as The Kids Say These Days, tl;dr . All that is left is the core proposition itself — backed up, no longer by misdirection and sophistry, but by violence.
So this tells us what anti-conservatism must be: the proposition that the law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone, and cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.
Then the appearance arises that the task is to map “liberalism”, or “progressivism”, or “socialism”, or whateverthefuckkindofstupidnoise-ism, onto the core proposition of anti-conservatism.
No, it a’n’t. The task is to throw all those things on the exact same burn pile as the collected works of all the apologists for conservatism, and start fresh. The core proposition of anti-conservatism requires no supplementation and no exegesis. It is as sufficient as it is necessary. What you see is what you get:
The law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone; and it cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.
Last edited by Montmorency; 05-04-2019 at 23:19.
Vitiate Man.
History repeats the old conceits
The glib replies, the same defeats
A book just came out, The House of the Pain of Others: Chronicle of a Small Genocide, about a pogrom a hundred years in Mexico against Chinese laborers. Also sounds up your alley.
Hatred and resentment were fomented per all the pretexts used against Mexicans and Latinos in America today, that they don't integrate, that they steal jobs, etc.
300 Celestials were struck down by roving revolutionaries in 1911, in self-defense the Mexicans claimed.
Mexico has its own interesting history of enforcing its brand of Nationalism. I'll have to pick those up.
As for the rest you posted. Yea that's pretty much true. I would only say that these paramilitaries see themselves as more of a supplemental rather than a synthesis. A point that doesn't really change anything but interesting none the less. The border patrol is also 3x the size it was in 1996.
So many Texas statutes have been overturned (by the courts) that denied Migrant workers everything from medical advice to schooling for their children. Political consciousness in the Rio Grande Valley comes out of Ag workers rights. The state is always trying to pull some type of shenanigan to make these people as invisible as possible. Exploiting labor and the State of Texas, name a more iconic duo. The old let them work and snag them before pay day is the dirtiest trick in the horrible book.
There, but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford
My aim, then, was to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us. Fear is the beginning of wisdom.
I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation.
Re: Trump Thread
conspiracy".
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Originally Posted by Strike For The South
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