DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus White House and Justice Dept. Officials Discussed Mueller Report Before Release

White House and Justice Dept. Officials Discussed Mueller Report Before Release

By Mark Mazzetti, Maggie Haberman, Nicholas Fandos and Katie Benner
April 17, 2019

WASHINGTON — Not all of Robert S. Mueller III’s findings will be news to President Trump when they are released Thursday.

Justice Department officials have had numerous conversations with White House lawyers about the conclusions made by Mr. Mueller, the special counsel, in recent days, according to people with knowledge of the discussions. The talks have aided the president’s legal team as it prepares a rebuttal to the report and strategizes for the coming public war over its findings.

A sense of paranoia was taking hold among some of Mr. Trump’s aides, some of whom fear his backlash more than the findings themselves, the people said. The report might make clear which of Mr. Trump’s current and former advisers spoke to the special counsel, how much they said and how much damage they did to the president — providing a kind of road map for retaliation.

The discussions between Justice Department officials and White House lawyers have also added to questions about the propriety of the decisions by Attorney General William P. Barr since he received Mr. Mueller’s findings late last month.

Mr. Barr and his deputy, Rod J. Rosenstein, determined that Mr. Trump did not illegally obstruct justice and said the special counsel found no conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia’s 2016 election interference. Mr. Barr told lawmakers that officials were “spying” on the Trump campaign, raised ominous historical parallels with the illegal surveillance of Vietnam War protesters and pointedly declined to rebut charges that Mr. Mueller’s investigators were engaged in a “witch hunt.”

Spokespeople for the White House and the Justice Department declined to comment. Mr. Barr, who plans to hold a news conference at 9:30 a.m. Thursday to discuss the special counsel’s report, refused to answer questions from lawmakers last week about whether the department had given the White House a preview of Mr. Mueller’s findings.

The Justice Department plans to turn the report over to Congress between 11 a.m. and noon on CDs, and it will be posted on the special counsel’s website sometime after, according to a senior department official. Though the delivery method might sound outdated, it is not unusual for lawmakers to receive large tranches of government information on the discs.

Much is at stake for Mr. Barr in Thursday’s expected release, especially if the report presents a far more damning portrayal of the president’s behavior — and of his campaign’s dealings with Russians — than the attorney general indicated in the four-page letter he wrote in March. That letter generated anger among some members of Mr. Mueller’s team, who believed it failed to adequately portray the findings of their inquiry and have told associates that the report was more troubling for Mr. Trump than Mr. Barr indicated.

His plans to black out sensitive information in the report have drawn complaints, particularly from Democrats who have demanded the document’s full text.

Justice Department rules do not require Mr. Barr to make the special counsel’s report public, and the attorney general’s defenders say he will fulfill pledges of transparency he made during his confirmation hearings to make as much of the document public as possible.

A significant portion of the report will be readable, a government official said. Still, any redaction, no matter how minuscule, could omit information crucial to understanding what investigators uncovered.

Even a redacted report is likely to answer some of the outstanding questions about Russia’s attempts to sabotage the election; contacts between Kremlin intermediaries and the Trump campaign; and the president’s efforts to derail the investigation.

Mr. Mueller’s report examines each episode that was part of the president’s attempts to undermine the investigation, Mr. Barr wrote in his letter.

Investigators focused on whether the president used his position atop the executive branch to impede their inquiry. Mr. Mueller’s team scrutinized Mr. Trump’s efforts to end an investigation into his first national security adviser and to oust law enforcement officials — like the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey — who Mr. Trump believed were disloyal. Mr. Mueller also closely examined Mr. Trump’s attempt in June 2017 to have the special counsel himself fired.

Mr. Barr also wrote that Mr. Mueller explains why he did not make a determination on an obstruction offense, laying out evidence “on both sides of the question.” Though investigators did not exonerate him, “the evidence does not establish that the president was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference,” the report said, according to Mr. Barr’s letter.

The information that Justice Department officials have provided to the White House could potentially be valuable for Mr. Trump’s legal team as it finalizes a rebuttal to the Mueller report — expected to be released not long after the department makes the special counsel’s findings public. Advisers to Mr. Trump insist that they still do not know many details about Mr. Mueller’s conclusions.

The president’s aides have devised a strategy for numerous lawyers and political aides to quickly read different parts of the document to develop a rebuttal strategy, according to multiple people briefed on the plan.

The recent conversations between the Justice Department and the White House were first reported by ABC News.

Democrats on Capitol Hill, armed with subpoena power and deeply mistrustful of Mr. Barr’s motivations since he was first nominated, have pressed for more and believe they could soon have the upper hand.

They have demanded the full text of the report and access to the underlying evidence they say is necessary for continuing congressional inquiries into foreign influence and obstruction of justice.

The House Judiciary Committee has already authorized a subpoena for its chairman, Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, to try to force Mr. Barr to hand that material over to Congress.

“On the assumption that it’s heavily redacted, we will most certainly issue the subpoenas in very short order,” Mr. Nadler said Wednesday evening at a hastily called news conference in New York.

Promising more transparency, the government said it would let a select group of lawmakers see some of the material related to the case against Roger J. Stone Jr. that had been redacted from the initial public version of the report, according to a filing on Wednesday in the Stone case. Mr. Nadler cautioned, though, that his committee had not been made aware of any such accommodation.

Representative David Cicilline, Democrat of Rhode Island and a member of the Judiciary Committee, on Wednesday accused Mr. Barr of trying to “insulate” Mr. Trump, comparing him to Roy Cohn, one of Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyers known for his fierce efforts to protect his boss.

Mr. Nadler took particular umbrage that Mr. Barr would hold a news conference before Congress or the public sees the report.

“The attorney general appears to be waging a media campaign on behalf of President Trump,” Mr. Nadler said. He added, “Rather than letting the facts of the report speak for themselves, the attorney general has taken unprecedented steps to spin Mueller’s nearly two-year investigation.”

He pressed Mr. Barr to cancel his own news briefing scheduled for Thursday.

Democrats in recent weeks have accelerated investigations of the president, his campaign, businesses and administration, issuing a flurry of subpoenas and voluntary requests that could aid their work. They intend to incorporate whatever they glean from Thursday’s report into those investigations, which they argue Congress has its own constitutional duty to conduct regardless of Mr. Barr’s conclusion.

Doing so could also allow party leaders to cool any potential heat within the party to initiate impeachment proceedings against the president — a possibility Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California has repeatedly said would be politically unwise, absent startling new evidence of wrongdoing.

Democrats concede that the real challenge will be to persuade Republicans and the broader public to keep focused on a case that the attorney general weeks ago essentially declared was closed.

A key witness in the obstruction investigation was the former White House counsel Donald F. McGahn II, who spent more than 30 hours with Mr. Mueller’s team. Mr. McGahn explained in detail how Mr. Trump tried to gain control over the investigation.

Mr. Trump’s legal team never thoroughly debriefed Mr. McGahn’s lawyer about what his client told investigators, leaving the president’s lawyers in the dark about what Mr. McGahn said. In recent weeks, White House officials have grown increasingly concerned about what Mr. McGahn told the Mueller team and believe his statements could be used in the report to paint a damning portrait of the president, two people close to the White House said.

Republicans have seized on Mr. Barr’s decision to clear the president of criminal obstruction of justice and plan to try to reinvigorate their own inquiries into decision making inside the Justice Department and the F.B.I. in 2016 that prompted law enforcement officials to open the Russia investigation.

Mr. Barr gave ammunition to those efforts last week, when he described law enforcement surveillance of the Trump campaign as “spying.” The remark reinforced a narrative long pushed by Mr. Trump and his allies in Congress — that a “deep state” tried to prevent Mr. Trump from becoming president and has tried to undo his presidency.

Mr. Barr’s comments sent shudders through law enforcement ranks and surprised many who saw him as a stabilizing force whose instincts would be to protect the Justice Department from political attacks — unlike former Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Matthew G. Whitaker, who held the job in an acting capacity after the president forced out Mr. Sessions.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/17/us/politics/trump-mueller-report.html

Well I hope they got their lies all lined up and well rehearsed! smh

Gee what a surprise. The WH controlling the narrative of the report before anybody can see it. So typical of a budding dictatorship.

Mueller should be required to testify up on Capitol Hill ASAP.

Perhaps a dumb question, but was Barr supposed to review the Mueller report with the White House and Trump and his lawyers? I was under the impression that he was not supposed to do that. I suspect he did however.

If that's the case, how could they have, as Rudy calls it, a Counter Report. I mean, how can you counter something you haven't been read in on?

Another dumb question, Barr has already set the pace for hiding embarrassing (bordering on Criminal) actions of a President... Remember his actions in 1989-90 with Bush.

So, the question is, is he doing it again? Why have a Press Conference hours before the redacted report is even released? There is no reason that works at being transparent that I can see for doing it this way.

Having said that, Let me warn my Left Leaning/Progressive/Liberal friends, don't look for any answers today... I have a feeling you will be left empty.

I can respect that wish, why do we need to hear from him again, he isn't going to change his story.

Because the Democrats are trying to control and direct the narrative just as much as Trump is and to date there is nothing to suggest that the Democrats have any more honest reasons for doing so.


I get this feeling that Rod Rosentstein turned "State's witness". Something in the way Barr thanked him for his help seemed to have a deeper meaning.

Agreed, just like when Barr released his statement, they tried to cling to "obstruction" instead of "collusion". It doenst matter what the report says, the left will try to turn it and control the narrative, and the left followers will follow. That's the problem with America right now, no one cares for the actual truth, they just want to re-affirm their own personal bias.

No Collusion, No Obstruction, no executive privilege.





It will not matter, they will double and triple down, demanding that Mueller testify as if he would report it and be lying about all of this in his report. Absolutely zero ability to self reflect that maybe, just maybe, the media misled them.

“That's the problem with America right now, no one cares for the actual truth, they just want to re-affirm their own personal bias.”

Says the guy that faithfully follows the lyingest liar that has ever held the office.
Comedy gold.

Gracious in victory as always. smh

Please put him on the stand. The lead up and let down will be even more satisfying than the report itself.

How exactly do I faithfully follow anyone? Please do tell. I faithfully follow Trump because simply because I didn't believe the crap the media was spewing about the investigation? Seems like you and anyone that was screaming about "collusion and obstruction" are the ones "faithfully following the lyingest liars" on TV. Please tune in to CNN later to see what I mean.

Cohen says he will be ready to address public 'soon' on Mueller report


Michael Cohen, the former personal lawyer for President Trump, said Thursday that he soon would be prepared to speak about possible redactions in special counsel Robert Mueller's report.

"Soon I will be ready to address the American people again," Cohen said on Twitter just hours before the report's scheduled release. "Tell it all...and tell it myself!"

Mueller's report is expected to be released following a Thursday morning press conference from Attorney General William Barr that focuses on the investigation's findings. The report is expected to be released with light redactions, according to The Washington Post.



Davis added that Cohen "has 7 days, 70 hours, + 100 pages of what" Mueller's team knows.

"As the #Country waits for the #MuellerReport, know this … it does not matter how #Barr #RedactedMuellerReport," tweeted Davis, who is also an opinion contributor to The Hill.

Cohen pleaded guilty during Mueller's investigation and cooperated with the special counsel's office while it conducted a probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible obstruction of justice by Trump.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administrat...head-of-mueller

I think Barr saying this is rather important.

still holding on for one last gasp, huh sparky?

Please do this.

I'm happy the Trumpians think this is over. Let all the facts come out.

“We will accept the results of the Election and so should Trump” – Negative
“We will accept the results of the Mueller report” – Negative

Here we go again with "Thou dost protest too much" as a method of measuring guilt.

I challenge you to find one post that I claimed collusion or obstruction.
I’ve never claimed either. I have stated he’s a lying scumbag that’s an embarrassment to our country. I do believe he has ties to Russian money. But never have I ever claimed collusion or obstruction.
As to your stance on trump. If you’re not able to see his scummy ways and acknowledge he’s a shister, a grifter... and you don’t hold him accountable for his lying mouth... well you might be a trumpian.

j/c:

Bill Barr says Mueller report entirely clears Trump - or ANY American - of Russian collusion and says POTUS did not obstruct justice but was 'understandably angry' at undermining of his presidency

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...ler-report.html

Report:

https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf

"Bill Barr says"... we saw how the supposed AG protected Trump this morning.

Ah yes, the new conspiracy theory, Bill Barr is a liar. This one is also going to age well, I'm betting.



If Barr was lying, why would Mueller not step out and clarify literally anything he has said? He's done this in the past when facing lies.

Next up....Mueller is a republican partisan and a Russian operative.

So Jeffery, if you worked a lot and your wife suspected you were having an affair and she told her sister of her suspicions and hired a PI to look into it.....

Even if you weren't actually cheating, then your frustration with that would prove you were guilty?

So socialists, how did the Mueller report work out for you?

drip, drip, drip, my a$$.

Well this is going to be very interesting watching this unfold. Initial reports say that many trump officials lied to Mueller and Congress which added complexity to the Russian interference investigation.

Bits and pieces point to:
- Obstruction happened but Mueller felt he could not indict a sitting POTUS.
- Collusion evidence did not meet the level needed to prosecute, however there is tons of evidence that shows efforts to collude or work with Russians.

Will take a few days to digest this 'non-searchable' pdf but I don't see how this will stop the congressional investigations or end the debate that Trump is dirty.

Some people just don't get it.

But I understand, the Dems have no choice but to attack Trump and look foolish since they have absolutely no policy ideas to bring to the table.

It's obvious that you are not reading it.

Keep investigating right into a 2020 landslide.

anybody reading the report?

mueller stated that trump tried to obstruct justice, but the people he ordered to end the investigation refused to do so.

thats a damning sentence. people are gonna look at the presidents conduct during all of this when they vote in 2020.

trump can only claim victory as far as not being charged with anything, which is a good thing big picture wise.

but his personal conduct is appalling.

Some people will believe anything and question nothing to justify voting for a conman. But I understand GOPers have two options; stick your head in the sand or nose up Trump's ass. Having the backbone to stand up for American values is not an option for them.

Nadler will have a hayday with this thing even in it's redacted state. AND if Barr's suspicious 'cover Trump's ass' activity and statements are an indicator, the redacted areas will be even more damning.

mueller stated that the president and his team knew they would benefit from the russians hacking.

again, not illegal, but this is turning out to be more shady than anything Hillary has done. and remember, thats why people like BpG voted for trump, because of the shadiness that is hillary.

will see if the shadiness of trump keeps them from voting for him in 2020, or if it was just another excuse.

American values like the Dems stand for?

- Lack of due process
- Lack of personal accountability
- Lack of personal freedoms
- Lack of free speech
- An all encompassing federal government
- Open borders
- Lack of a free market enterprise
Too many more to mention.

"Taking into account the high burden to establish a culpable mental state in a campaign-finance prosecution and the difficulty in establishing the required valuation, the Office decided not to pursue criminal campaign-finance charges against Trump Jr. or other campaign officials for the events culminating in the June 9 meeting." Mueller's team explained, "The Office ultimately concluded that, even if the principal legal questions were resolved favorably to the government, a prosecution would encounter difficulties proving that Campaign officials or individuals connected to the Campaign willfully violated the law."

as i stated, this is turning out to be Hillary 2.0. a bunch of shadiness going on, but not enough meat to drop the hammer.

again, how many people slammed hillary for her shadiness and then are gonna turn around and defend the president and his team for this level of crap?

Arch and BpG, so who else? my money is on DC.

One of the talking heads just nailed it; Trump escaped criminality in the two probes of the investigation even though evidence shows highly suspect activities as well as an effort to cover it up.