Via valued commenter Dorothy A. Windsor:
BREAKING: The Justice Department is preparing to announce as early as next week that special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia report is complete, according to people familiar with the plans https://t.co/oEHMuRGWN7 pic.twitter.com/N77wig9SBd
— CNN (@CNN) February 20, 2019
Well there’s a statement you can parse six ways to Sunday. CNN:
Washington (CNN) Attorney General Bill Barr is preparing to announce as early as next week the completion of Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, with plans for Barr to submit to Congress soon after a summary of Mueller’s confidential report, according to people familiar with the plans. The preparations are the clearest indication yet that Mueller is nearly done with his almost two-year investigation.
The precise timing of the announcement is subject to change.
The scope and contours of what Barr will send to Congress remain unclear. Also unclear is how long it will take Justice officials to prepare what will be submitted to lawmakers.
…incoming‽
PaulWartenberg
please include indictments for kush, junior, and the shitgibbon.
please include indictments for kush, junior, and the shitgibbon.
please include indictments for kush, junior, and the shitgibbon.
please include indictments for kush, junior, and the shitgibbon.
please include indictments for kush, junior, and the shitgibbon.
please include indictments for kush, junior, and the shitgibbon.
please include indictments for kush, junior, and the shitgibbon.
please include indictments for kush, junior, and the shitgibbon.
please include indictments for kush, junior, and the shitgibbon.
please include indictments for kush, junior, and the shitgibbon.
please include indictments for kush, junior, and the shitgibbon.
please include indictments for kush, junior, and the shitgibbon.
please include indictments for kush, junior, and the shitgibbon.
please include indictments for kush, junior, and the shitgibbon.
please include indictments for kush, junior, and the shitgibbon.
please include indictments for kush, junior, and the shitgibbon.
please include indictments for kush, junior, and the shitgibbon.
please include indictments for kush, junior, and the shitgibbon.
The Midnight Lurker
“How do we take down Trump, yet spare all the big money men?”
Stall!
Roger Moore
If the investigation ends, does that mean the remaining indictments are unsealed and we can move on to prosecuting all of the Trumplings?
JPL
How do we know that Barr didn’t tell him to finish up?
Damien
I cannot possible be the only one who finds the timing of this suspicious, right? Barr gets confirmed, someone who not only has openly criticized the investigation but wouldn’t even definitively state that he wouldn’t interfere, and within a week Mueller’s suddenly wrapping up?
Uh…..huh.
Adam, can we get some “fuckery afoot cat” up in here?
Major Major Major Major
@JPL: @Damien: I also find the timing mighty suspicious; on the other hand, it’s been rumored for months that the investigation would wrap up around now.
Rand Careaga
Emptywheel gets into the weeds.
sukabi
Emptywheel’s take… a report may be coming, probably not THE report.
JMG
It was feared Whitaker would shut down the investigation, and he didn’t. My guess is because Mueller or Rosenstein briefed him, and then he realized he couldn’t shut it down without being guilty of obstruction himself. If Barr’s been read in, and he should’ve been, he might be equally reluctant to interfere. CNN’s reporting is more than a trifle indefinite about dates. One thing’s for sure. The House of Representatives, if not the Senate, will not accept a mere summary. They’ll want the complete text.
Bobby Thomson
So Barr shut it down.
The Midnight Lurker
@Damien: Or Mueller held up his report until Barr got confirmed because he knew Whitaker (temp AG and inventor of the enhanced masculine toilet) was one of Trump’s flying monkeys.
Either way… I’m with you! I smell enhanced masculine flying’, flingin’ monkey shit!
Elizabelle
@Damien:
Another vote for the fuckery afoot cat. I don’t trust Barr one damn bit. He is just there to save Republicans’ asses. Period.
It would seem there is still so much work to do. This seems premature, unless Mueller will then be re-appointed by the Democratic-led House for another aspect of the investigation??
Yarrow
What I said in two threads below about the report delivery:
I’ve been betting on mid-March, just before Rosenstein leaves. The “as early as” part of their claim doesn’t contradict that. For literary significant I’d go with March 15, the Ides of March. It’s also a Friday.
Bobby Thomson
@Major Major Major Major: Rudy saying the thing over and over doesn’t make it true.
Spanky
@JPL: How do we know Mueller didn’t first hear about it from CNN?
Major Major Major Major
@Bobby Thomson: I seem to remember there being actual believable leak sources on that one.
ETA see, like Yarrow, who posts using Mueller’s IP addre— ?
Yarrow
@Bobby Thomson: No he didn’t.
Bobby Thomson
@JMG: like Barr wasn’t put in specifically to obstruct justice.
Cheryl Rofer
It’s CNN, the network that hired a Republican operative to oversee election coverage.
Bobby Thomson
@Major Major Major Major: it was Barr. So in that sense, yes.
MattF
Can we get an over/under on how long it would take for the report to leak?
Princess
Barr was chosen by the GOP to protect them from any fallout from Mueller’s report. Everything is going according to plan. Mueller is not going to save us — we can only save ourselves.
Betty Cracker
Whenever it wraps up, I’m preparing myself for a Fitzmas-sized let-down based on Barr’s recent confirmation testimony, where he basically said he wouldn’t release damning evidence on people unless they were being charged with a crime.
kindness
Why is anyone believing this? Mueller didn’t say it.
Mnemosyne
Meh. Unsourced rumors keep being floated and nothing seems to happen. I have enough real-life annoyances right now that I feel no need to use up any brainspace worrying about this.
To me, it feels like the “Obama is totally going to gut Social Security!” of the Trump era.
Chris
@JPL:
@Damien:
I agree with this.
Major Major Major Major
@kindness: he doesn’t say anything though.
Yarrow
Jeez, people! This is a calculated leak to get everyone all freaked out and change the discussion AGAIN. Whitaker is still at the DOJ. Think he might have been instructed to leak something like this?
When this sort of crap happens, start looking around. What else is going on that Trump and his cronies don’t want you looking at? The Saudi stuff from yesterday? Supreme Court decisions happening? Something else?
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne: Thank you. Agreed. And good luck to G on the fellowship.
We should make a list of all the big rumors that came to naught. If Mueller has not said it, cannot take anything to the bank.
ruemara
I guess we’ll see. I don’t want to make any predictions or take any statements as real until what happens, happens.
Baud
@Mnemosyne: You know he wanted to….
tobie
How convenient too that Barr’s son in law is part of Trump’s legal team. TPM has a post up about Barr’s history of obstructing investigations. Whatever comes out, Trump will crow that he’s been exonerated. Yet another nail in the coffin of the Republic, finalized by shameless and unchecked vote rigging.
Waldo
I once prepared for winter by buying a snow shovel in October. Sure enough, 3 months later, my prescience paid off. These kind of stories have even less predictive value.
MattF
@Cheryl Rofer: Yeah, that was pretty crude. Ya think Chris Cillizza will resign in protest?
Yellowdog
@JMG: Why would Barr fear an obstruction charge? He would be within his legal rights to shut it down. No one could prove obstruction unless the results of Mueller’s probe are known and they won’t be because Barr will shut it down. Perfect Catch-22.
Lapassionara
@Betty Cracker: Yes. I have a sinking, uneasy feeling. But then again, I have had that feeling since November 9, 2016.
Gravenstone
Can we please stop with the widespread pants pissing contest?
Immanentize
@Yarrow:
People. Things are moving fast. But they are not being buried by Barr. It just could not happen that way.
I do think the Qatar/Deutsche Bank/Kushner money laundering regarding 666 5th will not be part of Mueller’s work and has been shuffled off to other US Attorneys. As have the Inaugural Committee investigations of Barrak etc. As have the Trump foundation investigations.
But Mueller is gonna do what he was hired to do — and the AG can only limit damage, not stop it.
And remember, we have a big sentencing memo this Friday against Manafort and the possibility of “unindicted co-conspirator” charges at any time before, at the same time, or any time after a “report” from Bob Mueller.
Adam L Silverman
@Cheryl Rofer: The Carly News Network.
debit
@Betty Cracker: Didn’t members of the House say they would subpoena Mueller and release everything themselves if the AG decided to shove everything into a deep dark hole?
Baud
@Gravenstone: Apparently not.
prostratedragon
I think waves of those being brought inside the badministration have been made to see that the situation way exceeds the usual political games, which means that their, and our, notions of what can happen or easily be made to happen can no longer be taken for granted. This ain’t no fooling around, nor is it clear that the usual vamping and prevarication can wear it back down to a normal sort of scandal.
Immanentize
@tobie:
This is not really surprising. Barr’s daughter and his son in law both worked at DOJ. In order to (appropriately I think) stop any appearance of nepotistic favoritism, both left the DOJ. Son in Law went to work at the White House.
VeniceRiley
Not satisfied until more people are in prison and our elections are unrigged. I don’t think I’ll be able to breathe easy until President Harris is sworn in.
debit
@Immanentize: Yes, and I am also taking heart that the New York AG is still going after Trump and family. All our eggs are not in one basket.
Adam L Silverman
@Immanentize: Barr hasn’t even been there long enough to be read on by Mueller.
debit
@Gravenstone: Not until we have a winner.
rikyrah
@PaulWartenberg:
LMAO!!!
Immanentize
@prostratedragon:
This ain’t no Mudd Club
Or CBGBs
I ain’t got time for that now!
Immanentize
@VeniceRiley:
I hear Bernie is working on that. Somehow.
Major Major Major Major
@Immanentize: life during wartime indeed.
tobie
@Immanentize: I recall hearing this. It just strikes me that the abundance of caution regarding potential conflicts of interest works both ways. Barr’s daughter and son-in-law shouldn’t work in the DOJ as long as Bill Barr is AG, but they probably also shouldn’t work for the subject of a DOJ investigation. No?
Adam L Silverman
From the man who wrote the special counsel rules and regs for the DOJ:
JPL
@Adam L Silverman: So Barr will blame the Russians for interfering and then say trump didn’t collude with them.
dww44
@JPL: That’s what I’m thinking. Hope we’re wrong, but probably not.
Adam L Silverman
feebog
@Yarrow:
Yup. This just seems too soon for Mueller to be wrapping up. I was thinking June/July at the earliest. This report has a “look, a squirrel” ring to it.
dm
Rachel Maddow had been talking about this for a couple of weeks, speculating that the ready agreement of various House committees to delay Michael Cohen’s testimony to Feb 25, and I think the Special Prosecutor requesting a delay in Michael Flynn’s sentencing to around the same time as suggesting that something conclusive would happen later this month.
psycholingjist
This is why the house wins were so vital. I don’t give a shit about Barr, because for the next two years, those house committees goin be doing work.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Cheryl Rofer:
I believe what she said is worth repeating. Of course CNN’s bold new thought leader and total NOT Trumpist hack is going to spin it.
Adam L Silverman
@JPL: No, it means that if a report is released, it does not mean that the Special Counsel’s work is finished.
hueyplong
We have too many sensory inputs. This is just another.
When was the last time we saw Rudy’s ugly mug spouting on TV? Might as well read tea leaves about that instead.
prostratedragon
@Immanentize: Indeed. Life beyond Studio 54.
Princess
@hueyplong: It looks like the last time we saw Rudy Giuliani was on January 17th when he said that Trump’s campaign aides might have colluded with the Russians. Gee, I wonder why he has been so silent since then.
JPL
@Adam L Silverman: Understand. I just think that trump and team will talk as though it’s finished.
lumpkin
Prediction: 1)What we see will be redacted to the point we will learn nothing new. 2)Trump will stonewall all the way to the 2020 election. 3)Don’t even want to think about it.
Roger Moore
@lumpkin:
Unless they redact the version they give to Congress, I’m willing to bet at least one Democrat will have the whole damn thing added to the Congressional Record. It’s the classic way that anyone in Congress can effectively declassify anything they think is sufficiently important.
Dan B
It feels as though we’re about to experience waves of tribal alignments. The smell of corruption in the GOP is pervasive with some notable exceptions: Mueller, McCabe. And the NRA, Stein, Cambridge Analytica, Saudi, Deutsch Bank connections spreads a wide web.
Is there some theory that predicts when the number of deeply corrupt power players exceeds the number of ethical power players that the ship of state capsizes? Or is it the amount of money expended on propaganda?
cmorenc
@Elizabelle:
OTOH, another possibility is that Barr has seen enough of what Mueller’s team has assembled with airtight proof that his own reputation and legacy are more important than whatever hackery he may otherwise have been inclined to commit to protect Trump as a GOP president. It’s remarkable when you consider the overall trajectory of Rosenstein and Whittaker that both seemed to rather quickly back off from running any further truly useful interference on Trump’s behalf once they got briefed on some of the so-far nonpublic cards Mueller is holding, on top of just the public information that’s come out.
Nevertheless, the above is not a sure bet either, and I agree Barr may yet be capable of similar further hackery as his recommendations for pardons for Reagan Administration officials neck-deep in Iran-Contra. But OTOH Barr may not feel nearly the same loyalty to Trump as he did to Reagan, and may not feel Trump is nearly so worthwhile an asset to the long-term success of the GOP as was Reagan. But we’ll see.
JGabriel
Major Major Major Major:
When it’s from or about Trump / Republicans, always assume the worst.
JGabriel
@Dan B:
We capsized when Trump was elected.
Everything since has been a struggle to stay afloat long enough right the ship.
J R in WV
@Cheryl Rofer:
THIS! CNN is now in strong competition with Faux News for most fascist corrupt pseudo-news coverage in North America!!!! Wife was watching them pretty often lately on streaming video, but I have convinced her that no more than she would stream Fox should she stream CNN.
Nothing CNN reports should be taken at face value going forward, they are bought and paid for, owned by the fascists at this time!
Further, I think Marcy Wheeler at Emptywheel is correct, Mueller will continue to allow indictments and sentencing reports to do his public reporting for him, perhaps until after Individual-1 [aka Donald J Trump Senior] becomes an unindicted co-conspirator.
Spanky
OK, just to get some facts on the ground, and maybe memorialize what exactly is being pushed , here’s the articles under the relevant column at cnn.com this afternoon:
And that top one (“AG William Barr …”) starts out with:
Who ever the fuck those people would be.
(ETA: I now see that that’s the original statement, still riding at the top of this fuckhill. Huh.)
Anyway, my money’s still on this being CNN fuckery.
catclub
@cmorenc:
These are lawyers we are talking about here. Can you imagine ANY case where Glenn Greenwald would look at a set of evidence and decide he could not make the opposite case?
Bobby Thomson
@Adam L Silverman: just because he was ready for an obstructionist end to his investigation doesn’t mean he finished it. That’s like saying I finished a jigsaw puzzle because I was ready to scoop the pieces into the box before the tornado hit.
Ryan
Does Mueller concur? Or is this a case where Barr is trying to protect Trump like he did the principles during Iran-Contra.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gravenstone: Thank you.
MomSense
I have no idea what to think of this news and I’m so tired of all the supposition. We need different colored smoke or something.