{"id":41629,"date":"2019-05-28T11:12:20","date_gmt":"2019-05-28T18:12:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=41629"},"modified":"2019-05-28T11:23:21","modified_gmt":"2019-05-28T18:23:21","slug":"gop-rep-justin-amash-butchers-trumps-disgraced-ag-barr-in-a-brutal-twitter-truthstorm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=41629","title":{"rendered":"GOP Rep. Justin Amash Butchers Trump’s Disgraced AG Barr in a Brutal Twitter Truthstorm"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two months ago special counsel Robert Mueller completed his report on Donald Trump’s unsavory connections to Russia during his campaign, and his obstruction of justice as President. He delivered the report to Trump’s handpicked flunky at the Justice Department, Attorney General William Barr. And ever since, Barr’s brazenly prejudiced mangling the contents has been the subject of harsh criticism and ridicule.<\/p>\n

\"William
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

However, most of the critics have predictably been Democrats appalled by the dishonesty and suppression of the facts. One notable exception is the Republican congressman from Michigan, Justin Amash. Last week Amash publicly called for impeachment proceedings<\/a><\/strong> of Trump based on what is already known about his criminal behaviors.<\/p>\n

For the time being, Amash is the only Republican congressman courageous enough to take this stand for the rule of law and the honor of America’s government. And on Tuesday morning Amash went further with a tweeted essay condemning Barr’s perversion of justice and the integrity of the department he is tainting with partisan lies. The series of twenty-five tweets<\/a><\/strong> is a testimony that needs to be seen by every citizen. It is thorough and scathing and truthful and speaks for itself. Therefore it is presented here unedited in its entirety (each paragraph being one tweet):<\/p>\n

Attorney General Barr has deliberately misrepresented key aspects of Mueller\u2019s report and decisions in the investigation, which has helped further the president\u2019s false narrative about the investigation.<\/p>\n

After receiving Mueller\u2019s report, Barr wrote and released a letter on March 24 describing Barr\u2019s own decision not to indict the president for obstruction of justice. That letter selectively quotes and summarizes points in Mueller\u2019s report in misleading ways.<\/p>\n

Mueller\u2019s report says he chose not to decide whether Trump broke the law because there\u2019s an official DoJ opinion that indicting a sitting president is unconstitutional, and because of concerns about impacting the president\u2019s ability to govern and pre-empting possible impeachment.<\/p>\n

Barr\u2019s letter doesn\u2019t mention those issues when explaining why Mueller chose not to make a prosecutorial decision. He instead selectively quotes Mueller in a way that makes it sound\u2014falsely\u2014as if Mueller\u2019s decision stemmed from legal\/factual issues specific to Trump\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n

But, in fact, Mueller finds considerable evidence that several of Trump\u2019s actions detailed in the report meet the elements of obstruction, and Mueller\u2019s constitutional and prudential issues with indicting a sitting president would preclude indictment regardless of what he found.<\/p>\n

In noting why Barr thought the president\u2019s intent in impeding the investigation was insufficient to establish obstruction, Barr selectively quotes Mueller to make it sound as if his analysis was much closer to Barr\u2019s analysis than it actually was:<\/p>\n

Barr quotes Mueller saying the evidence didn\u2019t establish that Trump was personally involved in crimes related to Russian election interference, and Barr then claims that Mueller found that fact relevant to whether the president had the intent to obstruct justice.<\/p>\n

But Mueller\u2019s quote is taken from a section in which he describes other improper motives Trump could have had and notes: \u201cThe injury to the integrity of the justice system is the same regardless of whether a person committed an underlying wrong.\u201d None of that is in Barr\u2019s letter.<\/p>\n

As a result of Barr\u2019s March 24 letter, the public and Congress were misled. Mueller himself notes this in a March 27 letter to Barr, saying that Barr\u2019s letter \u201cdid not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this Office\u2019s work and conclusions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mueller: \u201cThere is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation. This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations.\u201d<\/p>\n

To \u201calleviate the misunderstandings that have arisen,\u201d Mueller urged the release of the report\u2019s introductions and executive summaries, which he had told Barr \u201caccurately summarize [Mueller\u2019s] Office\u2019s work and conclusions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barr declined; he allowed the confusion to fester and only released the materials three weeks later with the full redacted report. In the interim, Barr testified before a House committee and was misleading about his knowledge of Mueller\u2019s concerns:<\/p>\n

Barr was asked about reports \u201cthat members of [Mueller\u2019s] team are frustrated\u2026with the limited information included in your March 24th letter, that it does not adequately or accurately necessarily portray the report\u2019s findings. Do you know what they\u2019re referencing with that?\u201d<\/p>\n

Barr absurdly replied: \u201cNo, I don\u2019t\u2026I suspect that they probably wanted more put out.\u201d Yet Mueller had directly raised those concerns to Barr, and Barr says he \u201csuspect[s]\u201d they \u201cprobably\u201d wanted more materials put out, as if Mueller hadn\u2019t directly told him that.<\/p>\n

In subsequent statements and testimony, Barr used further misrepresentations to help build the president\u2019s false narrative that the investigation was unjustified.<\/p>\n

Barr notes that Mueller did not \u201cfind any conspiracy to violate U.S. law involving Russia-linked persons and any persons associated with the Trump campaign.\u201d He then declares that Mueller found \u201cno collusion\u201d and implies falsely that the investigation was baseless.<\/p>\n

But whether there\u2019s enough evidence for a conviction of a specific crime which Mueller thought was appropriate to charge is a different and much higher standard than whether the people whom Mueller investigated had done anything worthy of investigation.<\/p>\n

In truth, Mueller\u2019s report describes concerning contacts between members of Trump\u2019s campaign and people in or connected to the Russian government.<\/p>\n

For instance, Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner took a meeting with a Russian lawyer whom Trump Jr. had been told worked for the Russian government and would provide documents to \u201cincriminate Hillary,\u201d as part of the Russian government\u2019s \u201csupport for Mr. Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s wrong to suggest that the fact that Mueller did not choose to indict anyone for this means there wasn\u2019t a basis to investigate whether it amounted to a crime or \u201ccollusion,\u201d or whether it was in fact part of Russia\u2019s efforts to help Trump\u2019s candidacy.<\/p>\n

Barr says the White House \u201cfully cooperated\u201d with the investigation and that Mueller \u201cnever sought\u201d or \u201cpushed\u201d to get more from the president, but the report says Mueller unsuccessfully sought an interview with the president for over a year.<\/p>\n

The report says the president\u2019s counsel was told that interviewing him was \u201cvital\u201d to Mueller\u2019s investigation and that it would be in the interest of the public and the presidency. Still Trump refused.<\/p>\n

The president instead gave written answers to questions submitted by the special counsel. Those answers are often incomplete or unresponsive. Mueller found them \u201cinadequate\u201d and again sought to interview the president.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the special counsel \u201crecogniz[ed] that the President would not be interviewed voluntarily\u201d and chose not to subpoena him because of concerns that the resulting \u201cpotentially lengthy constitutional litigation\u201d would delay completion of the investigation.<\/p>\n

Barr has so far successfully used his position to sell the president\u2019s false narrative to the American people. This will continue if those who have read the report do not start pushing back on his misrepresentations and share the truth.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Amash pointedly began this rebuke of Barr by chastising him for “deliberately misrepresent[ing] key aspects of Mueller\u2019s report.”<\/em> He concluded by charging that Barr “used his position to sell the president\u2019s false narrative.”<\/em> And finally, Amash could not be more on point by calling on his Congressional (mainly Republican) colleagues to “start pushing back … and share the truth.”<\/em> This has not been articulated better by any Democrat or other Trump critic. And with a few more Republicans joining the crusade for truth and accountability, the American people may finally get justice and Trump’s fate will be sealed.<\/p>\n

\n

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
\nFox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.<\/a>
\nAvailable now at Amazon.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two months ago special counsel Robert Mueller completed his report on Donald Trump’s unsavory connections to Russia during his campaign, and his obstruction of justice as President. He delivered the report to Trump’s handpicked flunky at the Justice Department, Attorney General William Barr. And ever since, Barr’s brazenly prejudiced mangling the contents has been the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41630,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1,1200],"tags":[554,39,1372,301,1247,1364],"class_list":["post-41629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","category-politics","tag-donald-trump","tag-impeach","tag-justin-amash","tag-republicans","tag-robert-mueller","tag-william-barr"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/barr-trump-baby.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-aPr","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":41551,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=41551","url_meta":{"origin":41629,"position":0},"title":"Big Baby Trump Resorts to Whining and Lying When Fellow Republican Says He’s Impeachable","author":"Mark NC","date":"5\/19\/2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Nothing is more predictable than the response from Donald Trump whenever anyone has the audacity to challenge or criticize him. 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