RUSSIA UNDERMINED CONFIDENCE IN OUR ELECTIONS…THEY’RE READY TO DO IT AGAIN

…The Trump choice for our Attorney General, William Barr

If the AG doesn’t release the whole  Mueller report soon, he will have done a serious disservice to the nation.

The immediate reaction to the Robert Meuller report has been a total scandal.  “No Collusion, No Obstruction, Complete and Total EXONERATION,” Trump had tweeted.  As usual with Trump, that’s false.  The probe explicitly stated that it didn’t exonerate Trump, and the attorney general’s letter doesn’t even mention “collusion,” focusing on the legal standard of conspiracy, and not whether Trump’s campaign had sought Russian help, as it clearly did.

This was supposed to be the last word on Russian involvement, an investigation that would show the United States and the world, how it happened, and, as a secondary question, whether Trump campaign officials were involved.  And neither was dealt with in the AG's letter.

The Trump nominated Attorney General, William Barr, just kissed off those charges of the investigation with a few paragraphs of information already available.  Barr wrote that the “report outlines the Russian effort to influence the election and documents crimes committed by persons associated with the Russian government in connection with those efforts.”

Sounds good, but Barr’s 4 page letter provides none of that  information.  

If Barr doesn’t give a full public accounting and release the whole report, and soon, he will have squandered Mueller’s heroic efforts and he will have done a serious disservice to the national interest.

But, due to Barr’s efforts, Trump was immediately free to claim his vindication. That’s pure Trump politics.  

But the real outrage is that Barr has also made this a win for Moscow, which also claims vindication.  This is despite indisputable Kremlin-committed crimes, and that’s totally unacceptable.

Yes, it’s true that the media made mistakes in the Mueller probe.  But, the covering of Trump wasn’t one of them.

 “In short, Russia did not elect Trump,” per a pro-Putin media personality Evgeny Popov, who tweeted in response to Barr, adding the taunt: “And what about those sanctions for ‘election interference?’

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman also asserted vindication, falsely stating, that “our country has not interfered in the domestic affairs of other countries.”

Alexey Pushkov, a Russian senator, crowed about Barr’s findings, saying, “Democrats will still shout that there was a conspiracy. Conspiracy theory maniacs don’t need facts.”

This is exactly why the world needs all of Robert Mueller’s facts.  How can Barr betray what was always the central purpose of this investigation? 

Many of us applauded the night Mueller was appointed because, while Democrats were often leaping to conclude that there was high-level collusion, nearly everybody had lost track of the most important issue: That being that Russia, our leading adversary, successfully interfered in a US presidential election.  This undermined the nation’s confidence in our system of government, and Russia is ready to do it again.

Barr’s summary was just a basic news release addressed to lawmakers, and it contained "not one full sentence from the Mueller report."  Barr just picked out the parts of Mueller’s report that made the case he wanted to make.  Barr was determined to exonerate Trump, saying that he had not obstructed justice, even though Mueller did not draw that conclusion.  In fact, Mueller stated “it did not exonerate Trump.”

Barr’s letter, though saying Mueller found no conspiracy, did not address what we now call "collusion".  As Trump himself had informed us, “collusion is not a crime,” and even his own attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani, claimed he “never said there was no collusion” between Russia and Trump’s campaign.  

It was speculated in 2017 that Trump and his team “were too incompetent to organize a conspiracy.”

That Mueller found no conspiracy is a true relief, sparing American voters the issue of having a president who committed treason.  (Even though he has made the office of the American president a laughing stock.)

Perhaps the multiple congressional investigations and the additional cases by federal prosecutors in New York (SDNY) and Washington will add clarity.  But, it is more likely that no-one’s mind will change. Trump will be the same man lacking any integrity that he was before Mueller indicted or procured guilty pleas from 34 people, including six prominent Trump advisers.

Even if Barr sits on the report, Mueller’s exercise has had some benefit. This prosecutor served as a check on Trump’s excesses at a time before the Democrats took control of the House.  Mueller has made it difficult for Trump to lift any sanctions on Russia.

However,  Putin is now using Barr’s words to pardon Russia, even as they prepare to attack the US, 2020 elections.  And of course, Trump’s allies are helping with the whitewash: “There should be no more talk of Russia,” Chris Christie has proclaimed.

And Trump, who as you recall, “can’t see any reason” to disbelieve Putin, he isn’t about to blow the whistle.  We all know Trump has such high respect for all authoritarian leaders.

But Barr doesn’t seem to realize that he owes his country to let the world see exactly what Russia did.

With more than 12 investigations still in process, this is just the first episode of a continuing story.

Copyright G. Ater 2019