It's Barr-thirty somewhere
by Tom Sullivan
Word of caution up front: It would be just like this administration to use the redacted Mueller report roll out today as cover for something else nefarious. Staged hours ahead of the public release, Attorney General William Barr's announced 9:30 a.m. EDT press conference on the Mueller report (sans Mueller or anyone else from the special prosecutor's team) would make excellent camouflage.
With that in mind, it is also reasonable to expect that the very same ship of fools will dupe the national press into amplifying its morning falsehoods and, for a time, get ahead of the narrative on what the report says and does not. Barr did this already with his March 24 summary letter, and has a history of obfuscation. "People familiar with the matter" already induced the Washington Post to report that the redactions no one has seen in the report no one has seen are light.
There is yet no public mention of whether the report's exhibits (of unknown quantity and length) will be included in Thursday's public release. "Light" may by in the eye of the beholder.
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), chair of the House Judiciary Committee, was not pleased with the attorney general's acting as Trump's sherpa for the report. The committee may yet issue a subpoena for the complete report by Friday.
Immediately after the Barr press conference, we can expect reaction from Donald Trump, the U.S. president named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the campaign finance case against his former personal attorney, Michael Cohen. But he's not waiting for 9:30 EST:
The Greatest Political Hoax of all time! Crimes were committed by Crooked, Dirty Cops and DNC/The Democrats.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 18, 2019
Marcy Wheeler reminds readers anything the sitting president says about the report "is something he refused to say under oath." Given Trump's business history and M.O., there may be no end to what he believes most important to conceal, although the narrow scope of the special investigation delimits some of it.The Greatest Political Hoax of all time! Crimes were committed by Crooked, Dirty Cops and DNC/The Democrats.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 18, 2019
I want to prepare for the possibility that tomorrow we’ll be debating whether a President can obstruct justice to prevent voters from learning how badly he and his dumb son compromised themselves in an foreign intelligence operation in the course of running a presidential election to get rich.Given that Barr appears to be actively running interference for the White House, Josh Marshall wonders "at what point can the exercise of the statutory powers of the Attorney General become obstruction of justice if exercised with corrupt intent?"