For the past two years, we’ve been hearing the name “Mueller” (pronounced mull-er) thrown around. He’s been working tirelessly (while under a LOT of political pressure) to try and figure out what the F happened between Russia, a bunch of hackers, and the U.S. during the 2016 presidential elections (if you need a road map from the beginning – click here!). Well, he’s a pretty effing good digger… the best actually and he got to the bottom of it. Last Friday he summed up all of his findings in a report (aka “The Mueller Report” as many news outlets are calling it) and passed the buck to Attorney General, Bill Barr. Barr decided that the entire report didn’t need to be released to the public (yet) due to national security concerns but he “summarized” the findings in a letter and released that.
Here’s What You Need To Know.
WHAT DID THE REPORT SAY? WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?
The report essentially said that there was no collusion with Russia. Or at least that’s the scoop that we got from the Attorney General gave us in his letter.
What does that mean? It means the TRUMP ADMINISTRATION did not do anything wrong in terms of working with Russians to get Trump elected. All of the other aspects of the investigation are still on the table – obstruction of justice, tax evasion, and many other financial crimes.
HOW DID THIS WHOLE THING GET STARTED?
Well, 27 Russians were CHARGED with hacking/interfering with the 2016 presidential election to try to get Trump elected. They did a bunch of different things including creating a TON of fake social media accounts to sew partisan conversation and heighten the political divide in the US, spreading false info about voting, and running political ads (it is illegal for any foreign body to do that).But it’s still pretty unclear WHY they would want Trump in office. So that’s why people thought the Trump organization may have…. Motivated them, financially or otherwise.
In addition! 4 members of the Trump administration have been convicted of LYING on the topic of Russia in court and before congress. Why lie (a felony they’ll serve jail time for!) if there’s nothing to hide? So that all seemed pretty fishy. That’s why the investigation happened in the first place.
WHO IS MUELLER & CAN WE TRUST HIM?
So Mueller is a former FBI director and was well-loved and respected by both sides of the aisle. He first served under President George W. Bush and Obama decided to keep him on. He served in that position for 12 years. SO yeah, the dude is trustworthy.
WILL WE GET TO READ THIS REPORT?
Maybe. So far, it seems that it would likely me months if not years before the Department of Justice releases the findings of the report. HOWEVER, many Democrats are having a hard time believing there was no collusion without seeing the hard facts. Many in congress are calling for the report to be released ASAP and will continue to press for this using various legal means. So we’ll see how that goes! Stay tuned.
OBSRTRUCTION OF JUSTICE
Not sure if you remember or not, but back when all of the collusion rumors were first rumbling, the FBI director was a dude named James Comey. Many say the letter he released during the 2016 Presidential campaign cost Clinton the election. So Comey wasn’t super partisan at ALL. But once the FBI started looking into the Trump-Russia connections, Trump had Comey fired… That for SURE makes it look like you have something to hide when you blatantly punish someone trying to look into your dealings.
Now, no one has any idea why Trump did this. But it definitely seems like he was trying to keep the truth from coming out. So he faces charges of “Obstruction of Justice,” meaning, he wanted to prevent justice from being carried out by the FBI/ Comey. These charges DO STILL STAND.
EXONERATION
The day that the Mueller report came out, the President hopped on TV and announced that he was “fully exonerated.” And dude, that’s def not true.
Both Mueller and Barr noted that “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” They said that the report’s findings were “not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.” Essentially, they couldn’t find a solid Russia payment or collusion, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t commit tax fraud, obstruction of justice, or any of the other many charges he is facing. He is not exonerated.
UN-ANSWERED QUESTIONS
To me, I am still left with three lingering questions: why did everyone in the Trump administration lie? Why did Trump fire Comey? And what to the Russians have to gain by having Trump elected?
We KNOW that the Russians meddled in the 2016 election, in favor of Trump. That’s been proven. So why? We KNOW that Trump fired Comey without a good reason, so why? We KNOW that 4 members of the Trump camp lied under oath about their dealings with Russians… SO WHY?!
The whole thing remains super sketchy to me. I feel like there is something there, but it may not be what we think.
WHAT’S NEXT?
We will now wait to see the results of any tax/ business/ campaign finance related investigations against the Trump organization (read all the deets on those HERE) and the President as well as the Obstruction of Justice charges he still faces. We well know that Democrats won’t be letting go of this any time soon so hold on to your hats ladies – this shit it just getting’ started!
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Antigone