On today’s BradCast: It should come as little surprise that Donald Trump’s newly-appointed Attorney General William Bar has gone out of his way to obstruct justice in his attempt to misdirect from the repeated obstruction of justice painstakingly detailed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s 448-page report [PDF]. Still, it’s remarkable to see in action, as the nation did first thing this morning at his bizarre press conference before the report was even released. [Audio link to show is posted below.]
But, even in the redacted version, as Barr finally allowed the public to see it today, Trump’s many attempts to shut down or obstruct the Special Counsel probe are more than clear. That, after Barr delayed the report’s release to the public for nearly a month and offered an astonishing — if dishonest and ham-fisted — bit of sleight-of-hand at his morning presser an hour before anyone was allowed to see the two-volume report on Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election and the President’s attempts to frustrate the FBI’s investigation of it, as well as the Special Counsel’s probe that began after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey for the corrupt intent cited in the report.
We’re joined for special coverage analysis today as we all slog through Mueller’s findings, by journalists RICHARD ESKOW, columnist and host of the weekly The Zero Hour radio and TV program, and JACKI SCHECHNER, Editor-in-Chief of the Committee to Investigate Russia.
There is lots to try and make sense of as we finally get a first look at the culmination of Mueller’s two-year effort, detailing various coordination — knowing and otherwise — with Russia’s efforts to manipulate the 2016 campaign and the President of the United States’ repeated attempts to, yes, obstruct the probe into his own obstruction of justice in the wake of firing Comey and the naming of Special Counsel Mueller.
“He is a total hack,” Schechner says about Barr and his repeated references to “no collusion” (which Mueller never argues in his report), while he ignored the serious obstruction evidence detailed by Mueller. “This was not an impartial Attorney General who stood up for the rule of law, to work for the American public. This was a man who is operating in a spokesperson capacity for the President of the United States. It’s an embarrassment to the office.”
Eskow agreed. “It should have been clear to people, as soon as the timing of these relative events was announced, that we were going to get a pre-release spin rather than a serious talk from the nation’s chief law enforcement officer,” he argues. “It’s classic misdirection.”
On the substance of the actual report, there is much more to say. The report cites DoJ guidelines finding that sitting Presidents cannot be indicted, as to why the Special Counsel avoided making judgments about whether Trump obstructed justice. As Mueller notes, however, “if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment.”
“The obstruction of justice case is extraordinarily compelling,” says Eskow, who has been responsibly skeptical about many claims in the Trump/Russia saga over the past two years. “They say it’s not the crime, it’s the coverup. The big change for me to today was seeing, in one place, the unimpeachability, seemingly, of the evidence pointing to obstruction of justice. [It] suggests to me that Congress should act immediately to do something about it.”
We go on to discuss what may happen next, as House Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler (D-NY) announces plans to subpoena the Department of Justice for the full, unredacted report and its underlying evidence, and as calls for the impeachment of Donald J. Trump should be ramping up, given the remarkable revelations of Trump’s corruption detailed by Mueller.
As Trump himself reportedly said after learning that Mueller had been named as special counsel, according to the report: “Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I’m fucked.”
Finally, if you need a break from all of this today, we close with Desi Doyen and our latest Green News Report, because the existential threat of our growing climate crisis always lightens things up!…
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[audio:http://bradblog.com/audio/BradCast_BradFriedman_RichardEskow-JackiSchechner-BarrReleasesRedactedMuellerReport_041819.mp3]
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Brad,
Over on Slate, it appears that Mark Joseph Stern thinks Trump is impeachable on Obstruction Of Justice.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/04/mueller-report-proves-trump-obstructed-justice.html
Next time you have him on, please have him sum up, in as ***empirical terms as possible*** the case for impeachment, and whether it is a legal “slam-dunk” or not, based upon legal precedent.
I realize the political ability to impeach may not be there regardless due to the lapdog GOP Senate.
But we are led to believe that Justice and The Law are not just emotion and intuition, but are based upon concrete EVIDENCE that is measurable and verifiable.
Ask MJS:
Framed EMPIRICALLY, and trying to put all emotionalism aside, with what we now know, is there REALLY a solid case for impeachment and conviction?
–DL