A review by jammasterjamie
The Mueller Report by The Washington Post
5.0
I'm not usually a fan of reading huge legal documents, but holy crap what a ride! This book reads like fiction, which is pretty scary considering it's all true and backed up by evidence. For my quick take, and I'm not worried about posting spoilers for this one as this information is all public:
1) There was no 'collusion' or conspiracy to defraud the US election on the part of the Trump Campaign - Not necessarily through lack of trying, but more through incompetence (Cohen thinking the guy he was talking to was a weight-lifter and not a Russian businessman), arrogance (Papadopoulis speaking about his connections openly in the media), whatever you'd call the debacle that was the June 9th Trump Tower meeting where DT Jr, Manafort, and Kushner went expecting some valuable dirt on HRC and were instead met with no information on Hillary whatsoever but rather a talk about sanctions (so, I guess idiocy?), and the seemingly one grown-up in the room (Corey Lewandowski) telling people on the campaign to stop talking to foreign agents about campaign related issues.
2) Russia absolutely, 100% attempted to interfere and influence the 2016 US elections, that interference is ongoing, and steps need to be taken to curtail Russian efforts moving forward.
3) Trump provably attempted to obstruct justice around the Russian investigation (firing Comey, playing games with Sessions's resignation, threatening tweets, etc.). Whether his attempts were successful or impactful is not the question here, but whether the Special Council had it in their purview to pursue criminal charges, which they do not. So, now it goes to the Justice Department and Congress to decide what to do with the information. Mueller made it pretty clear that, although he could not pursue the matter further, that it didn't mean there wasn't more work to do (ie., impeachment investigation, possible criminal trial, censure of the President, whatever), it was simply not within his authority to make that call.
All in all, if you've been watching the news over the last couple of years, this will unbiasedly connect some dots for you and let you know that the asinine shit you've been seeing on the television has actually in fact been as crazy as it seemed to be.
I can't wait for the sequel!
1) There was no 'collusion' or conspiracy to defraud the US election on the part of the Trump Campaign - Not necessarily through lack of trying, but more through incompetence (Cohen thinking the guy he was talking to was a weight-lifter and not a Russian businessman), arrogance (Papadopoulis speaking about his connections openly in the media), whatever you'd call the debacle that was the June 9th Trump Tower meeting where DT Jr, Manafort, and Kushner went expecting some valuable dirt on HRC and were instead met with no information on Hillary whatsoever but rather a talk about sanctions (so, I guess idiocy?), and the seemingly one grown-up in the room (Corey Lewandowski) telling people on the campaign to stop talking to foreign agents about campaign related issues.
2) Russia absolutely, 100% attempted to interfere and influence the 2016 US elections, that interference is ongoing, and steps need to be taken to curtail Russian efforts moving forward.
3) Trump provably attempted to obstruct justice around the Russian investigation (firing Comey, playing games with Sessions's resignation, threatening tweets, etc.). Whether his attempts were successful or impactful is not the question here, but whether the Special Council had it in their purview to pursue criminal charges, which they do not. So, now it goes to the Justice Department and Congress to decide what to do with the information. Mueller made it pretty clear that, although he could not pursue the matter further, that it didn't mean there wasn't more work to do (ie., impeachment investigation, possible criminal trial, censure of the President, whatever), it was simply not within his authority to make that call.
All in all, if you've been watching the news over the last couple of years, this will unbiasedly connect some dots for you and let you know that the asinine shit you've been seeing on the television has actually in fact been as crazy as it seemed to be.
I can't wait for the sequel!