Peter1469
12-05-2018, 11:54 AM
Is This It?: A Trump-Hater’s Guide to Mueller Skepticism (https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/12/a-trump-haters-guide-to-mueller-skepticism)
Vanity Fair on the Mueller investigation.
(https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/12/a-trump-haters-guide-to-mueller-skepticism)
Mueller’s comportment suggests a man who’s fallen prey to the same state of mind that warped Ken Starr—namely disgust over the people you’re investigating and a desire to justify the sunk capital. Even if the special counsel presents one hell of a report, Democrats must ask: was it worth it?
That is only the heading of the article.
For many Robert Mueller watchers, the air these days is electric. People sense the big shoes are about to drop. Donald Trump (https://www.vanityfair.com/people/donald-trump#intcid=dt-hot-link) has submitted his written answers to Mueller’s questions. Paul Manafort has entered a plea agreement, but then continued to lie—at least according to Mueller. Jerome Corsi, fringe-right author and personality, is vowing to go to jail for life rather than sign on to Mueller’s version of events. Roger Stone is expecting to be indicted for something. So is (http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/11/donald-trump-jr-expecting-to-be-indicted-by-mueller-soon.html) Donald Trump Jr. And, most significant of all to those looking for a big payoff, Michael Cohen has pleaded guilty (https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/11/29/michael-cohen-guilty-plea-reveals-trump-team-lies-russia-contacts-column/2154102002/) to lying to Congress about the timeline of a deal he was trying to make to construct a 100-story Trump-branded tower in Moscow. It turns out that the deal exploration continued past the time Trump had secured the Republican nomination, and Cohen and his associate Felix Sater, a real-estate promoter and one-time racketeer, had even discussed giving Vladimir Putin (https://www.vanityfair.com/people/vladimir-putin#intcid=dt-hot-link) a $50 million penthouse in the building. “This is it,” people are saying. “This is the big one!”
***
Certainly, Trump’s ethical standards are low, but if sleaziness were a crime then many more people from our ruling class would be in jail. It is sleazy, but not criminal, to try to find out in advance what WikiLeaks has on Hillary Clinton (https://www.vanityfair.com/people/hillary-clinton#intcid=dt-hot-link). It is sleazy, but not criminal, to take a meeting in Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer promising a dossier of dirt on Clinton. (Just as, it should be mentioned, it is sleazy, but not criminal, to pay a guy to go to Russia to put together a dossier of dirt on Trump. This is one reason why the Clinton campaign lied (https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/922962880206647297?) about its connection to the Steele dossier, albeit without the disadvantage of being under oath.) It is sleazy, but not criminal, to pursue a business deal while you’re running for president. Mueller has nailed people for trying to prevaricate about their sleaze, so we already have a couple of guilty pleas over perjury, with more believed to be on the way. But the purpose of the investigation was to address suspicions of underlying conspiracy—that is, a plan by Trump staffers to get Russian help on a criminal effort. Despite countless man-hours of digging, this conspiracy theory, the one that’s been paying the bills at Maddow for a couple of years now, has come no closer to being borne out. (Or, as the true believers would say, at least not yet.)
Note: Mueller's appointment was based on collusion, not conspiracy (and conspiracy is not a crime by itself- it is conspiracy to do X, with X being a crime).
Let’s take a moment to consider Mueller himself. The cut of his jib is likable, and the trad Brooks Brothers vibe of his wardrobe is a perfect complement to his job title. But it’s hard to avoid the suspicion that he’s playing a political game at this point. To be fair, I’m vulnerable to confirmation bias of my own in this assessment, since about a year ago I suggested (https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/12/5-nightmarish-headaches-trump-faces-in-2018) that Mueller was going to drag out his investigation until 2019, when Democrats were likely to be back in charge of the House, and seeing a prediction play out can lead to unwarranted certitude. But the reports we’re starting to see suggest a man who’s fallen prey to the same state of mind that warped Ken Starr—namely disgust over the people you’re investigating and a desire to justify the sunk capital.
Our justice system gives prosecutors a frightening amount of power as it is, and nothing tempts misuse of it quite like the belief in a narrative in the face of a disappointing witness. George Papadopoulos has told people he pleaded guilty to perjury because Mueller was threatening (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mueller-was-investigating-trump-adviser-as-unregistered-agent-of-israel-his-wife-says/2018/06/05/8a30b258-68ec-11e8-bea7-c8eb28bc52b1_story.html?utm_term=.a5e6c8bbcf00) to prosecute him as an unregistered agent of Israel. Jerome Corsi insists that Mueller was (and is) threatening him with a raft of indictments unless he signed on to an untrue story of how he came to believe (or know) that WikiLeaks had hacked the e-mails of John Podesta.
Read the complete article at the link.
Vanity Fair on the Mueller investigation.
(https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/12/a-trump-haters-guide-to-mueller-skepticism)
Mueller’s comportment suggests a man who’s fallen prey to the same state of mind that warped Ken Starr—namely disgust over the people you’re investigating and a desire to justify the sunk capital. Even if the special counsel presents one hell of a report, Democrats must ask: was it worth it?
That is only the heading of the article.
For many Robert Mueller watchers, the air these days is electric. People sense the big shoes are about to drop. Donald Trump (https://www.vanityfair.com/people/donald-trump#intcid=dt-hot-link) has submitted his written answers to Mueller’s questions. Paul Manafort has entered a plea agreement, but then continued to lie—at least according to Mueller. Jerome Corsi, fringe-right author and personality, is vowing to go to jail for life rather than sign on to Mueller’s version of events. Roger Stone is expecting to be indicted for something. So is (http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/11/donald-trump-jr-expecting-to-be-indicted-by-mueller-soon.html) Donald Trump Jr. And, most significant of all to those looking for a big payoff, Michael Cohen has pleaded guilty (https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/11/29/michael-cohen-guilty-plea-reveals-trump-team-lies-russia-contacts-column/2154102002/) to lying to Congress about the timeline of a deal he was trying to make to construct a 100-story Trump-branded tower in Moscow. It turns out that the deal exploration continued past the time Trump had secured the Republican nomination, and Cohen and his associate Felix Sater, a real-estate promoter and one-time racketeer, had even discussed giving Vladimir Putin (https://www.vanityfair.com/people/vladimir-putin#intcid=dt-hot-link) a $50 million penthouse in the building. “This is it,” people are saying. “This is the big one!”
***
Certainly, Trump’s ethical standards are low, but if sleaziness were a crime then many more people from our ruling class would be in jail. It is sleazy, but not criminal, to try to find out in advance what WikiLeaks has on Hillary Clinton (https://www.vanityfair.com/people/hillary-clinton#intcid=dt-hot-link). It is sleazy, but not criminal, to take a meeting in Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer promising a dossier of dirt on Clinton. (Just as, it should be mentioned, it is sleazy, but not criminal, to pay a guy to go to Russia to put together a dossier of dirt on Trump. This is one reason why the Clinton campaign lied (https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/922962880206647297?) about its connection to the Steele dossier, albeit without the disadvantage of being under oath.) It is sleazy, but not criminal, to pursue a business deal while you’re running for president. Mueller has nailed people for trying to prevaricate about their sleaze, so we already have a couple of guilty pleas over perjury, with more believed to be on the way. But the purpose of the investigation was to address suspicions of underlying conspiracy—that is, a plan by Trump staffers to get Russian help on a criminal effort. Despite countless man-hours of digging, this conspiracy theory, the one that’s been paying the bills at Maddow for a couple of years now, has come no closer to being borne out. (Or, as the true believers would say, at least not yet.)
Note: Mueller's appointment was based on collusion, not conspiracy (and conspiracy is not a crime by itself- it is conspiracy to do X, with X being a crime).
Let’s take a moment to consider Mueller himself. The cut of his jib is likable, and the trad Brooks Brothers vibe of his wardrobe is a perfect complement to his job title. But it’s hard to avoid the suspicion that he’s playing a political game at this point. To be fair, I’m vulnerable to confirmation bias of my own in this assessment, since about a year ago I suggested (https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/12/5-nightmarish-headaches-trump-faces-in-2018) that Mueller was going to drag out his investigation until 2019, when Democrats were likely to be back in charge of the House, and seeing a prediction play out can lead to unwarranted certitude. But the reports we’re starting to see suggest a man who’s fallen prey to the same state of mind that warped Ken Starr—namely disgust over the people you’re investigating and a desire to justify the sunk capital.
Our justice system gives prosecutors a frightening amount of power as it is, and nothing tempts misuse of it quite like the belief in a narrative in the face of a disappointing witness. George Papadopoulos has told people he pleaded guilty to perjury because Mueller was threatening (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mueller-was-investigating-trump-adviser-as-unregistered-agent-of-israel-his-wife-says/2018/06/05/8a30b258-68ec-11e8-bea7-c8eb28bc52b1_story.html?utm_term=.a5e6c8bbcf00) to prosecute him as an unregistered agent of Israel. Jerome Corsi insists that Mueller was (and is) threatening him with a raft of indictments unless he signed on to an untrue story of how he came to believe (or know) that WikiLeaks had hacked the e-mails of John Podesta.
Read the complete article at the link.