‘This is the end of my presidency. I’m fucked.' - A Yellow Wall Nightmare

[Athos_131]

What to expect is 41 members consuming their own full time, bloviating, and attempting to convince anyone listening that they are working hard, should be returned to Office... in reality, Democrats have been conducting Mock Hearings, fine tuning their spin and sharpening their points, if not fully scripting their speeches and questions, to get the most favorable press reaction, as they make this desperate attempt to make a boring 448 page report seem interesting to those who do not, have not, will not bother to read it... the Cliff Notes is what they hope to accomplish today... who knows what Republicans will say, as the script has been written pretty much, so the questions they should be asking will not be fully addressed or answered, by agreement between Democrats and the co conspirators in the Witness chairs today.

Questions that need to be asked and answered, and will not happen:

Why, when you knew you could not charge a sitting president, did you accept the job?

When did you discover/learn that the FISA Warrants used to begin this quest to unseat a sitting President were based upon untrue and unnsubstantiated claims and not 'facts' as was stated, and therefore knew this case was not worthy of the 35 Million you spent on this investigation.

Was your discovery that you could not find/charge Obstruction, and that there was no underlying crime, made prior to the 2018 Election? If not, why not? If so, why did you not make the announcement then?

How many Clinton Campaign lawyers and contributors does it take to investigate Donald Trump? How many lawyers with NO Democrat ties were on the team?

How did you determine that the DNC Server was hacked, tampered with, if you did not ever inspect the DNC Server?

What did the FISA Judges have to say, when you told the FISA Court  that the entire premise of the multiple Warrants they gave to the FBI were based on lies?, and the FBI knew it when they were presented as evidence?

More, many more, and we shall see our esteemed and less esteemed legislators present the rehearsed farce that will consume 5+ hours of CSpan
today, and the rest of the week, this coming weekend, and maybe the entire Congressional Break, in another attempt, by no means final, to attack the Office of the President...

This is a "check your shorts" post.

They must be really soiled.

None of this word salad of deflection has anything to do with the underlying issues of Russian Interference -proven- and Obstruction Of Justice -proven.

Anyway welcome to the discussion, I look forward to embarrassing you thoroughly in it.

#Resist

[psiberzerker]

Of all the things for the Twit in chief to get wrong, it's when his presidency ended.

Non sequitur

[joan1984]

Yawn...

Will Robert D. still impersonate Mueller? Don't think so...

Was this the real Bob Mueller?
So, who wrote the 448 page report? Not this guy.
Who gave him 35,000,000 plus, and "supervised" this fiasco?

Fusion GPS? Umm, who... what...
Sad to see, and should put this sad story to rest.

Now, awaiting "The Rest Of The Story" from Justice Watchdog and our Attorney General. Will Athos create another special thread? or just troll other's as usual.

[Athos_131]

#Resist

[psiberzerker]

Fusion GPS? Umm, who... what...

Seriously?  You're really playing the "That post was random, manic, and unintelligble" card?  I tend to ramble into non-sequitor myself, but I'm at least self aware enough not to call Athos on it.

WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU ON ABOUT?  You didn't even mention Trump, once.  There was.  Something?  About Mueller, not being the "Real" Mueller, and I think some conspiracy to get him to ghost-write the report, but of course the conclusions of the Barr report still stands, because that was the first thing you believed, because of the most blatant coverup in recorded history.  Nothing about the damning contents of the actual report, the hard evidence, Trumps' signatures on hush money checks...

Refuge in Absurdity.  Acting even more insane than your opponent doesn't make Donald Trump look any saner.  In fact, it's just another example of how out of touch with reality you have to be to support him.

trust me on this:  There's no prize for being the biggest nut in the room.  If there was, I would have known about it by now.

[Athos_131]

Major Moments of Robert Mueller’s Testimony to Congress

Robert S. Mueller III offered no new revelations on Wednesday into Russia’s interference in the 2016 elections or President Trump’s attempts to derail his probe. But he offered a stark warning on Russian election tampering — “They’re doing it as we sit here” — and a sober assessment of where politics are after the Trump campaign welcomed foreign interference in 2016.

“I hope this is not the new normal,” he told Representative Peter D. Welch, Democrat of Vermont, “but I fear it is.”

In seven hours of highly anticipated back-to-back hearings before the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, Mr. Mueller, the special counsel who led the probe into Russia’s interference and whether Trump associates participated in it, hewed tightly to his script — the 448-page report he and his team produced in April. He declined repeatedly to offer his opinion on key questions or even to read directly from the voluminous document. 
Democrats did get him to confirm the most damaging elements of his findings. Under intense questioning, Mr. Mueller said the president had not been cleared of obstructing justice, nor had he been completely exonerated, as Mr. Trump has so often declared; he said that the president had been untruthful in some of his under-oath responses during the probe; and he called Mr. Trump’s encouragement of WikiLeaks “problematic,” to say the least. 

WikiLeaks published emails stolen by Russian agents during the 2016 campaign, first from the Democratic National Committee, then from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta. Mr. Trump cheered the group on repeatedly, praised its actions and urged voters to read the purloined communications.

But the former special counsel, who sometimes appeared confused or at a loss for words and frequently responded to questions with one-word answers — “no,” “true,” “that’s accurate” — was a reluctant witness whose deflections sucked some of the punch out of his most damning findings, especially as Republicans sought repeatedly to undermine him and his investigation. 
Mr. Mueller, for his part, defended his work and sought to drive home to lawmakers and the public the grave implications of his report, which laid bare that Mr. Trump was elected with Russia’s help and cataloged the president’s frantic efforts to undermine the investigation into Moscow’s election interference.

“It’s not a witch hunt,” Mr. Mueller told the Intelligence panel, under questioning from the chairman, Representative Adam Schiff of California.

Mr. Schiff said Mr. Mueller’s sparse answers demanded more aggressive attempts by Congress to investigate the president, an indication that the matter is not over, even if the special counsel is.

“You would not tell us whether the president should be impeached, nor did we ask you, since it is our responsibility to determine the proper remedy for the conduct outlined in your report,” he said. “Whether we decide to impeach the president in the House or we do not, we must take any action necessary to protect the country while he is in office.”

Mueller says Trump was “generally” untruthful and incomplete in his written answers
Mr. Mueller said little about his decision not to compel the president to sit for an in-person interview during his investigation, telling lawmakers he opted against issuing a subpoena for Mr. Trump in order to “expedite” the probe. But he made it clear near the end that he did not believe that Mr. Trump had been honest or transparent in his written responses. Asked by Representative Val Demings, Democrat of Florida, whether it was “fair to say” that the president’s answers had been incomplete and those he did supply were not always truthful, Mr. Mueller responded, “Generally.”

Mueller has dire warnings about foreign interference in American campaigns.
As the Intelligence Committee hearing drew to a close, Mr. Mueller became increasingly stark in his warnings about Russia’s attack on the 2016 presidential election, and how future efforts could roil American politics.

“I hope this is not the new normal,” he told Representative Peter D. Welch, Democrat of Vermont, after the congressman asked him whether future political campaigns could accept foreign interference, “but I fear it is.”

Mr. Mueller has made little secret of his belief that the public has not fully grasped the elaborate and targeted nature of Russia’s attacks on the 2016 elections that were detailed in his report, nor has the government taken sufficient steps to address it or prevent such an assault from occurring again.

On Wednesday, invited by Representative Jackie Speier, Democrat of California, to tell the American people the most important aspect of his findings, Mr. Mueller pleaded for more attention to Russia’s attack.

“We spent substantial time ensuring the integrity of the report, understanding that it would be a living message to those who came after us,” he said. “It is a signal, a flag to those of us who have responsibility to exercise that responsibility, not to let this kind of thing happen again.”

Representative Will Hurd, Republican of Texas, wondered aloud whether Russia might be planning another set of attacks. He received an ominous response from Mr. Mueller.

“It wasn’t a single attempt,” he said. “They’re doing it as we sit here.”

Mueller showed a rare flash of indignation regarding WikiLeaks.
Mr. Mueller spent most of his time on Wednesday avoiding expressing his opinion on the president’s conduct or anything else, but that changed when Representative Mike Quigley, Democrat of Illinois, questioned him on Mr. Trump’s response to WikiLeaks.

Asked for his reaction to candidate Trump’s praise for WikiLeaks during the campaign, Mr. Mueller did not mince words.

“It’s problematic — is an understatement, in terms of what it displays in terms of giving some hope or some boost to what is and should be illegal activity,” Mr. Mueller responded.

The special counsel also vigorously defended his investigation and his team, denying that they had been responsible for leaks and flatly rejecting the president’s incessant undercutting of his probe.

“Absolutely, it was not a hoax,” Mr. Mueller said, adding that the indictments his team brought related to Russia’s interference were “substantial” and had been “underplayed, to a certain extent.”

Mueller corrected the record on indicting Trump.
Mr. Mueller used his opening statement before the House Intelligence Committee to correct his earlier testimony before the Judiciary panel, in which he appeared to suggest that he believed that Mr. Trump should have been indicted.

In the earlier hearing during an exchange with Representative Ted Lieu, Democrat of California and an early proponent of impeachment, Mr. Mueller seemed to say that the reason he did not indict Mr. Trump for obstruction of justice was because of a Justice Department opinion stating that a sitting president cannot be indicted. It was unclear what he meant, or whether he understood  the question.

“I believe a reasonable person looking at these facts could conclude that all three elements of the crime of obstruction of justice have been met,” Mr. Lieu said, referring to the Mueller report’s lengthy description of actions the president took to try to interfere with his investigation.
 
“I’d like to ask you the reason, again, that you did not indict Donald Trump is because of the O.L.C. opinion stating that you cannot indict a sitting president, correct?” he asked, referring to the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel.

“That is correct,” Mr. Mueller said.

That assertion directly contradicted the report itself and Mr. Mueller’s statement in May describing it, in which he said that he and his team had decided not to decide whether to charge the president because of the O.L.C. opinions. The exchange referred to a pair of opinions from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, drafted during the Nixon era and reaffirmed under Bill Clinton, that a sitting president could not be indicted.

By afternoon, Mr. Mueller walked back the inconsistency, saying that Mr. Lieu had incorrectly described his decision.   

“What I wanted to clarify is the fact that we did not make any determination with regard to culpability in any way,” Mr. Mueller said.

A reluctant Mueller reiterated that Trump “was not exculpated.”
Mr. Mueller, a reluctant witness who opened his testimony by repeating that he was not willing to go beyond his 448-page report, nonetheless obliged Democrats who prompted him to restate the most damning aspects of his findings to Mr. Trump.

“The finding indicates that the president was not exculpated for the acts that he allegedly committed,” Mr. Mueller told Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York and the Judiciary Committee chairman, under questioning about his conclusions on whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice.

It was one of the rare instances in which Mr. Mueller strayed outside of one-word answers or short phrases in response to lawmakers’ questions about his investigation. Mr. Mueller’s terse responses, constant referrals to his report, and unwillingness to go beyond its findings gave neither party what it wanted from the day’s hearings. Mr. Mueller appears unlikely to help Democrats with answers that will provide new sound bites from the former special counsel’s mouth. But he also will not help Republicans undermine the origins of his investigation.

An example: Representative Ted Deutch, Democrat of Florida, asked, “Why? Director Mueller, why did the president of the United States want you fired?” to which he responded, “I can’t answer that question.”

But in a carefully steered line of questioning, Mr. Nadler got Mr. Mueller to agree with him that the president’s frequent declarations that the investigation had found “no obstruction” and had “completely and totally exonerated” Mr. Trump were false. 

“Correct, that is not what the report said,” Mr. Mueller said.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

I forgot Yellow Wall is a child rape defender.  The poster is probably lashing out at the loss of the child rape stories.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Mueller, in occasionally halting testimony, points to foreign interference and offers some sharp criticism of Trump

Former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, in quiet and occasionally halting testimony, warned Congress Wednesday that Russia was attempting to interfere with American democracy, and that many other countries would attempt to do the same.

“They’re doing it as we sit here, and they expect to do it in the next campaign,” Mueller told the House Intelligence Committee, the second of two highly anticipated public hearings about his investigation of Russian election interference and President Trump’s possible obstruction of justice.

The long-awaited public testimony lacked blockbuster revelations, but he did offer some sharp criticism of the president, and sounded an ominous alarm about what Mueller said was the growing threat of foreign interference.

At times, Mueller faltered in his answers, or seemed confused or unable to hear the questions — particularly on the main issue he faced in the morning as to whether or not the president obstructed justice by attempting to impede Mueller’s work. In the afternoon, he was much more forceful in describing the dangers posed by foreign meddling in U.S. elections.

“We have underplayed to a certain extent that aspect of our investigation,” Mueller said. adding that Russia’s multipronged effort to undermine the 2016 election could do “long-term damage to the United States that we need to move quickly to address.”

The 74-year-old Mueller said the 448-page report written by his team was meant to serve as “our living message to those who came after us” so that they “don’t let this problem continue to linger as it has over so many years.”

He also faulted Trump for praising the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, which U.S. officials have said acts like a “hostile intelligence service,” and was a conduit for files hacked by Russians in the 2016 election.

Rep. Mike Quigly (D-Ill.) read to the former special counsel a series of statements made by Trump when he was a candidate, including his declaration “I love WikiLeaks.” Quigly then asked if he found those remarks disturbing.

“Problematic is an understatement in terms of what it displays of giving some hope or some boost to what is and should be illegal behavior,” Mueller said.

Mueller also explained a critical decision he made that has long concerned Democrats – why his team decided not to subpoena the president. Trump’s lawyers offered written answers to the special counsel’s office, which viewed the answers as incomplete.

After a year of negotiating for an interview with the president, Mueller said he and his team determined it wasn’t worth a prolonged legal battle, because they expected Trump would challenge any subpoena in the courts.

“The reason we didn’t do the interview was because of the length of time that it would take to resolve the issues attendant to that,” Mueller said. When one lawmaker suggested he wasn’t “the kind of guy who flinches,” Mueller replied, “I hope not.”

The president, who had angrily tweeted about Mueller before the hearings even began, declared once they were over: “TRUTH IS A FORCE OF NATURE!”

Over hours of testimony, Mueller offered short, clipped answers to most of the questions thrown at him Wednesday, often referring lawmakers back to his report.

Politicians and the public have waited anxiously for two years to hear Mueller describe his investigation and findings. With the first few words of his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday morning, Mueller sought to tamp down expectations that his spoken words would go beyond his report.

“I do not intend to summarize or describe the results of our work in a different way,” Mueller said, a statement that he repeated in the afternoon session before the House Intelligence Committee.

As lawmakers peppered him with questions, Mueller often replied with variations of “I will refer you to the report,” or “I’m not going to get into that.”

Some of Mueller’s most impassioned testimony came in defense of his staff in the special counsel’s office. Trump and his supporters have attacked the prosecutors on the case as “angry Democrats” embarked on a “witch hunt” to bring down the president.

“I’ve been in this business for almost 25 years. In those 25 years I’ve not had occasion once to ask about somebody’s political affiliation,” Mueller said. “It is not done. What I care about is the capability of the individual to do the job and do the job seriously and quickly and with integrity.”

Mueller later added: “It was not a witch hunt.”

The most potentially newsworthy statement Mueller made in his morning testimony came in response to a question from Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), who asked if the reason Mueller did not indict the president was because of a Justice Department policy memo by the Office of Legal Counsel that bars indictment of a sitting president.

“That is correct,” Mueller answered. That statement went far beyond what Mueller had said in his report, which said prosecutors took pains not to decide whether or not the president had committed a crime, due to the OLC position.

Democrats quickly seized on Mueller’s answer, which he promptly rescinded as soon as the second hearing started in the afternoon before the Intelligence Committee.

“That is not the correct way to say it,” Mueller said of his earlier answer. “We did not reach a determination as to whether the president committed a crime.”

His reluctance to elaborate on any topic seemed to stem from more than just his previously stated desire to avoid the hearing altogether.

[Live updates from the Muller hearing]

He frequently asked lawmakers to repeat their questions. At times he said he could not hear them, sometimes asserting they were speaking too fast. In contrast to his inquisitors, Mueller spoke slowly, and on a few occasions seemed confused by lawmakers’ inquiries.

For a prosecutor who built a distinguished career on digging deep into the weeds of investigations, to the point that many of his subordinates complained he was a maddening micromanager, Mueller said several times he was not familiar with some of the specifics of the investigation.

He called the president “Trimp,” before quickly correcting himself. At another moment, he said he was “not familiar” with the opposition research firm Fusion GPS that commissioned a dossier of allegations that played a key role in the early days of the investigation into Russian interference, before Mueller was appointed as special counsel.

At another point, he could not recall the word “conspiracy” — a basic staple in any federal prosecutor’s lexicon — and a lawmaker supplied it for him.

In the hearing room, Mueller’s muffled voice made his minimal responses nearly inaudible, a sharp contrast to the lawmakers’ whose voices often boomed with indignation.

David Axelrod, a former adviser to President Barack Obama, tweeted: “This is delicate to say, but Mueller, whom I deeply respect, has not publicly testified before Congress in at least six years. And he does not appear as sharp as he was then.”

Before the hearing, current and former law enforcement officials who have worked with Mueller expressed concerns that he was stepping into a high-octane hearing that would be a tough test of his public demeanor — typically understated and technical. Mueller’s advisers had told committee staff before the hearing he did not plan to read sections of the report out loud, according to people familiar with the discussion.

Part of Mueller’s approach appeared strategic — with so many sensitive investigative areas that he was unwilling to talk about, the less he engaged on those subjects, the easier his time at the witness table might pass. When Republicans charged that the gen­esis of the Russia investigation was hopelessly tainted by anti-Trump bias among some of the investigators, Mueller declined to discuss the issue, saying those matters are under review by the Justice Department inspector general, and therefore beyond his purview.

At other times, Mueller’s approach seemed particularly ill-suited for a nationally televised interrogation by dozens of lawmakers rushing to pose as many questions as possible in the five minutes they were each allotted.

Congressman Greg Stanton (D-Ariz.) caused an awkward moment for Mueller by trying to praise him.

When Stanton asked which president nominated Mueller to serve as the top federal prosecutor in Massachusetts, Mueller guessed George H.W. Bush. In fact, it was Ronald Reagan.

Republicans quickly seized on the issue. Matt Schlapp, a key Trump ally, tweeted: Devastating Mueller can’t remember that Reagan picked him to be a USA from Massachusetts.” As the morning hearing wore on, Republicans outside the hearing room repeatedly suggested Mueller’s answers showed a poor command of the cases he oversaw.

But Mueller still made some politically charged comments.

“The president was not exculpated for the acts that he allegedly committed,” the former special counsel said early in the hearing.

“Did you actually totally exonerate the president?” asked the committee chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.).

“No,” Mueller replied.

Asked if the president, under Justice Department policy, could potentially be prosecuted for obstruction of justice after he leaves office, Mueller responded: “True.”

Republicans accused Mueller of being unfair to the president and ignoring the traditional presumption of innocence.

Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Tex.), noting that Mueller’s report said it could not exonerate the president, said it was a prosecutor’s job to charge or not charge someone — not make a statement about exoneration.

“This is a unique situation,” said Mueller, who pointed time and again to a long-standing Justice Department policy that a sitting president cannot be indicted. Mueller’s team concluded the policy also prohibits the Justice Department from saying whether a sitting president committed a crime.]Former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, in quiet and occasionally halting testimony, warned Congress Wednesday that Russia was attempting to interfere with American democracy, and that many other countries would attempt to do the same.

“They’re doing it as we sit here, and they expect to do it in the next campaign,” Mueller told the House Intelligence Committee, the second of two highly anticipated public hearings about his investigation of Russian election interference and President Trump’s possible obstruction of justice.

The long-awaited public testimony lacked blockbuster revelations, but he did offer some sharp criticism of the president, and sounded an ominous alarm about what Mueller said was the growing threat of foreign interference.

At times, Mueller faltered in his answers, or seemed confused or unable to hear the questions — particularly on the main issue he faced in the morning as to whether or not the president obstructed justice by attempting to impede Mueller’s work. In the afternoon, he was much more forceful in describing the dangers posed by foreign meddling in U.S. elections.

“We have underplayed to a certain extent that aspect of our investigation,” Mueller said. adding that Russia’s multipronged effort to undermine the 2016 election could do “long-term damage to the United States that we need to move quickly to address.”

The 74-year-old Mueller said the 448-page report written by his team was meant to serve as “our living message to those who came after us” so that they “don’t let this problem continue to linger as it has over so many years.”

He also faulted Trump for praising the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, which U.S. officials have said acts like a “hostile intelligence service,” and was a conduit for files hacked by Russians in the 2016 election.

Rep. Mike Quigly (D-Ill.) read to the former special counsel a series of statements made by Trump when he was a candidate, including his declaration “I love WikiLeaks.” Quigly then asked if he found those remarks disturbing.

“Problematic is an understatement in terms of what it displays of giving some hope or some boost to what is and should be illegal behavior,” Mueller said.

Mueller also explained a critical decision he made that has long concerned Democrats – why his team decided not to subpoena the president. Trump’s lawyers offered written answers to the special counsel’s office, which viewed the answers as incomplete.

After a year of negotiating for an interview with the president, Mueller said he and his team determined it wasn’t worth a prolonged legal battle, because they expected Trump would challenge any subpoena in the courts.

“The reason we didn’t do the interview was because of the length of time that it would take to resolve the issues attendant to that,” Mueller said. When one lawmaker suggested he wasn’t “the kind of guy who flinches,” Mueller replied, “I hope not.”

The president, who had angrily tweeted about Mueller before the hearings even began, declared once they were over: “TRUTH IS A FORCE OF NATURE!”

Over hours of testimony, Mueller offered short, clipped answers to most of the questions thrown at him Wednesday, often referring lawmakers back to his report.

Politicians and the public have waited anxiously for two years to hear Mueller describe his investigation and findings. With the first few words of his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday morning, Mueller sought to tamp down expectations that his spoken words would go beyond his report.

“I do not intend to summarize or describe the results of our work in a different way,” Mueller said, a statement that he repeated in the afternoon session before the House Intelligence Committee.

As lawmakers peppered him with questions, Mueller often replied with variations of “I will refer you to the report,” or “I’m not going to get into that.”

Some of Mueller’s most impassioned testimony came in defense of his staff in the special counsel’s office. Trump and his supporters have attacked the prosecutors on the case as “angry Democrats” embarked on a “witch hunt” to bring down the president.

“I’ve been in this business for almost 25 years. In those 25 years I’ve not had occasion once to ask about somebody’s political affiliation,” Mueller said. “It is not done. What I care about is the capability of the individual to do the job and do the job seriously and quickly and with integrity.”

Mueller later added: “It was not a witch hunt.”

The most potentially newsworthy statement Mueller made in his morning testimony came in response to a question from Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), who asked if the reason Mueller did not indict the president was because of a Justice Department policy memo by the Office of Legal Counsel that bars indictment of a sitting president.

“That is correct,” Mueller answered. That statement went far beyond what Mueller had said in his report, which said prosecutors took pains not to decide whether or not the president had committed a crime, due to the OLC position.

Democrats quickly seized on Mueller’s answer, which he promptly rescinded as soon as the second hearing started in the afternoon before the Intelligence Committee.

“That is not the correct way to say it,” Mueller said of his earlier answer. “We did not reach a determination as to whether the president committed a crime.”

His reluctance to elaborate on any topic seemed to stem from more than just his previously stated desire to avoid the hearing altogether.

[Live updates from the Muller hearing]

He frequently asked lawmakers to repeat their questions. At times he said he could not hear them, sometimes asserting they were speaking too fast. In contrast to his inquisitors, Mueller spoke slowly, and on a few occasions seemed confused by lawmakers’ inquiries.

For a prosecutor who built a distinguished career on digging deep into the weeds of investigations, to the point that many of his subordinates complained he was a maddening micromanager, Mueller said several times he was not familiar with some of the specifics of the investigation.

He called the president “Trimp,” before quickly correcting himself. At another moment, he said he was “not familiar” with the opposition research firm Fusion GPS that commissioned a dossier of allegations that played a key role in the early days of the investigation into Russian interference, before Mueller was appointed as special counsel.

At another point, he could not recall the word “conspiracy” — a basic staple in any federal prosecutor’s lexicon — and a lawmaker supplied it for him.

In the hearing room, Mueller’s muffled voice made his minimal responses nearly inaudible, a sharp contrast to the lawmakers’ whose voices often boomed with indignation.

David Axelrod, a former adviser to President Barack Obama, tweeted: “This is delicate to say, but Mueller, whom I deeply respect, has not publicly testified before Congress in at least six years. And he does not appear as sharp as he was then.”

Before the hearing, current and former law enforcement officials who have worked with Mueller expressed concerns that he was stepping into a high-octane hearing that would be a tough test of his public demeanor — typically understated and technical. Mueller’s advisers had told committee staff before the hearing he did not plan to read sections of the report out loud, according to people familiar with the discussion.

Part of Mueller’s approach appeared strategic — with so many sensitive investigative areas that he was unwilling to talk about, the less he engaged on those subjects, the easier his time at the witness table might pass. When Republicans charged that the gen­esis of the Russia investigation was hopelessly tainted by anti-Trump bias among some of the investigators, Mueller declined to discuss the issue, saying those matters are under review by the Justice Department inspector general, and therefore beyond his purview.

At other times, Mueller’s approach seemed particularly ill-suited for a nationally televised interrogation by dozens of lawmakers rushing to pose as many questions as possible in the five minutes they were each allotted.

Congressman Greg Stanton (D-Ariz.) caused an awkward moment for Mueller by trying to praise him.

When Stanton asked which president nominated Mueller to serve as the top federal prosecutor in Massachusetts, Mueller guessed George H.W. Bush. In fact, it was Ronald Reagan.

Republicans quickly seized on the issue. Matt Schlapp, a key Trump ally, tweeted: Devastating Mueller can’t remember that Reagan picked him to be a USA from Massachusetts.” As the morning hearing wore on, Republicans outside the hearing room repeatedly suggested Mueller’s answers showed a poor command of the cases he oversaw.

But Mueller still made some politically charged comments.

“The president was not exculpated for the acts that he allegedly committed,” the former special counsel said early in the hearing.

“Did you actually totally exonerate the president?” asked the committee chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.).

“No,” Mueller replied.

Asked if the president, under Justice Department policy, could potentially be prosecuted for obstruction of justice after he leaves office, Mueller responded: “True.”

Republicans accused Mueller of being unfair to the president and ignoring the traditional presumption of innocence.

Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Tex.), noting that Mueller’s report said it could not exonerate the president, said it was a prosecutor’s job to charge or not charge someone — not make a statement about exoneration.

“This is a unique situation,” said Mueller, who pointed time and again to a long-standing Justice Department policy that a sitting president cannot be indicted. Mueller’s team concluded the policy also prohibits the Justice Department from saying whether a sitting president committed a crime.

#Resist

[psiberzerker]

I forgot Yellow Wall is a child rape defender.

Really?  You're doing so well, but now you're so obsessed with "Child rape," you're repeating it like a pedophile writing "Her Bald Pussy" every other sentence.

[Athos_131]

It took me a minute to figure out where Fusion GPS came from.

Quoting noted felon Dinesh D'Souza is not a good look.  Nor is taking a page from Donnie Jr.



#Resist

[psiberzerker]

Oh, so it's a Trumpism.  "Fusion GPS," High tech shit, man!  Appealing to his luddite base.

On TWITTER!

My guess is Mueller doesn't know anything about it, because it's technobabble, from a gibbering idiot.

[Athos_131]

Trump claimed the Special Counsel Report exonerated him.

Now he's claiming Mueller doesn't have the right to exonerate.

#Resist

[psiberzerker]

He's still claiming the election, he WON, was skewed by migrant aliens in California.  

[Athos_131]

Now he's saying Wikileaks is a hoax.

A hoax he said he loved.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

#Resist

[Athos_131]

#Resist

[_priapism]

Love and respect most of you.  But I have no faith in our government to fairly administer justice or defend the interests of the American citizenry.  Because they are corrupt to the core, on the take, and get their marching orders from the very worst.  Donald Trump is a joke, fundamentally unfit to lead, and unwilling to take instruction or suggestions from anyone with superior knowledge or experience.  He insists on surrounding himself with even bigger idiots than himself (and that is saying something, and no easy task).

Our only hope is to vote Das Führer and his party out of office in November 2020.  And the odds of that happening are not good.

I get phone calls all the time, “What do you think about ... ?”  My standard response, “I think we’re fucked.”  Because we are.  With the exception of MJ, I don’t think there is anyone on the board that is Pollyannaish enough to think differently.

So go ahead and argue about what it all means, if that's your thing.  Just remember, it won’t change anyone’s mind about anything, and it won’t make a God damned bit of difference in the end.  We’re fucked.

[Athos_131]

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Donald Trump is a joke, fundamentally unfit to lead, and unwilling to take instruction or suggestions from anyone with superior knowledge or experience.  He insists on surrounding himself with even bigger idiots than himself (and that is saying something, and no easy task).

Our only hope is to vote Das Führer and his party out of office in November 2020.  And the odds of that happening are not good.

Someone said this morning it seemed like Donnie was gonna have a stroke the way he was tweeting this morning.

I said I'd run down the freeway naked if it happened.

#Resist

[Jed_]

Love and respect most of you.  But I have no faith in our government to fairly administer justice or defend the interests of the American citizenry.  Because they are corrupt to the core, on the take, and get their marching orders from the very worst.  Donald Trump is a joke, fundamentally unfit to lead, and unwilling to take instruction or suggestions from anyone with superior knowledge or experience.  He insists on surrounding himself with even bigger idiots than himself (and that is saying something, and no easy task).

Our only hope is to vote Das Führer and his party out of office in November 2020.  And the odds of that happening are not good.

I get phone calls all the time, “What do you think about ... ?”  My standard response, “I think we’re fucked.”  Because we are.  With the exception of MJ, I don’t think there is anyone on the board that is Pollyannaish enough to think differently.

So go ahead and argue about what it all means, if that's your thing.  Just remember, it won’t change anyone’s mind about anything, and it won’t make a God damned bit of difference in the end.  We’re fucked.

Does Pollyannaish have an antonym?