Why did they all lie?????????????????

[Vinca]

That's what's eating at me. Flynn is facing jail time because he lied . . . apparently needlessly. The same goes for the rest of them. If everything was above board, why did each and every one of them lie over and over and over and over again? This whole thing is just nuts. We need to see the whole damn report.

[Blues Heron]

1. Because Trump is guilty of collusion

The Barr letter is a coverup. Mueller got shut down so he punted.

Not exonerated means he's guilty.

[lagomorph777]

21. +1 We watched him obstruct and collude on TV. Barr is LYING and the media are complicit.

All these discussions on TV that Mueller's report says this or that, because Barr's biased op-ed about the report says this or that, are pure BS.

We know ZERO about the report or what Mueller believes.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

26. This is what pisses me off - we don't trust the obstruction stuff - yet we believe the collusion

side. By we, I mean the news. Jeez.

[TCJ70]

2. We also know that the Trump Tower meeting happened...

...with multiple campaign members and Don Jr meeting with Russia to get information about Hillary Clinton. I don’t get why that isn’t a bigger deal.

[uponit7771]

12. +1, how is that not a tacit agreement !?!?! Don Jr was never interviewed.

[Ligyron]

20. And Trump's Campaign Manager?

He passed proprietary polling data to a known Russian operative so his government could more successfully target and mislead voters. Worked too. What is that if not collusion/conspiracy?

When members of the Trump campaign meet secretly with members of the Russian government and other foreign state actors to receive dirt on the Democratic Presidential nominee and/or conspire to end legally imposed Russian sanctions so Americans can once again adopt white babies - that is in fact a conspiracy.

When the GOP nominee then cooks up a false cover story when this information becomes public, is that not obstructing justice and showing evidence of guilt?

It just goes on and on.

[TCJ70]

23. There's a lot that won't be answered until the entire report is released...

...which I hope happens sooner rather than later in a completely non-redacted form.

I have no faith in Barr's "summary" that any of it is accurate. As far as I'm concerned he's just covering Trump's ass and using careful wording to make the president look good.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

27. Because he was looking for a crime? in the technical/legal sense? Of course it looks

bad - but not a literal crime? Think a lot of what trump does stinks to high heaven and makes him the worst president. But, he knows how to skirt the law - living on the edge of legal. And, when he crosses, he leaves no trail of evidence.

[dubyadiprecession]

3. Well, at least trump was cool and collective through this whole process.

[ProfessorPlum]

34. lol

you made me laugh out loud. literally.

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

4. I'm right beside you on that...

Innocent people would have basically shrugged off the whole investigation, let it go on its own way without much of any comment. When you know you’re right, in the clear, never did nothing you don’t come out and disparage the investigators, witnesses, reporters whose job it is to report stuff.

That is so, so much of what I was taught as a child growing up, your behavior tells me that you’re telling the truth or not.

[Scarsdale]

5. As Judge Judy says

constantly "Tell the truth, and you do not need a good memory"

[ginnyinWI]

13. Hilary did that--just let it go on without comment. n/t

[Timmygoat]

6. I do not understand

How can they say no collusion when Trump and Putin had meetings and would not let anyone else be in the room and there were
no transcripts of any thing that was said, I would consider that collusion!

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

8. Those meetings were after he was "elected"...

So there was no collusion then. The collusion they did not findwas about during the election.

[treestar]

10. Or different collusion

something they are up to now.

[amywalk]

19. How can the secret meeting at Trump Tower and the secret meeting at the

the cigar bar in NYC, where important polling data was transferred from Trump to the Russians, not be “collusion” or a criminal conspiracy?

[CTAtheist]

7. Because Trump didn't collude to get elected

Remember, we know he never wanted nor expected to win. He was engaging in criminal activity to get rich.

It just so happened that Russia made him win. But that wasn't what Trump was doing with the Russians, it was all financial corruption. So, given the narrow scope of Mueller's investigation (did Trump collude to fix the *election results*), the answer was "no".

[Locrian]

29. exactly

He colluded *before* and *after* but not enough *during*
And the investigation was *during*

[CaptainTruth]

30. I think you hit the nail on the head.

[LuckyLib]

43. This is it. Follow the money. He's up to his knees

in debt to the Russians.

[treestar]

9. Because they are all guilt of something

If not direct collusion with the Russian government, there are other things they know they can be prosecuted for.

[thesquanderer]

35. Right, lying to protect themselves, not Trump. (n/t)

[uponit7771]

11. K&R, PapaDoc should NOT have lied !! That was REALLY stupid. Flynn lied cause he was an unregistered

... agent.

[ginnyinWI]

14. Their proper response, if they were all innocent,

and saw that Russia was interfering would have been to contact the FBI immediately. Right?

[Act_of_Reparation]

15. Because he's guilty of something...

...just not the two specific somethings we were investigating.

[Lonestarblue]

16. I had a maybe crazy thought this morning about the information Mueller had.

Comments have been made over the past months that Mueller had access to CIA information as well as information from other countries’ spy agencies. The risk of using that information to prove conspiracy to collude with Russia is that sources could be compromised and Russia could learn how the information was collected. So when weighing that risk against giving the full information to the DOJ/Congress, did Mueller and his team decide that the risk was far too great and too harmful to future US intelligence? With the 2020 election happening next year, Trump can be removed by voters instead of impeachment.

Sounds like a conspiracy theory! But Trump’s actions of the past two years have screamed his guilt, and it’s hard to believe that with all his resources, including the testimony of people like Rick Gates with his direct knowledge of the campaign, Mueller found no evidence to connect the Trump campaign to Russian actions.

[KelleyKramer]

17. And not just on tv, they lied to the FBI, on security forms

They also lied under oath to Congress

And most of the lies under oath were in response to one simple question for any innocent person to answer...

Did you meet with any Russians?

[amywalk]

18. It's of the most importance for us to be able to prove Trump was installed

into the presidency by the Russians/Republicans and perhaps with the help of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and China. We need to be able to impeach Kavannaugh and all the other right wing judges they have appointed all over the country. This is extremely important because they have been packing the courts with sympathetic judges so Trump will be able to continue operating his criminal syndicate.

[gordianot]

24. Succinct and accurate.

Trump is what happens when rule of law is ignored.

[Ligyron]

25. Not just for Trump but the whole GOP for decades to come with these judges.

They'll have mandatory Jesus worshipping days at public school in some states before long. Once they overturn Roe v Wade they'll be able to execute any woman who tries to get an abortion or obtain birth control.

We better get serious and do something quick.

They bluster, bully, obstruct, deny, never admit guilt and give a shit less what the public thinks about any of that while we went high when they went low, threw our precious few members of Congress under the bus when there was even the slightest suggestion of any wrong doing, forgave and moved on when they needlessly sent thousands of our youth to their death in the desert. Every time we bent over backwards to be bi-partisan they simply used it as an opportunity to screw us and never once returned the favor. And OMG are we worried about what a bunch of Neanderthals think about our actions so we look "fair" to them when they hate our guts and always will no matter what we do.

[CrispyQ]

41. The dems are not going to start impeaching judges all over the country,

just because the Con appointed them, no matter how much of a majority they hold. We will be stuck with most of these assholes for decades.

[DallasNE]

22. Mueller Lacked Constructional Lawyer

So when he faced the issue of having evidence to indict a sitting President he didn't know what to do. Rather than hiring a Constitutional scholar he punted the ball to Barr who then just made stuff up. Barr did not provide the case law that is the underpinning of his ruling which means it is nothing more than gaslighting.

[Jarqui]

28. There is still something wrong or doesn't add up

from Barr's letter
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/mueller-report-summary-annotated/

"the Special Counsel did not find that any U.S. person or Trump campaign official or associate conspired or knowingly coordinated with the IRA in its efforts"
...
“Coordination” [is defined as an] “agreement — tacit or express — between the Trump Campaign and the Russian government on election interference.”

Tacit means "understood or implied without being stated."

Manafort gave campaign data to the Russians. Do they really believe Manafort was just doing that for kicks? In contract law, when you give someone something (not for charity/gift), that is "consideration given" - which means, whether you write it down or not, you have a contract - an agreement that in exchange for giving the person or entity something of value, they're going to do something of value for you. This claim of no tacit agreement is a stretch to me. How do you explain giving precious campaign data to the Russians and it just so happens, the Russians wage online attacks that could very well have been targeted with that data.

nothing to see here ... ??? Really?

Trump Aided and Abetted Russia’s Attack. That Was Treachery. Full Stop.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/03/trump-mueller-report-russia/

so the Trump campaign lies it's head off - including members going to jail for perjury - for no reason ??

Maria Butina’s guilty plea could tie the Trump campaign closer to Russia
https://qz.com/1490015/maria-butinas-guilty-plea-could-expose-trump-russia-nra-ties/

The FBI is investigating whether Torshin illegally funneled money to the NRA to help Trump’s campaign, McClatchy has reported. The NRA and its affiliates spent over $31 million in ads to boost Trump during the 2016 election, more than it spent on any other politician, as Quartz has reported.

There is audio of the speaker of the House saying Trump is getting money from Putin

Documents Point to Illegal Campaign Coordination Between Trump and the NRA
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/12/nra-trump-2016-campaign-coordination-political-advertising/

The Trump campaign pursued a strikingly similar advertising strategy. Shortly after the Red Eagle purchase, as Election Day loomed, it bought 33 ads on the same station, set to air during the same week. The ads, which the campaign purchased through a firm called American Media & Advocacy Group (AMAG), were aimed at precisely the same demographic as the NRA spots, and often ran during the same shows, bombarding Norfolk viewers with complementary messages.

The two purchases may have looked coincidental; Red Eagle and AMAG appear at first glance to be separate firms. But each is closely connected to a major conservative media-consulting firm called National Media Research, Planning and Placement. In fact, the three outfits are so intertwined that both the NRA’s and the Trump campaign’s ad buys were authorized by the same person: National Media’s chief financial officer, Jon Ferrell.

“This is very strong evidence, if not proof, of illegal coordination,” said Larry Noble, a former general counsel for the Federal Election Commission. “This is the heat of the general election, and the same person is acting as an agent for the NRA and the Trump campaign.”

Reporting by The Trace, which has teamed up with Mother Jones to investigate the NRA’s political activity, shows that the NRA and the Trump campaign employed the same operation—at times, the exact same people—to craft and execute their advertising strategies for the 2016 presidential election.

What was the conclusion on all this? Nothing to see here too ??

And now they're demanding apologies from the media for raising their eyebrows at this shit?

It's too much.

There is something way wrong here. There is still some serious lying going on or Mueller didn't get a chance to get to the bottom of this.

This does not jive with what Barr told us.

[MBS]

38. I agree a million percent. N/t

[Bromwell]

31. Not to sound like an orange buffoon but the whole thing is rigged

More of the truth will come out...the PROBLEM is most people have the attention span of a squirrel and as this continues to play out....they will just tune it out and assume its just dragging on for political reason (see Benghazi...the old false equivalence junk). The media is by and large "closing the book" on it too. Our biggest problem by far in this country is the massive number of dumb/lazy people we have. tRump and Fox's endless repeating and drum beating of lies is EXTREMELY effective in swaying the horde.

[thegoose]

32. And continue to lie

Dump lies. Conjob Lies. Huckleberry lies. Barr is Dump's bagman. What the hell does no collusion yet no exoneration mean?

[Marcuse]

33. Trump's and Russia's interests converge. Apparently useful idiocy is not a crime.

[Separation]

36. I'm suprised

That the whole family wasnt rounded up and thrown into jail over their shenanigans with his inauguration.

This stinks to high hell. Oh well, this is why I'm off Facebook and twitter and will just work for 2020.

[aikoaiko]

37. Liars lie. Its just what they do.

Plus the Trump campaign followed Trump's love of chaos.

But yeah, we still need to see the whole report.

[B Stieg]

39. Obfuscate, disemble and lie...

That's what Republicans do.
And, apparently, Mueller's on the take, too.
His conclusions--even from a great distance and through Barr's filter--are absurd.
And so, the nation remains lost while Russia moves troops into Venezuela.
This joke isn't funny anymore...

[LiberalArkie]

40. Why did they lie? Because they knew they could.

[FiveGoodMen]

42. Right here on DU, lying is often characterized as protected speech.

Why WOULDN'T they lie when WE will defend them for doing so?