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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION

50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

Mueller Evidence Fails to Prove Obstruction Charge Against Trump Trump haters continue deranged obsession — by other means. Joseph Klein

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273543/mueller-evidence-fails-prove-obstruction-charge-joseph-klein

The overblown Russian collusion balloon has burst. Democrats, their handmaidens in the mainstream media and other Trump haters are apoplectic that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation found “the evidence was not sufficient to charge that any member of the Trump Campaign conspired with representatives of the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 election.”

However, the Trump haters will never give up trying to unseat him by any means possible. They now are latching on to the Special Counsel’s evidentiary findings relating to possible obstruction of justice, even though the Special Counsel’s Office “did not draw ultimate conclusions about the President’s conduct.” The Mueller report admitted that the evidence it “obtained about the President’s actions and intent presents difficult issues that would need to be resolved if we were making a traditional prosecutorial judgment.” Nevertheless, the report concluded with tantalizing language that excited the imaginations of Democrats, the mainstream media and others who want to take President Trump down. The report’s authors stated that “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, we are unable to reach that judgment. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

“ZOA President Mort Klein Tells Congress: Islamic Jew-Hatred Threatens American Jews”

Press Release/Statement of the Jewish American Affairs Committee of Indiana VIDEO

VIDEO link to Mort Klein’s Testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, Tues. April 9, 2019:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmHm5puFHr0“At an April 9, 2019

Congressional hearing on hate crimes and white nationalism chaired by Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Mort Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) eloquently illustrated how Jews the world over face a major threat which both American and Jewish leadership have not truly addressed: Islamic anti-Semitism.While anti-Jewish bigotry from some beyond traditional neo-Nazi sources has occasionally been addressed in the media,the anti-Semitic opinions and actions of Muslims receive almost no attention. This stands in stark and disturbing contrast to the facts, such as, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), 49% of Muslims interviewed in 100 countries exhibited anti-Jewish hatred, including 34% of American Muslims.Governmental and Jewish community leaders will not be truly serving their duty to protect American Jews until this painful fact is addressed honestly.

”Written testimony (full) http://jaaci.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Written-Testimony-of-ZOA-President-Morton-Klein-House-Judiciary-Committee-April-9-2019.pdf

The Collusion Dream Is Dead But The Conspiracy Lives On Our political, intelligence, and media elites sold us this crazy story and promised the American people the proof that never came. Ben Domenech

https://thefederalist.com/2019/04/19/collusion-dream-dead-conspiracy-lives/

The President of the United States did not conspire with the Russians. Neither did his family. Neither did his friends. Neither did his campaign. At the end of the Robert Mueller investigation – now clearly staffed and advanced by partisans who loathe this president – not one single American, after all that, has been indicted or charged with any crime for conspiring with the Russians in any way, shape, or form to steal the 2016 election. That is now an indisputable fact. The uncomfortable reality is that we spent two years being fed the most irresponsible allegations advanced by an ignorant punditocracy gone savage for this idea, which should raise all sorts of questions about our political, intelligence, and media elites who sold us this crazy story and promised the American people the proof that never came.

The juiciest portion of the report from the perspective of the media yesterday was the president’s outburst upon being told of the appointment of Mueller as special counsel following Jeff Sessions’ recusal and the firing of James Comey – from the searchable report here:

The Mueller Report Vindicates Bill Barr By Andrew C. McCarthy

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/04/mueller-report-vindicates-william-barr/

Barr has provided Congress with the full, at times gory details drawn from Mueller’s aggressive investigation.

Democrats and their media partners owe Bill Barr an apology. He won’t get one, it goes without saying.

Just to recap, the attorney general was accused of misrepresenting Mueller’s report; of providing a false summary of the report; of plotting to use grand-jury law and other secrecy provisions as a pretext to redact most of the report; and of calling an extraordinary press conference in order to exculpate the president by projecting a fraudulent version of the report.

These accusations were slanderously false.

Barr made Mueller’s bottom-line findings available on a Sunday, March 24, less than two full days after receiving the report from Mueller late on a Friday. Now that the 448-page tome is public, it is easy to see that it could not possibly have been redacted, in keeping with federal law, without a weeks-long review process.

If Barr had issued nothing while that painstaking process went on, he’d have been vilified for a cover-up. Instead, he quickly and accurately reported Mueller’s findings . . . and was of course vilified for purportedly lying about what the report said — notwithstanding that Mueller, no wallflower, was cooperating in the redaction process and would obviously not have abided a fictional account of his work.

Mueller’s Report Speaks Volumes What’s in the special counsel’s findings is almost as revealing as what’s left out. Kimberley Strassel

https://www.wsj.com/articles/muellers-report-speaks-volumes-11555629994

By the fall of 2017, it was clear that special counsel Robert Mueller, as a former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was too conflicted to take a detached look at a Russia-collusion story that had become more about FBI malfeasance than about Donald Trump. The evidence of that bias now stares at us through 448 pages of his report.

President Trump has every right to feel liberated. What the report shows is that he endured a special-counsel probe that was relentlessly, at times farcically, obsessed with taking him out. What stands out is just how diligently and creatively the special counsel’s legal minds worked to implicate someone in Trump World on something Russia- or obstruction-of-justice-related. And how—even with all its overweening power and aggressive tactics—it still struck out.

Volume I of the Mueller report, which deals with collusion, spends tens of thousands of words describing trivial interactions between Trump officials and various Russians. While it doubtless wasn’t Mr. Mueller’s intention, the sheer quantity and banality of details highlights the degree to which these contacts were random, haphazard and peripheral. By the end of Volume I, the notion that the Trump campaign engaged in some grand plot with Russia is a joke.

Obstruction of Nothing Mueller vindicates Trump on collusion and plays Hamlet on obstruction.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/obstruction-of-nothing-11555630233

Robert Mueller is certainly thorough. The special counsel makes clear across the 488 pages of his report released Thursday that he and his band of prosecutors left no entrail unexamined in their two-year dissection of President Trump. Those who demanded this may not like the conclusions, but they can’t say Mr. Mueller didn’t hunt down every potential crime.

The report exposes some Trumpian excesses and lies, but it also shows that, on the most important issue and the charge that started it all, Mr. Trump has been telling the truth. He and his campaign did not conspire or coordinate with Russians to steal the 2016 election. Try as he did to find a crime regarding Russia or obstruction of justice, Mr. Mueller found nothing to prosecute.

The details validate the four-page public summary of the report’s conclusions that Attorney General William Barr released last month. The AG issued the full report with limited redactions related to grand-jury testimony and intelligence sources and methods. Democrats will claim secrets are hidden in the redactions, but Mr. Barr says he’ll let senior Members of Congress see most of those too. Claims of a coverup are spin for the anti-Trump media.

Pelosi, Schumer call on Mueller to Testify…. By Yaron Steinbuch

https://nypost.com/2019/04/18/pelosi-schumer-call-on-mueller-to-testify/

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer are calling for Robert Mueller to testify before Congress as soon as possible after what they described as Attorney General William Barr’s “partisan” handling of the special counsel report.

The top Democratic congressional leaders released a joint statement hours before a redacted version of the nearly 400-page report will be released and after The New York Times reported that White House lawyers and Justice officials have already discussed the report’s findings, according to The Hill.

“Attorney General Barr’s regrettably partisan handling of the Mueller report, including his slanted March 24th summary letter, his irresponsible testimony before Congress last week, and his indefensible plan to spin the report in a press conference later this morning — hours before he allows the public or Congress to see it — have resulted in a crisis of confidence in his independence and impartiality,” Pelosi and Schumer wrote.

Keep Digging Dems! You’ll Find that Pony Somewhere in the Manure Pile Known as the Mueller Report By Rick Moran

https://pjmedia.com/trending/keep-digging-dems-youll-find-that-pony-somewhere-in-the-manure-pile-known-as-the-mueller-report/

Somewhere buried deep in the Mueller report is incontrovertible evidence that the president of the United States is a Russian spy. I know it. I just know it. It has to be there.

And I just know that Trump is guilty of obstruction of justice. How can he not be? He’s guilty of so much that the obstruction is, I’m sure, just the tip of the iceberg.

How do I know? Ask any Democrat.

I can’t decide whether it’s amusing or pathetic, this desperate desire by Democrats to will the Mueller report to say something it isn’t saying. An appropriate cultural reference might be that Democrats are searching for Captain Queeg’s missing strawberries even after they know the fruit has been eaten and the culprit found.

Classical? How about Democrat’s tearing the castle apart to find the emperor’s new clothes?

All of those “flipped” witnesses who Democrats believed would turn on their boss and dish the “real” dirt apparently had little to say. Kind of makes you wonder what Mueller got from these cooperating witnesses. Like Bullwinkle pulling a rabbit out of a hat: “Nothin’ up my sleeve…Presto!” (Wrong hat).

‘No Evidence’ Trump Was Aware of Don Jr.’s Meeting With Russian Lawyer By Jack Crowe

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/no-evidence-trump-was-aware-of-don-jr-s-meeting-with-russian-lawyer/

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s 22-month investigation failed to produce evidence that then-candidate Trump was aware that his son, Donald Trump Jr., and other high-ranking campaign officials met with a Russian lawyer offering damaging information on Hillary Clinton in June 2016, according to the special counsel’s report released Thursday.

Donald Trump Jr., campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner, and at least five other people met with Kremlin-linked attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower in Manhattan in order to obtain damaging information on Hillary Clinton from Veselnitskaya.

After news of the meeting broke in July 2017, Trump dictated a statement to be released on Trump Jr.’s behalf in which he falsely claimed the meeting was held to discuss sanctions that restricted the U.S. adoption of Russian children.

“The president then dictated a statement to Hicks that said the meeting was about Russian adoption (which the president had twice been told was discussed at the meeting). The statement dictated by the president did not mention the offer of derogatory information about Clinton,” the report reads.

Barr Press Conference: No Obstruction on the Facts of the Case By Andrew C. McCarthy

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/04/william-barr-press-conference-no-obstruction-on-the-facts-of-the-case/

The most interesting new disclosure to come out of Attorney General William Barr’s press conference on the Mueller report was about obstruction of justice.

As I pointed out in a Fox News column this morning, the obstruction issue was one of the main reasons why the media-Democrat complex’s caterwauling about Barr’s unremarkable decision to hold a press conference was ludicrous. Special Counsel Mueller declined to render a prosecutorial judgment on whether obstruction charges should be brought against the president. Since it is the attorney general who made the judgment, for that reason alone it was worth hearing from him this morning.

The attorney general stated that the special counsel evaluated ten incidents with an eye toward whether they amounted to an obstruction offense. Barr elaborated that he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein disagreed with Mueller on whether these incidents even could have amounted to obstruction as a matter of law.

It is important to grasp what that means, and what it doesn’t, because I’ve heard some inaccurate commentary. Barr was not saying that Mueller found one or more of these incidents to constitute obstruction; Mueller was saying that the incidents involved actions that could theoretically have amounted to obstruction.