RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://thefederalist.com/2019/07/24/the-mueller-testimony-was-a-disaster-for-democrats/

If Democrats believed that Robert Mueller would provide them with additional ammunition for an impeachment inquiry, they made an extraordinary miscalculation. Not only was Mueller often flustered and unprepared to talk about his own report—we now have wonder to what extent he was even involved in the day-to-day work of the investigation—but he was needlessly evasive. In the end, he seriously undermined the central case for impeachment of President Donald Trump.

The often-distracted Mueller didn’t seem to know much about anything. The very first Republican to question him, House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Rep. Doug Collins, forced Mueller to correct his own opening statement. In it, the former FBI director had asserted that the independent counsel “did not address collusion, which is not a legal term.”

Stressing the difference between the criminal conspiracy and the colloquial “collusion” is a popular way of obscuring the fact that the central conspiracy pushed by Democrats, one that plunged the nation into two years of hysterics and fantasy, had been debunked by Mueller. Moreover, as Collins pointed out, Mueller’s own report stated that “collusion” and criminal conspiracy were basically “synonymous.”

https://pjmedia.com/trending/robert-mueller-confirms-his-investigation-was-not-curtailed-stopped-or-hindered/

During the Mueller hearing Wednesday, Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.) questioned former Special Counsel Robert Mueller with a very specific and important question.

By Mueller’s own testimony, his investigation was not curtailed, stopped, or hindered at any point. In other words, there was no obstruction. This is quite remarkable because as I said, no other body besides Mueller and his investigative team would be able to say definitively that they were obstructed. Clearly, they were not. Yet Mueller and his team refused to say so in their report.

On Twitter, Dan Bongino sums it up perfectly.Dan Bongino

✔ @dbongino “If the hapless, hopeless Democrats had a collective brain among them they’d stop this embarrassing fiasco now. The #MuellerHearings are blowing up in their faces. Mueller’s credibility is completely decimated.

So far, Mueller’s performance today has been interesting. Mueller sounds nervous and can’t seem to hear questions being asked of him. Whether that’s a stalling tactic or not, I’m not sure, but it given Mueller’s record, it wouldn’t surprise me.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/robert-mueller-says-trump-could-be-charged-with-obstruction-after-he-leaves-office/

ABC News

✔ @ABC”Could you charge the president with a crime after he left office?” Robert Mueller: “Yes.”

“You could charge the president of the United States with obstruction of justice after he left office?””Yes.” https://abcn.ws/2XWIELc  #MuellerHearings

During Wednesday congressional testimony, former special counsel Robert Mueller told lawmakers that President Trump could in fact be charged with obstruction of justice, but only after he leaves office.

“Could you charge the president with a crime after he left office?” Republican representative Ken Buck asked Mueller during the latter’s appearance before the House Judiciary Committee.

“Yes,” Mueller responded simply.

“You believe you could charge the president of the United States with obstruction of justice after he left office?” the Colorado Republican asked.

“Yes,” Mueller answered. “The OLC [Office of Legal Counsel] opinion says that the prosecutor, while he cannot bring a charge against a sitting president, nonetheless can continue the investigation to see if there are any other persons who might be drawn into the conspiracy.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/pundits-fry-robert-mueller-for-shaky-performance/

Political pundits on both sides of the aisle criticized former special counsel Robert Mueller for appearing unprepared during his Wednesday congressional testimony, and questioned the utility of the hearing given Mueller’s refusal to speak to information not included in his final report.

Liberal CNN commentator Chris Cillizza called Mueller’s performance “shaky,” citing his repeated requests for clarification and repetition from lawmakers, as well as an apparent contradiction in his testimony, which occurred when he was asked if collusion was, in effect, a colloquial synonym for criminal conspiracy. Mueller answered that question in the affirmative in his report but testified Wednesday that the words were not synonymous before reverting back to the answer provided in his report.

Cilizza writes:

If Democrats hoped that Mueller would easily bat away Republican attacks — on him and on his report — they have been sorely disappointed in the opening moments of his testimony. Mueller seemingly contradicted himself (and the report) when he told Doug Collins, the ranking Republican member on the committee, that collusion and conspiracy were not the same thing.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/robert-mueller-reiterates-the-report-is-my-testimony-calls-demand-for-a-prosecutor-to-testify-unusual/

In his opening statement before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday morning, special counsel Robert Mueller again stated that he would not comment on aspects of his investigation into Russian election interference that were not included in his final report, and noted that it is “unusual” to compel a prosecutor to testify about an investigation.

“I do not intend to summarize or describe the results of our work in a different way in the course of my testimony today. As I said on May 29: the report is my testimony. And I will stay within that text,” Mueller said in his opening statement. “And as I stated in May, I also will not comment on the actions of the Attorney General or of Congress. I was appointed as a prosecutor, and I intend to adhere to that role and to the Department’s standards that govern it.”

Mueller held a press conference in May to announce that he was stepping down as special counsel following a nearly two-year investigation. During the press conference, Mueller made clear that he would not provide any information related to the investigation that was not included in the report, prompting congressional Republicans and allies of the president to question the utility of his testifying before Congress.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/07/with-collusion-collapse-public-loses-interest-in-mueller-theatrics/

Democrats are at the point where continuing to press the Mueller probe hurts them more than it hurts the president.

Dear Sir, The public does not care.

If the Trump Justice Department were to write a letter in response to House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff’s Tuesday night tirade, that’s what it would say.

Well, okay, not exactly. I’m sure there’d be the obligatory “with due respect” throat clearing and whatever else decorum demands when camouflaging a flip of the middle finger. Make no mistake, though: The bird has been flipped.

The night before former special counsel Robert Mueller’s much anticipated (and certain to be disappointing) appearance before two congressional committees, Chairman Schiff fired off a letter to protest limitations the Justice Department, at Mueller’s request, has imposed on his testimony.

In essence, DOJ has ordered Mueller not to provide testimony outside the four corners of his report. This suits Mueller just fine since he does not want to testify at all. He made that clear in his May 29 press statement, attempting to foreclose a possible subpoena by insisting that he would have nothing to add to the two-volume, 448-page tome.

Further, he gave Democrats what, from their perspective, is the best spin that could be put on the obstruction aspect of his probe: He had not “exonerated” the president, even though he neither found crimes, nor even considered whether crimes had occurred — the prosecutor’s peculiar interpretation of Justice Department guidance that forbids indictment of a sitting president.

He was trying to tell them: This is as good as it gets. I am not going to say I would have indicted him if not for the guidance.

But Democrats cannot leave well enough alone. They hope against hope that Mueller will break down — that Schiff, a former prosecutor, will have a Perry Mason moment, in which Mueller throws up his hands and confesses that, yes, if he could, he would throw the book at Trump.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274340/patriotism-wins-rep-ilhan-omars-backyard-daniel-greenfield

On June 17th, the St. Louis Park City Council voted 5-0 to get rid of the Pledge of Allegiance. On July 15th, just as the abolition was set to take effect, the Council voted 7-0 in a room crowded with American flags and red, white and blue signs, to bring the Pledge back. Outside a giant inflatable bald eagle kept watch.

It was an unlikely victory for patriotism in an implausible place.

St. Louis Park is a small Democrat city in Minnesota. Hillary Clinton beat Trump here 3-1. Rep. Ilhan Omar represents it in the House. The firm at the center of her tax and marriage scandal is based here.

Councilwoman Anne Mavity, who had called for the abolition of the pledge, insisted that the pledge didn’t reflect the city’s diverse values. As part of those diverse values, she had endorsed Rep. Omar.

“Omar,” Councilwoman Mavity had said, was a voice for an “unapologetic progressive agenda.”

Mavity never did apologize. But at least one member of the St. Louis Park City Council did.

“I’ve concluded that I made a mistake and I’m sorry and I’m asking for forgiveness,” Councilman Steve Hallifan conceded.

The Battle of the Pledge was won by a combination of committed local patriots, who came flying flags and eager to confront the councilmembers who had tried to sneak the issue past everyone by tying it together with a meeting time change and some other procedural minutiae, and by President Trump’s willingness to take on a local issue in a place most people outside Minnesota had never heard of.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/cory-booker-would-never-punch-trump-that-fat-old-body-shamer/

I’m old enough to remember when fantasizing about physically attacking the President of the United States was considered racist. Why, I’m so old that I can actually remember when late-night TV was worth watching! But neither of those things is true anymore, as you’ll see in this clip from last night’s Late Night with Seth Meyers.

Here’s ostensible presidential candidate Cory Booker talking about how he would never, ever punch Donald Trump, no matter how desperately he wants to:

.@CoryBooker: “My testosterone sometimes makes me want to feel like punching [Trump], which would be bad for this elderly, out-of-shape man that he is if I did that — a physically weak specimen.”

Let’s take a moment to imagine any Republican going on national TV and saying something like this about a Democratic POTUS. And let’s take another moment to contemplate the amusing idea of Cory Booker possessing testosterone.

Anyway, Booker would never punch Trump. That would be beneath him. But what’s wrong with getting a round of applause from a liberal NYC audience, and a warm, friendly smile from Seth Meyers, for talking about punching Donald Trump?

Plus, Trump is old and out of shape. What does Booker look like, a body-shamer?

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/andrew-mccarthy-robert-mueller-democrats-trump-t

Prepare to be disappointed.

That should be Democrats’ mindset heading into Robert Mueller’s appearance this week before two House committees. The greater the anticipation of the testimony, the more the letdown is apt to be.

That is because the special counsel simply is not going to give them what they crave.

Democrats want Mueller to say he would have charged President Trump with obstruction of justice were it not for Justice Department guidance instructing that a sitting president may not be indicted. Mueller cannot say that without contradicting his report and his statements at a late May press conference.

He is not going to do that.

Mueller abdicated on the obstruction question. Mind you, at the time he took over the Russia-gate investigation on May 17, 2017, there were already strong indications that there was no cyber-espionage conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin to interfere in the 2016 election. In essence, what he assumed was more an obstruction than a collusion investigation. Indeed, just days earlier, according to former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, the FBI had opened an obstruction investigation against the president based on the May 9 firing of the Bureau’s then-director, James Comey.

I never believed a special counsel was legally or factually warranted. But if we assume for argument’s sake that a special counsel was necessary, then the single central issue he was needed to resolve was: Is there a prosecutable obstruction case against the president?

Yet, after putting the country through a nearly two-year probe, Mueller declined to answer that question.

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/454309-mueller-time-wont-be-the-moment-republicans-or-democrats-want

Capitol Hill Republicans appear to be scratching their heads about instructions that special counsel Robert Mueller has received from the Department of Justice (DOJ), tightly restricting his congressional testimony, which is scheduled for Wednesday. 

They shouldn’t be. The Trump administration’s legal and political calculations are clear. 

As The Hill reported on Monday, with Mueller’s testimony less than 48 hours away, the Justice Department directed him to confine his testimony strictly to the four corners of his report. Specifically, Associate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer asserted, Mueller is to avoid “discussion about investigative steps or decisions made during your investigation not otherwise described in the public version of your report.”

Clearly, Republican lawmakers allied with the president want to press Mueller not about what is in his report but about matters he excluded — not just from the 448-page tome but, perhaps, from his investigation. 

They do not want to focus on evidence relating to the questions of collusion with Russia and obstruction of the probe, on neither of which Mueller recommended charges against the president. They want to home in on apparent investigative irregularities: Reliance on the unverified Steele dossier for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants; failure to inform the FISA court that the dossier was a Hillary Clinton campaign opposition research product; misleading the president on his status in the investigation (i.e., telling him that he was not under investigation while trying to make a case on him); the blatant investigative bias shown by texts between FBI officials; intelligence leaks to the media; consultations with Obama administration political officials regarding what information should be shared with President-elect Trump and his transition team, and so on.