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A media reckoning that may be very, very costly
By Bruce Thompson
It may be Spring according to the calendar, but America's dominant media outlets are heading toward a brutal winter season when it comes to accountability for the actions. Not just a reckoning for pushing a hoax about Russian collusion with a presumed treasonous Donald, but potentially gigantic judgments in courtrooms. Recently, two parties have filed notable defamation lawsuits against powerful press outlets. The most talked about has been the 2 (so far) filed on the behalf of Nicholas Sandmann, the young student from Covington Catholic High School. His attorney has filed in Kentucky. Given that the press is so unaware of the attitudes of potential fly-over country jurors that they failed to predict the election of President Trump and failure of the Mueller probe, they may not recognize the financial threat those suits pose to their future. Time will tell. The settlement prices are in the $250 million range.
But my personal interest is in the most complex and nuanced suit filed on behalf of Don Blankenship, the unsuccessful Republican candidate for the Senate seat now held by Democrat Joe Manchin. His suit asks for $12 billion! Talk about “the audacity of hope”! So, I spoke to one of his attorneys, Eric Early of Early, Sullivan, Wright, Gizer & McRae. We had a pleasant, but brief conversation. The core of his position is that they firmly believe that Mr. Blakenship has been defamed and that he will win at trial. He suggested that anyone with an interest in their position read their filing with the court.
I first became aware of the case in a story on the Mediaite website, which provided a link to the actual document.
Here is how they described their conversation with Mr. Early.
“Fox News, CNN, MSNBC and the other defendants in this case, when they represent themselves as a news outlet or news source, the public’s reasonable expectation is that they are indeed a ‘credible’ news outlet,” Blankenship’s attorney Eric Early, a failed GOP candidate for California attorney general, said in a statement to Mediaite. “It’s beyond wrong when they lie about facts that are easily ‘google-ible.’ These news outlets are going to have to decide at some point whether they are actual news or entertainment channels.”
For “injuries Mr. Blankenship has suffered,” he is seeking “damages in an amount not less than $2 billion dollars,” the suit notes, before adding that he also “seeks substantial punitive damages in the amount of 10 billion dollars.”
Their description of Mr. Early as a “failed GOP candidate” suggests a certain lack of caution about the financial threat that losing the case might pose to the titans of the “Mainstream Media”. It may be a very low probability outcome, but it might also be a “Black Swan” event.
Taking Mr. Early’s advice to heart, I read the complaint. Given the present state of affairs, it seems that Mr. Early’s best approach would be to apply Saul Alinsky’s Rule 4, "Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules."
To that end, I note that one of the defendants is the Associated Press, which conveniently publishes its set of rules in a book, The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law 2018, ISBN 978-1-5416-7238-3.
On page 485, they list five things a successful libel plaintiff must prove
A defamatory statement was made.
The defamatory statement is a matter of fact, not opinion.
The defamatory statement is false.
The defamatory statement is about (“of and concerning”) the plaintiff.
The defamatory statement was published with the requisite degree of “fault.”
I am not a lawyer (nor a professional journalist either). But in my opinion, when a press account describes Mr. Blankenship as a “felon,” even though he was found not guilty on the felony counts filed against him and was convicted only on a misdemeanor charge with a one-year prison term, they may want to ask their own lawyers to negotiate with Mr. Early. When approached with proper respect, he seems to be a nice man in my experience.
There is an alternative, which would be to go to trial in Mingo County, West “By God” Virginia. To get there, they might take one of those “Country Roads” John Denver sang about. You know the tune, “Almost Heaven, West Virginia…”
File photo of a jury box (photo credit: Ammodramus)
Once they get to the courthouse, they might acquaint themselves with the potential jury pool including some Coal Miner’s Wives. You know, women like Loretta Lynn’s mother.
Daddy loved and raised eight kids on a miner’s pay
Mommy scrubbed our clothes on a washboard very day
Why I’ve seen her fingers bleed, but to complain there was no need
She smiled in Mommy’s understanding way
Don’t say you haven’t been properly warned. Give Mr. Early a call today!
Read more: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/03/a_media_reckoning_that_may_be_very_very_costly.html#ixzz5jIPJ4Dpo
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Hahaha...after puking (I actually did) listening to Jessee...when he was done and walking away...a reporter was heard asking...So Jesse...are your attackers still out there???
America’s 233-Year-Old Shock at Jihad
By Raymond Ibrahim
And now we have several in Congress
Exactly 233 years ago this week, two of America’s founding fathers documented their first exposure to Islamic jihad in a letter to Congress; like many Americans today, they too were shocked at what they learned.
Context: in 1785, Muslim pirates from North Africa, or “Barbary,” had captured two American ships, the Maria and Dauphin, and enslaved their crews. In an effort to ransom the enslaved Americans and establish peaceful relations, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams -- then ambassadors to France and England respectively -- met with Tripoli’s ambassador to Britain, Abdul Rahman Adja. Following this diplomatic exchange, they laid out the source of the Barbary States’ hitherto inexplicable animosity to American vessels in a letter to Congress dated March 28, 1786:
We took the liberty to make some inquiries concerning the grounds of their [Barbary’s] pretentions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury, and observed that we considered all mankind as our friends who had done us no wrong, nor had given us any provocation. The ambassador answered us that it was founded on the laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Musselman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise
One need not conjecture what the American ambassadors -- who years earlier had asserted that all men were “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights” -- thought of their Muslim counterpart’s answer. Suffice to say, because the ransom demanded was over fifteen times greater than what Congress had approved, little came of the meeting.
It should be noted that centuries before setting their sights on American vessels, the Barbary States of Muslim North Africa -- specifically Tripoli, Algiers, Tunis -- had been thriving on the slave trade of Christians abducted from virtually every corner of coastal Europe -- including Britain, Ireland, Denmark, and Iceland. These raids were so successful that, “between 1530 and 1780 there were almost certainly a million and quite possibly as many as a million and a quarter white, European Christians enslaved by the Muslims of the Barbary Coast,” to quote American historian Robert Davis.
The treatment of these European slaves was exacerbated by the fact that they were Christian “infidels.” As Robert Playfair (b.1828), who served for years as a consul in Barbary, explained, “In almost every case they [European slaves] were hated on account of their religion.” Three centuries earlier, John Foxe had written in his Book of Martyrs that, “In no part of the globe are Christians so hated, or treated with such severity, as at Algiers.”
The punishments these European slaves received for real or imagined offenses beggared description: “If they speak against Mahomet [blasphemy], they must become Mahometans, or be impaled alive. If they profess Christianity again, after having changed to the Mahometan persuasion, they are roasted alive [as apostates], or thrown from the city walls, and caught upon large sharp hooks, on which they hang till they expire.”
As such, when Captain O’Brien of the Dauphin wrote to Jefferson saying that “our sufferings are beyond our expression or your conception,” he was clearly not exaggerating.
After Barbary’s ability to abduct coastal Europeans had waned in the mid-eighteenth century, its energy was spent on raiding infidel merchant vessels. Instead of responding by collectively confronting and neutralizing Barbary, European powers, always busy quarrelling among themselves, opted to buy peace through tribute (or, according to Muslim rationale, jizya).
Fresh meat appeared on the horizon once the newly-born United States broke free of Great Britain (and was therefore no longer protected by the latter’s jizya payments).
Some American congressmen agreed with Jefferson that “it will be more easy to raise ships and men to fight these pirates into reason, than money to bribe them” -- including General George Washington: “In such an enlightened, in such a liberal age, how is it possible that the great maritime powers of Europe should submit to pay an annual tribute to the little piratical States of Barbary?” he wrote to a friend. “Would to Heaven we had a navy able to reform those enemies to mankind, or crush them into nonexistence.”
But the majority of Congress agreed with John Adams: “We ought not to fight them at all unless we determine to fight them forever.” Considering the perpetual, existential nature of Islamic hostility, Adams may have been more right than he knew.
Congress settled on emulating the Europeans and paying off the terrorists, though it would take years to raise the demanded ransom.
When Muslim pirates from Algiers captured eleven more American merchant vessels in 1794, the Naval Act was passed and a permanent U.S. naval force established. But because the first war vessels would not be ready until 1800, American jizya payments -- which took up 16 percent of the federal budget -- began to be made to Algeria in 1795. In return, over 100 American sailors were released -- how many died or disappeared is unclear -- and the Islamic sea raids formally ceased. American payments and “gifts” over the following years caused the increasingly emboldened Muslim pirates to respond with increasingly capricious demands.
One of the more ignoble instances occurred in 1800, when Captain William Bainbridge of the George Washington sailed to the pirate-leader of Algiers, with what the latter deemed insufficient tribute. Referring to the Americans as “my slaves,” Dey Mustapha ordered them to transport hundreds of black slaves to Istanbul (Constantinople). Adding insult to insult, he commanded the American crew to take down the U.S. flag and hoist the Islamic flag -- one not unlike ISIS’ notorious black flag -- in its place. And, no matter how rough the seas might be during the long voyage, Bainbridge was required to make sure the George Washington faced Mecca five times a day to accommodate the prayers of Muslims onboard.
That Bainbridge condescended to becoming Barbary’s delivery boy seems only to have further whetted the terrorists’ appetite. In 1801, Tripoli demanded an instant payment of $225,000, followed by annual payments of $25,000 -- respectively equivalent to $3.5 million and $425,000 today. Concluding that “nothing will stop the eternal increase of demand from these pirates but the presence of an armed force,” America’s third president, Jefferson, refused the ultimatum. (He may have recalled Captain O’Brien’s observation concerning his Barbary masters: “Money is their God and Mahomet their prophet.”)
Denied jizya from the infidels, Tripoli proclaimed jihad on the United States on May 10, 1801. But by now, America had six war vessels, which Jefferson deployed to the Barbary Coast. For the next five years, the U.S. Navy warred with the Muslim pirates, making little headway and suffering some setbacks -- the most humiliating being when the Philadelphia and its crew were captured in 1803.
Desperate measures were needed: enter William Eaton. As U.S. consul to Tunis (1797–1803), he had lived among and understood the region’s Muslims well. He knew that “the more you give the more the Turks will ask for,” and despised that old sense of Islamic superiority: “It grates me mortally,” he wrote, “when I see a lazy Turk [generic for Muslim] reclining at his ease upon an embroidered sofa, with one Christian slave to hold his pipe, another to hold his coffee, and a third to fan away the flies.” Seeing that the newborn American navy was making little headway against the seasoned pirates, he devised a daring plan: to sponsor the claim of Mustafa’s brother, exiled in Alexandria; and then to march the latter’s supporters and mercenaries through five hundred miles of desert, from Alexandria onto Tripoli.
The trek was arduous -- not least because of the Muslim mercenaries themselves. Eaton had repeatedly tried to win them over: “I touched upon the affinity of principle between the Islam and Americans [sic] religion.” But despite these all too familiar ecumenical overtures, “We find it almost impossible to inspire these wild bigots with confidence in us,” he lamented in his diary, “or to persuade them that, being Christians, we can be otherwise than enemies to Mussulmen. We have a difficult undertaking!” (For all his experience with Muslims, Eaton was apparently unaware of the finer points of their (Sharia) law, namely, al-wala’ wa’l bara’, or “loyalty and enmity.”)
Eaton eventually managed to reach and conquer Tripoli’s coastal town of Derne on April 27, 1805. Less than two months later, on June 10, a peace treaty was signed between the U.S. and Tripoli, formally ending hostilities.
Thus and despite the (rather ignorant) question that became popular after 9/11, “Why do they hate us?” -- a question that was answered to Jefferson and Adams 233 years ago today -- the United States’ first war and victory as a nation was against Muslims, and the latter had initiated hostilities on the same rationale Muslims had used to initiate hostilities against non-Muslims for the preceding 1,200 years.
Sources for quotes in this article can be found in the author’s recent book, Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West; 352 pages long and containing over a thousand endnotes, it copiously documents what many in academia have sought to hide: the long and bloody history between Islam and the West, in the context of their eight most landmark battles. American Thinker reviews of the book can be read here and here).
Read more: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/03/americas_233yearold_shock_at_jihad.html#ixzz5jILoubK3
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LOL
Riddle me this Batman...so if the Chinese docked a warship in Venezuela for the first time last Sept and now have a ...Ummm Humanitarian Destroyer parked off their coast...warned us not to send troops to Venezuela in Feb yet now have Chinese troops landing there...has Gold being airlifted out of Venezuela...what is their end game??? And where the Hell is the Media???
LOL Thanks AJ...would have been better if the gull was actually doing the tube...
So many victims and only a few seats in the lifeboat is what I'm thinking...obviously he isn't a Captain.
Now that's a bracket that would make my head hurt filling out...LOL
Former head of the CIA John Brennan admitted on Monday that he may have relied on “bad information” for his relentless attacks on President Trump.
Brennan — who once warned that “our Nation’s future is at stake” — told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that he may have been misled on the extent of Trump’s connections to Russia.
And THIS is the guy bitching because his TOP Security clearance was revoked???...OBVIOUSLY he wasn't using it properly...good grief...but...he sees the earthquake coming...resorting to let's blame others before it gets popular...LMAO
Morning AJ...you as well
Indeed...and now listening to Beck...
Could you imagine a Coach today getting away with that???...EZ's siggy and THAT quote go hand in hand
LOL I like the Trump day one better...
I'm on a mission to squash the little bastards....ONE x ONE !! big smile
Grins...Perfect Siggy for a thought provoking joke...
WTF???...Travis County Texas no where to be seen???...maybe because all the Libturds here...speaking of LibTurds...
Sooo members of Congress are saying...they need the full content of the report because...ONLY Congress can do the proper investigation the FBI can't...WHAT???...So how come the same Turds demanded an FBI investigation on Kavanaugh saying Congress was limited???...fooking hypocrites...THAT needs to be thrown in their faces...I want to hear sound bytes of them saying that...where is Fuax Spartacus
THAT being said...would love to be a fly on the wall in the White House Press Conf this week...just to watch them squirm...because whether you believe it or not...they are...Morning all I'm not right in the head this morning so just ignore my rants...
Thanks listening now...I don't have cable so I don't get the TV show but...I get him on SiriusXM on my way home from work so I get some of him...on Wed I think he has OReilly on...love it.
Morning Bad
ROFL...now THAT'S funny as hell...thanks made me laugh.
A lot of Gnashing of teeth by her and the other LibTurds
Glad to see he took advantage of his opportunities...done right...
Morning TH
WOW I'll say...a lot of good tips there...but IMO...best to shop locally...the only reason Di has a prime membership is...she lives on an Island...
Morning EZ...a tad sick this morning...just woke up.
Grins....beep beep
O'Rourke's 'Medicare for America' plan just another government takeover of health care
By Rick Moran
This is what passes for "moderate" in the Democratic party these days.
Presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke is proposing an alternative to the socialist "Medicare for all" plan being pushed by Bernie Sanders and several other major candidates. He's calling it "Medicare for America" - a stealthy attempt to eventually bring about full government control of the health care industry.
CNN:
For O'Rourke, the proposal's appeal is that he thinks it moves the country to guaranteed health care more quickly than the alternatives, including the signature Medicare for All proposal from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who is also vying for the Democratic nomination. That's in part because it would maintain the private insurance industry, which is a deal breaker among progressives.
"What it says is, if you like your employer-sponsored insurance, you like the network that you're in, you like the doctors that you can see, you're happy with that, you can keep it," O'Rourke said Thursday in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. in response to an audience question. "If you do not like your employer-based insurance and want to enroll in Medicare, you can. If you have no insurance whatsoever or if you are under-insured today, you can enroll in Medicare as well."
Gee...where have we heard that before?
While many Americans like the idea of expanding Medicare, their support drops when they hear private insurance would be eliminated, according to polling by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Medicare for America would address those concerns, said Jen Tolbert, the foundation's director of state health reform.
"The bill does try to strike a middle ground," she said.
"Middle ground"? Compared to what? I suppose if you're looking for a difference between the full on socialism of Medicare for All and O'Rourke's socialism-lite scheme, you might be able to see a distinction between the two.
In reality, even O'Rourke admits his plan gets us to total government control eventually.
It's the boiling frog scenario where we, the health care consumer, are the frogs. "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain taking over your health care." Meanwhile, bureaucrats will look to sabotage the private insurance industry, making sure that "Medicare for America" morphs quickly into "Medicare for all."
Read more: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/03/orourkes_medicare_for_america_plan_just_another_government_takeover_of_health_care.html#ixzz5jBaAc0vR
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook
My youngest son graduated from Cal. He got in the old fashioned way with excellent grades and a great resume of community service.
Something to be proud of...well done
Good thing I've learned NOT to drink coffee when I read your posts...would have spewed over that one...
It will be interesting to see over the next year how far CNN viewership....DROPS
Agreed...now I sink or swim with Sparty and Purdue
Ouch...looks like the Louisville Slugger is watching our backs...hang in there Kenny G
A LOT of peeps ALMOST needed that number last night with Duke...just one key rebound away from losing.
Red looking mighty smart...
Morning K
Got a card from Dianna Sat...spent quality time with her over the weekend...it's shaping up to be a glorious Monday...hope it goes well for you too.
You mean they don't have it on speed dial??
After Mueller: Now Back to the Culture War
By Christopher Chantrill
I do feel for our liberal friends, I really do after their weekend from hell. To be disappointed by Mueller, and humiliated by Trump, when everything seemed to be going so swimmingly! The shame of it!
It’s the ingratitude! Don’t those deplorables -- Trumpists, Brexiteers, white nationalists, yellow vests -- don’t they understand that everything they take for granted today -- labor laws, old age pensions, education, health care, safety, clean air and water -- were given to them by the activism and the peaceful protests of the progressives?
And now that the progressives are ethically progressing onwards to extend the sacrament of peaceful protest to new groups of the underprivileged -- women, minorities, gays, migrants, Muslims -- the ungrateful populist hounds selfishly insist that not a word of the old welfare-state Latin Mass be changed.
So I understand the outrage of the educated class at the election of Trump. Just like the McCarthyites two generations ago, our baffled educated class knows there must be reds under the beds, some vile conspiracy responsible for the unspeakable insult of rejecting their kind and beneficent rule. There has to be a conspiracy! At the highest levels of government! No wait, our guys are at the highest levels of government, so the conspiracy has to be, well, something or other, so let’s sic Robert Mueller on the contemptible fiends that are colluding to overturn our enlightened and ethical rule!
And now the Mueller game has ended, according to the attorney general, in bupkis -- from the Yiddish, don’t you know -- meaning that the real story is that the Obama administration “conspired and coordinated with” the FBI and the DoJ and the intelligence community “in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.”
To coin a phrase: what did the President know and when did he know it? Obama, that is.
It would be fun for the late-night comedy giants to make jokes about the parallels between the monstrous crimes of the Spanish Inquisition and the noble Mueller probe.
Let’s see: the Grand Inquisitor and the Special Prosecutor were talking over a beer. The Grand Inquisitor asks: What instruments of torture do you use these days, Bob? And the Special Prosecutor replies: Instruments? We don’t need no stinkin’ instruments, El Grando; the process is the punishment.
Do you think that our late-night millennials would get the joke? I have my doubts.
Now, here’s a splendid book just out, reviewed here, about The Unmasking of the Administrative State by John Marini of the University of Nevada and the Claremont Institute.
Marini has two aims. First, to retell the history of American political ideas in the 20th century, in order to offer an alternative to the institutional progressive consensus. Second, to show the practical problems of the progressives’ administrative state and then make the theoretical case against it.
Yes, yes, jolly good show, chaps. But the current populist movement is not really opposed to the progressives’ administrative state as such. It just doesn’t like the rulers putting government benefits at hazard by with crazy new projects. The Trump and Brexit voters are not telling the administrators to take their welfare-state pensions, and health cares, and educations, and put them where the sun don’t shine. No indeed. It’s the new projects they don’t need. Medicare for All? We get health insurance at work. Student debt? My kid’s earning $150,000 a year fracking down in Texas. Green New Deal? Over my dead SUV. The deplorables are just telling their neo-feudal lords that we are the loyal serfs, from time out of mind, and forget the wretched of the Earth beyond the borders. The rulers and their bureaucratic underlings are supposed to be protecting us, the voters, and not the helpless victims beyond the seas. And you’d better not touch grandpa’s Social Security and grandma’s Medicare benefits, either.
But we understand! We can see how our educated Subaru drivers with their snooty administrative-state sinecures might be a bit miffed about all this. After all “we” did for them, the ungrateful racist sexist homophobes!
If you ask me, it’s all adds up to a magnificent Hegelian dialectic. On the one hand we have the thesis of the progressive administrative swampies with their mindless gotta-be-a-victim-in-here-somewhere ideology; on the other hand, we have the antithesis of the conservative/libertarian intellectuals that have been roto-rooting socialism and the administrative state to little effect for the last century. We have the new populists burning down the Champs Elysées on the one hand and the trendy lefty activist peaceful protesters on the other risking their smartphones, their parents’ fortunes, and their intersectional honor staging fake hate crimes in campus safe spaces, making out that they are the true voice of the oppressed.
Are we having fun yet? I can’t wait to find out what the great Hegelian synthesis will be.
Christopher Chantrill @chrischantrill runs the go-to site on US government finances, usgovernmentspending.com. Also get his American Manifesto and his Road to the Middle Class.
Read more: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/03/after_mueller_now_back_to_the_culture_war.html#ixzz5jBFdyIkl
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook
Just taking my chicken off the grill...
Sleep well my friend...should be interesting watching them squirm
Well done by those two...woot woot
So far the responses have been predictable...the MSM and Libturd leadership is demanding the full release...and now...they still want to hang Mr T...LMAO...what a bunch of worthless putzes...their whole life the last few years hangs on trying to hang Mr T...how sad is that that they couldn't figure out after two years with out a shred of evidence leaking...that there was actually no collusion...pitiful...and they are the leaders of the left...could be interesting to see what AOC will tweet...well as soon as she can have someone read her the letter...
Back in a bit...time to fix dinner
Was checking out the NIT bracket...if Texas and IU both keep winning...they will meet for the Championship...THAT could be fun
Mueller report summary released, showing no definitive proof Trump team conspired with Russia
Gregg Re By Gregg Re | Fox News
No surprise to this board...they broke in on the basketball game to tell us so I went to find...back to BB
Attorney General William Barr on Sunday released the "principal conclusions" of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's completed Russia probe in a bombshell four-page letter to Capitol Hill lawmakers, which stated definitively that Mueller did not establish evidence that President Trump's team or any associates of the Trump campaign had conspired with Russia -- "despite multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign."
Mueller's team specifically looked into two Russian efforts to interfere with the 2016 election -- first, the work by a Russian organization, the Internet Research Agency (IRA), to "conduct disinformation and social media operations" designed to "sow discord" in the U.S."
Aaccording to Barr's letter, "The special counsel's investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its effort" to interfere with the 2016 presidential election in that manner.
Next, Mueller investigated whether the Trump team was involved in the hacking of emails, many of which were released publicly, that belonged to the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
READ THE FULL LETTER
"The Special Counsel did not find that any U.S. person or Trump campaign official or associate conspired or knowingly coordinated" with Russians who worked on those hacking efforts, according to Barr's letter, "despite multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign."
Mueller's report did not reach a conclusion on whether the Trump campaign obstructed justice, and left that decision to Barr and officials at the DOJ. But Mueller "recognized," according to Barr's letter, that the lack of evidence that Trump was involved in collusion would undercut any obstruction case -- which would depend on showing a corrupt intent by the president.
Attorney General William Barr leaving his home in McLean, Va., on Sunday morning. (AP Photo/Sait Serkan Gurbuz)
Attorney General William Barr leaving his home in McLean, Va., on Sunday morning. (AP Photo/Sait Serkan Gurbuz)
"The Special Counsel therefore did not draw a conclusion - one way or the other - as to whether the examined conduct constituted obstruction," according to Barr's letter. "Instead, for each of the relevant actions investigated, the report sets out evidence on both sides of the question and leaves unresolved what the Special Counsel views as 'difficult issues' of law and fact concerning whether the President's actions and intent could be viewed as obstruction."
Barr'rs letter concluded: “After reviewing the Special Counsel’s final report on these issues… Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and I have concluded that the evidence developed during the Special Counsel’s investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.”
“Our determination was made without regard to, and is not based on, the constitutional considerations that surround the indictment and criminal prosecution of a sitting president," Barr stated.
Barr added, "the Special Counsel states that ‘while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.'"
For Trump, though, who has tweeted more than 230 times that he and his team did not collude with Russians, the moment amounted to a near-total vindication.
Barr said Mueller's team had "thoroughly" investigated allegations that Trump's team sought to conspire with Russians or obstruct investigators. Mueller said he employed 19 lawyers and approximately 40 FBI agents, executing hundreds of search warrants, 10 pen registers, and interviewed approximately 500 witnesses.
The White House is seen at dusk, Friday March 22, 2019, in Washington, after news broke that the special counsel Robert Mueller has concluded his investigation into Russian election interference and possible coordination with associates of President Donald Trump. The Justice Department says Mueller delivered his final report to Attorney General William Barr, who is reviewing it. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
The White House is seen at dusk, Friday March 22, 2019, in Washington, after news broke that the special counsel Robert Mueller has concluded his investigation into Russian election interference and possible coordination with associates of President Donald Trump. The Justice Department says Mueller delivered his final report to Attorney General William Barr, who is reviewing it. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Barr's disclosure was a capstone moment following the 22-month investigation that ensnared six former Trump advisers and associates -- but resulted in no indictments related to collusion with Russia.
The letter promised to settle some of the largest outstanding questions of the Mueller investigation, even as Democrats on Sunday vowed to press on with other investigations, and members of both parties continued to push for the public release of as much of the Mueller report as possible.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Sunday that he believed there remained “significant evidence of collusion” linking the Russian government with President Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Schiff said Democrats might subpoena Mueller if the full report is not released.
House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., speaking to "Fox News Sunday," insisted, "So we know a lot of things and maybe it’s not indictable, but we know there was collusion. The question is the degree."
Special Counsel Robert Mueller, and his wife, Ann, leaving St. John's Episcopal Church, across from the White House, in Washington on Sunday. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)
Special Counsel Robert Mueller, and his wife, Ann, leaving St. John's Episcopal Church, across from the White House, in Washington on Sunday. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)
Democrat congressional leaders scrambled to respond to the end of the Mueller probe this weekend, holding an emergency conference call and discussing potential next steps.
A top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee conceded to reporters Saturday that Barr's release of Mueller's conclusions likely would be a cause for celebration among President Trump's supporters -- many of whom have stood by the president for more than two years amid a torrent of unproven allegations that the Trump campaign illegally worked with Russia to influence the 2016 election.
WATCH THE MEDIA MELTDOWN OVER MUELLER REPORT -- WAS MADDOW CRYING?
"It's the end of the beginning but it's not the beginning of the end," Delaware Sen. Chris Coons said, echoing his party's strategy of moving forward on to other investigations, including probes into Trump's financial dealings. "Once we get the principal conclusions of the report," he added later, "I think it's entirely possible that that will be a good day for the president and his core supporters."
Along those lines, Nadler said that Democrats would continue their efforts.
"The job of Congress is much broader than the job of the special counsel," Nadler said. "The special counsel is looking and can only look for crimes. We have to protect the rule of law, we have to look for abuses of power, we have to look for obstructions of justice, we have to look for corruption in the exercise of power which may not be crimes."
But House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Doug Collins, R-Ga., speaking to "Fox News Sunday," argued that Democrats were unlikely to uncover anything Mueller could not.
"As we’ve seen in the first two months of this Congress, [Democrats] really don’t have a policy agenda," Collins said. "They have an agenda against the President. They have an agenda to try and win 2020. And so, what we’re seeing is, they think that they can go into the Judiciary Committee or any other committee and have a limited budget, limited subpoena power, limited staff and go up against an investigation that lasted 22 months, had unlimited power, unlimited subpoena power, had plenty of investigators -- and they think they can find something more than what they did, then I think they’re sadly mistaken."
A former senior law enforcement official echoed those remarks, telling Fox News that Democrats would lack key investigative powers that Mueller had, including the ability to convene grand juries -- and that Nadler's path amounted to trying to criminalize meetings with foreign actors that the special counsel apparently determined were simply not criminal.
Was press too invested in probe toppling Trump?
Was press too invested in probe toppling Trump?
Pundits split over attacking Trump or investigators.
“With all the talk of the Democrats intensifying their House investigations," the former official said, it was important to note that "unlike Special Counsel Mueller, Congress and the [DOJ Inspector General] cannot convene grand juries and initiate prosecutions. If Mueller couldn't find collusion or conspiracy with every investigative tool, what do the Democrats expect to accomplish?"
Some conservatives, meanwhile, argued that Democrats should come under increased scrutiny for their contacts with foreign nationals. Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) hired the firm Fusion GPS, which employed Britsh ex-spy Christopher Steele to produce an anti-Trump dossier that the FBI used to justify the surveillance a top Trump aide and kickstart the Russia probe -- even as text messages exclusively obtained by Fox News this week revealed that the DOJ seemingly raised "repeated" concerns that Steele, whose anti-Trump views are now widely known, was politically biased.
The Trump aide, Carter Page, has not been charged with any wrongdoing, although the FBI initially alleged he had conspired with Russians.
On Sunday, Ohio GOP Rep. Jim Jordan said Sunday that if the Mueller report is disclosed publicly, then all documents relating to it should also be published -- including the complete Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant application to monitor Page.
"We have asked for that information to be made public a long time ago,” Jordan said in a televised interview.
In a show of confidence, for his part, Trump waved and flashed two thumbs up to supporters as he returned to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Saturday. The entertainer Kid Rock later uploaded a photograph of his golf outing with Trump earlier in the day.
On Sunday morning, Trump broke an unusual, nearly 40-hour-long Twitter silence, writing simply, "Good Morning, Have A Great Day!"
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He added, minutes later: "MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"
This is a breaking story. Check back for updates.
Fox News' Jake Gibson at the Justice Department and Chris Wallace contributed to this report.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/barr-releases-letter-summarizing-muellers-key-findings-after-long-running-russia-probe
Whew...LOL
I love Barnes but one thing he used to do at Texas was get conservative with a lead in the second half.
Yep watched it...Rick Barnes is a great coach...knew he would do well at Tenn...in his home State...woot well played in OT Tenn...
Ahh I have Purdue
back in a bit...a few things to do.
Awesome