Woodward is spreading lies here

[malaise]

Mueller did not say that the Con didn't commit crimes - on the contrary he said he could not clear him.

[triron]

1. Woodward is either senile or become a Trump defender.

Ari Melber keeps pushing the narrative that volume 1 was good news for Trump. Damn he makes me angry!

[dawg day]

2. We should all tweet that to Woodward--

"Mueller did not say that the Con didn't commit crimes - on the contrary he said he could not clear him."

[kentuck]

3. Something to the effect:

"If we had confidence that the President was not guilty of any crimes, we would have so stated."

[Hoyt]

4. Woodward said Mueller did not find trump campaign conspired/coordinated with Russians.

That, unfortunately, is true and Mueller says it numerous times in his report.

Wood was careful to separate that from Obstruction.

[Atticus]

9. Yes, technically that is true, but he did NOT find that Trump did NOT conspire with the Russians.

As Seth Abramson points out in his recent Newsweek piece, Mueller found that there was insufficient evidence to show that Trump and his people 1.) KNEW IN ADVANCE of Russia's hacking and propaganda campaign, AND 2.) sought to assist them in their efforts.

As Abramson explains, no one asked that narrow question.

Why the carefully worded "finding" unless necessary to protect Trump?

[Hoyt]

12. Well, now, if we want to impugn Mueller for doing a crappy job and wimping out, I'm with you. But,

But, I don't think it is going to go over with your average Jane/Joe that the investigator was part of the cover up. I think they will take Mueller's words at face value, which is a shame.

Personally, I think Mueller ought to be run out of the country, at least shunned, and he should have to return any payment for his investigation.

[lame54]

11. Although there were many contacts between Trumps team and the Russians...

Mueller couldn't pull it together because they were so good at obstructing

[Hoyt]

13. Then, he should have said, "Our investigation could not identify evidence because of obstruction."

He didn't say that. In 21 instances he said flatly, the investigation "identified no evidence . . . . . ." In other cases he let them off the hook. For example, Kushner and Junior were let off the hook for trump tower meeting because Mueller said they were too stupid (my paraphrase) to have the required intent to violate the law.

[lame54]

14. Obviously he should have done a lot of things differently

[DeminPennswoods]

20. The report DOES say that

It explicitly states investigators were not able to get the full story because witnesses lied, witnesses would not co-operate fully (refused to answer) and witnesses used encrypted email/text or deleted relevent emails/text messages.

[Hoyt]

22. It says it in one place and then in over 20 places they totally absolve trump campaign of

responsibility.

It was like a disclaimer, and pretty weak. Here's what he said:

"Accordingly, while this report embodies factual and legal determinations that the Office believes to be accurate and complete to the greatest extent possible, given these identified gaps, the Office cannot rule out the possibility that the unavailable information would shed additional light on (or cast in a new light) the events described in the report."

Unfortunately, Mueller says over and over that "the investigation did not identify evidence . . . . . ." and "the investigation did not establish that the Trump Campaign coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."

If only he had said -- "However, it is HIGHLY LIKELY if witnesses were more forthcoming, etc. . . . . . ." He didn't say that.

[wiggs]

16. He found he DID coordinate with Russians. nt

[Hoyt]

17. Nope. Read the report.

[rockfordfile]

18. Mueller is a republican.

[eleny]

5. And Ari Melber didn't even push back on that in the slightest

Ari has leapt down smaller throats than Woodward's.

[malaise]

6. That was the worst part

And the fact that he is so good at interrupting guests made it worse.

[eleny]

7. I was wiaiting for him to clarify the point politely but all we got was a crummy commercial

[pnwmom]

19. Yes -- that bothered me more than Republican Woodward peddling those lies.

Melber should have called him on it.

[Mike Nelson]

8. I did get the impression, however...

… that Woodward did believe there were crimes - maybe not impeachable... Also, that the evidence was not a strong as it was against Nixon. And most importantly, Woodward seemed to think more investigation would be fruitful.

[malaise]

10. He did want Dems to keep digging

On that we agree

[Kid Berwyn]

15. Was solidly fixing the future fascist narrative.

Robert Redford made no mention of evidence detailing conspiracy with Russia Mueller did find, was pursuing, then was frustrated from prosecuting by Barr.

[shraby]

21. I heard him too malaise. I left him behind as a weasel when he wrote the

puff piece on g.w. bush.
I made it through part of chapter one and took the book back to the library.

[Trumpocalypse]

23. Woodward is a Republican

Always has been. Once when Carl Bernstein was asked who at the Washington Post was an advocate for the Nixon White House, Bernstein without hesitation answered Bob Woodward.