Everything hits the fan ahead of William Barr’s press conference
Donald Trump’s corrupt Attorney General William Barr is holding a press conference tomorrow morning about the Mueller report, which he’ll then release in heavily – and presumably dishonestly – redacted form. This development comes even as a number of things related to the Mueller probe hit the fan behind the scenes, on what’s turning out to be a chaotic evening.
First came the news, from the New York Times, that Barr’s Department of Justice has been illegally discussing the Mueller report with Donald Trump’s White House ahead of its release. This represents felony obstruction of justice on the part of Barr, Trump, and anyone at the DOJ and White House who participated in the discussions. This opens the door for House Democrats to impeach Trump and Barr both, and for Barr to be criminally indicted after Trump is gone. But first things first, because this evening’s news cycle keeps exploding.
Donald Trump’s personally loyal Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with Barr this afternoon, according to ABC News. If the two of them were strategizing over tomorrow’s redacted release of the Mueller report, then Pompeo arguably also just entered into a felony conspiracy to obstruct justice. But the news gets stranger. Days ago, Roger Stone asked for an unredacted copy of the Mueller report, arguing that he needs it in order to prepare his legal defense. Today the DOJ informed Stone and the judge that certain members of Congress will receive a version of the Mueller report that includes the portions that were redacted due to the ongoing nature of Stone’s trial. Make of that whatever you will.
The bottom line is that this whole thing is quickly turning into even more of a crapfest than we thought. If there’s an upside, it’s that with Donald Trump’s people scrambling this frantically behind the scenes just before the release of the redacted Mueller report, even the redacted version must be pretty awful for Trump. Otherwise his people wouldn’t be scheming like this to try to put so much spin on it. And yeah, House Democrats need to bring impeachment charges against William Barr as soon as humanly possible.
