WTF Community

Day 831

General Discussion
#1

Updated 4/30/2019 1:38 PM PDT

1/ Justice Department and the House Judiciary Committee are at an impasse over Attorney General William Barr's scheduled testimony. Barr is set to testify about his handling of the conclusions reached by Robert Mueller on Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee and Thursday before the House Judiciary committee. The House hearing, however, is now in doubt over a dispute about who would question Barr. Democrats want part of the questioning be conducted by the panel's Democratic and Republican staff attorneys. Justice Department officials have threatened to cancel Barr's appearance over the proposed format. House Democratic staffers, meanwhile, have threatened to subpoena the attorney general if he refuses to appear. House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler added that the Justice Department seemed to be "very afraid" to have Barr answer questions from committee staff attorneys. (Washington Post / Politico / CNN / Axios)

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2019/04/30/day-831/
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The Impeachment of President Donald J. Trump
#2

Way cool! :clap:

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#4

It may be hard to prove, because many of these workers did not keep records, but the pervasive culture of abusing their workers and not paying all they should was evident.

Politics

At Trump golf course, undocumented employees said they were sometimes told to work extra hours without pay

One former manager from the Westchester club, who said he thought the undocumented workers at the club were exploited, described an environment where — in managers’ meetings — it was clear that supervisors not only knew these workers lacked authentic documents but used that information to meet the company’s cost-cutting goals.

The former manager said that “The City” — the club’s word for bosses at Trump Tower in Manhattan — was constantly demanding a reduction in overtime costs.

The solution, going back a decade at least, the former manager said, was to pressure the undocumented workers.

“You want to be here? Don’t clock in for overtime,” the former manager said, paraphrasing the message to these workers. “Clock out, and work off the clock.”

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#5

Legislation that would allow U.S. congressional committees to ask for President Donald Trump’s state tax returns is a step closer to getting a vote in New York’s Democrat-controlled Senate.

A state Senate committee voted Tuesday to advance the bill. The chamber’s Democratic leaders say they expect a floor vote next week.

The measure would authorize New York’s Tax Department to release state tax returns to a congressional committee if requested.

The sooner, the better. :mag_right: :balance_scale:

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#6

Today’s meeting with Chuck and Nancy was about working together, and very little was said or mentioned about the House/Senate’s ongoing investigations about the President. The main top which gets revisited a lot was for "Infrastructure Week…and it was meant to appear as if it was ‘business as usual.’

“It’s hard to understand the strategy behind throwing Trump a lifeline with a symbolic photo op on a bill that probably won’t happen and normalizing him at the very moment that he’s thumbing his nose at committee chairs trying to exercise their constitutional oversight responsibilities,” said Adam Jentleson, a former top aide to now-retired Senate majority leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.).
…
Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said that by their next meeting, Trump must show his cards on exactly how he would pay for the package. That could be when any possibility of an infrastructure deal could collapse.

Until then, they appeared perfectly content to keep up the facade that everyone is getting along just fine.

“The House and the Senate can proceed in [their] oversight responsibilities,” Schumer said. “The two are not mutually exclusive, and we were glad he didn’t make it that way.”

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#7

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III wrote a letter in late March complaining to Attorney General William P. Barr that a four-page memo to Congress describing the principal conclusions of the investigation into President Trump “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of Mueller’s work, according to a copy of the letter reviewed Tuesday by The Washington Post.

[…]
Days after Barr’s announcement, Mueller wrote a previously unknown private letter to the Justice Department, which revealed a degree of dissatisfaction with the public discussion of Mueller’s work that shocked senior Justice Department officials, according to people familiar with the discussions.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/mueller-complained-that-barrs-letter-did-not-capture-context-of-trump-probe/2019/04/30/d3c8fdb6-6b7b-11e9-a66d-a82d3f3d96d5_story.html?utm_term=.ed5a0211a875

The letter adds to the growing evidence of a rift between them and is another sign of the anger among the special counsel’s investigatorsabout Mr. Barr’s characterization of their findings, which allowed Mr. Trump to wrongly claim he had been vindicated.

It was unclear what specific objections Mr. Mueller raised in his letter. Mr. Barr defended his descriptions of the investigation’s conclusions in conversations with Mr. Mueller over the days after he sent the letter, according to two people with knowledge of their discussions.

:pushpin: Day 805: Robert Mueller’s investigators gathered “alarming and significant” evidence of obstruction by Trump that was “much more acute than [Attorney General William] Barr suggested” in his four-page letter to Congress. Members of the special counsel team told associates they believe their findings are potentially more damaging for Trump than Barr explained, and are frustrated that Barr did not adequately portray their work. The team had also prepared summaries for different sections of their 400-page report, which Barr did not use. Lawyers and FBI agents on Mueller’s team reportedly could not reach an agreement about whether Trump’s conduct amounted to obstruction of justice, but Barr, after consulting with Rod Rosenstein, went ahead and cleared Trump. (New York Times / Washington Post / NBC News / Bloomberg)

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🔍 All things Mueller - What we know he has on Trump 'n Co
#8

:boom: This is huge! This is what we suspected all along. Can’t wait for Mueller to testify. We need that scheduled ASAP.

Next question: Did Barr shut down Mueller’s investigation? He may not have done so in one fell swoop – instead, he might have started throwing up one obstacle after another so that, at some point, Mueller felt he had no choice but to wrap it up. This is pure speculation on my part – but I will suspect that it is the case until I hear otherwise directly from the lips of Robert Mueller.

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#9

Twitter chatter:

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#10

It is a :boom: moment.

I do not think that Barr forced Mueller’s hand on the investigation. The fact that Mueller started to off load his various open cases “Stone” etc was perhaps by design. Mueller’s purpose was to investigate crimes, not prosecute them. Mueller acted quickly and saw an end point I believe, which was he could not indict a sitting president, saw no conspiracy that charges could (or might) be brought and Mueller did see questionable, Non-exonerable actions that Barr tried to gloss over.

Mueller is a stand up guy and won’t stand for it.

And the 12 other referred cases within the Mueller Report remains a mystery.

Seems like Mueller is reacting bolding (we are now finding out) to Barr switching the tone and tenor of the Mueller Report. And many reporters saw that coming.

Looks like we have Mueller slated for a hearing. Most excellent. :boom:

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#11

House Judiciary Committee Chair Nadler on Twitter

Click tweet for video of AG lying to Congress :point_down:

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#12

In recent months, U.S. national security officials have been preparing for Russian interference in the 2020 presidential race by tracking cyber threats, sharing intelligence about foreign disinformation efforts with social media companies and helping state election officials protect their systems against foreign manipulation.

But these actions are strikingly at odds with statements from President Trump, who has rebuffed warnings from his senior aides about Russia and sought to play down that country’s potential to influence American politics.

The president’s rhetoric and lack of focus on election security has made it tougher for government officials to implement a more comprehensive approach to preserving the integrity of the electoral process, current and former officials said.

Officials insist that they have made progress since 2016 in hardening defenses. And top security officials, including the director of national intelligence, say the president has given them “full support” in their efforts to counter malign activities. But some analysts worry that by not sending a clear, public signal that he understands the threat foreign interference poses, Trump is inviting more of it.

…
We are always worried about more hacking, social media influence and find that our leaders are not doing much to protect elections and misinformation campaigns. Why? Because it obviously is an advantage to T and the R’s.

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III called Russia’s 2016 operations “sweeping and systematic,” and noted in his report on Russian interference in the campaign that his office passed information about possible counterintelligence value to the FBI, as part of the bureau’s mission to impede foreign spies in the United States. Officials have said that work continues, separate from the special counsel’s now-closed investigation.

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#13

And another reprimand…Impeachment for Barr suggestion.

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🗳 2020 Primary Election
#14
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#15

Take just 2 and half minutes and watch these searing statements from Blumenthal. He is hopping mad. He minces no words and flat out accuses Barr of lying to the American people on multiple occasions. He closes by declaring Barr is unfit to serve as Attorney General.

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#16

This topic was automatically closed 15 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.

#3

100% this :point_down:

:raised_hands: :raised_hands: :raised_hands:

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