The end of the sited paragraph from page 9 had "Harm to Ongoing Matter" at the end. I think it is obvious what the ongoing matter is. It is the Russians indictments. It isn't appropriate, when reading this document, to stop thinking because the words "Harm to Ongoing Matter" appears in the document. It is easy to know what the topic is being discussed at that point. What we don't know is the content of that section. The methods used by the Special Council in including those words provide for containment of the knowledge of the public. But, the public doesn't have to go brain dead because of those words.
Second, while the investigation identified numerous links between individuals with ties to
the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign, the evidence was
not sufficient to support criminal charges. Among other things, the evidence was not sufficient to
charge any Campaign official as an unregistered agent of the Russian government or other Russian
principal. And our evidence about the June 9, 2016 meeting and WikiLeaks' s releases of hacked
materials was not sufficient to charge a criminal campaign-finance violation. Further, the evidence
was not sufficient to charge that any member of the Trump Campaign conspired with
representatives of the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 election.
"...was not sufficient..." is the dominating understanding of that paragraph. Many of the members of the Trump Campaign have been charged with other crimes. Just because these particular crimes weren't charged doesn't mean there were no crimes. There were plenty of crimes.
"...was not sufficient..." IS NOT AN INNOCENT FINDING.
I might add, in not charging those crimes, there is still plenty of room down the road to charge people with crimes should there be more evidence or a repeat of the crimes. By not charging crimes at this time PRESERVES the evidence the Special Council found in case it could be helpful in the future.
Third, the investigation established that several individuals affiliated with the Trump
Campaign lied to the Office, and to Congress, about their interactions with Russian-affiliated
individuals and related matters. Those lies materially impaired the investigation of Russian
election interference. The Office charged some of those lies as violations of the federal false statements statute. Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying about
his interactions with Russian Ambassador Kislyak during the transition period. George
Papadopoulos, a foreign policy advisor during the campaign period, pleaded guilty to lying to
investigators about, inter alia (among other things), the nature and timing of his interactions with Joseph Mifsud, the
professor who told Papadopoulos that the Russians had dirt on candidate Clinton .in the form of
thousands of emails. Former Trump Organization attorney Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to
making false statements to Congress about the Trump Moscow project.
Harm to Ongoing Matter
And in Febraury 2019, the US District Court of Columbus found that Manafort lied to the Office and the grand jury concerning his interactions and communications
with Konstantin Kilimnik about Trump Campaign polling data and a peace plan for Ukraine.
Be clear, Konstantin Kilimnik was discussing plans for the future of Ukraine and in that understanding, polling data was provided to Kilimnik. Kilimnik wasn't anybody. He brought no special skills to the election. He wasn't a paid staffer. He was a Russian tied to Putin. Isn't everyone in Russia tied to Putin? There was no particular reason for Kilimnik to have these discussions to win over confidence with Manafort about Ukraine. Ukraine had a peace plan which Vladimir Putin ended with Russia's invasion and annexation of Crimea.
Got that?
Crimea was a sovereign state and an important part of Ukraine and Russia stole it. The elections in Crimea were bogus. The people of Crimea never had a valid vote on Russia's annexation. Russia stole an entire state of Ukraine illegally. Simply took it because it could, not because it should. Even with all those facts staring Manafort in the face, Kilimnik became a trusted person to share campaign data with to effect the elections.
Got that?
The information passed on to Kilimnik effected the outcome of the USA elections of 2019. There was no other reason for Kilimnik to have that information and it had absolutely nothing to do with Ukraine. Supposedly, the reason for the corruption into the election of 2016 was that ONLY Donald Trump could bring peace to Ukraine. That hasn't happened and it won't happen. There have been peace treaties brokered by other COUNTRIES to end the violence/civil war in Ukraine. Every treaty was violated by Putin in never ending the civil war at Russia's border with Ukraine. PUTIN NEVER ENDED the conflict in the face to a signed peace treaty. Instead, he continued to fuel the civil war with munition supplies to the insurgents in Eastern Ukraine. There is every indication, Putin had no intention to actually honor the peace treaties.
***
The Office investigated several other events that have been publicly reported to involve
potential Russia-related contacts. For example, the investigation established that interactions
between Russian Ambassador Kislyak and Trump Campaign officials both at the candidate's April
2016 foreign policy speech in Washington, D.C., and during the week of the Republican National
Convention were brief, public, and non-substantive. And the investigation did not establish that
one Campaign official's efforts to dilute a portion of the Republican Party platform on providing
assistance to Ukraine were undertaken at the behest of candidate Trump or Russia. The
investigation also did not establish that a meeting between Kislyak and Sessions in September
2016 at Sessions's Senate office included any more than a passing mention of the presidential
campaign.
There was non-substantive use of information about anything Russia in the face of meetings with the Russian Ambassador. Trump gave two speeches which would include the way he saw foreign policy under a Trump administration. In those two speeches, there was nothing monumental, significant or respectful. In other words, in the face of meetings with the Russian Ambassador, there was nothing in the speeches that followed indicating the conversations with that ambassador were helpful, new or earth shaking to bring about a good opinion of Trump. There was nothing that would reveal a new peace plan for Ukraine. There was nothing in the speeches that would bring an understanding Trump was able to be a stateman over and above what anyone in the public would know.
THEREFORE, what were the meetings about? It sure wasn't about the state of the world or proposals Trump could expect to be accepted by Putin. That was never going to happen. Trump has no influence with Putin. So, why the meetings? Nothing comes out of his meetings with Putin even today.
The investigation did not always yield admissible information or testimony, or a complete
picture of the activities undertaken by subjects of the investigation. Some individuals invoked
their Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination and were not, in the Office's
judgment, appropriate candidates for grants of immunity. The Office limited its pursuit of other
witnesses and information-such as information known to attorneys or individuals claiming to be
members of the media-in light of internal Department of Justice policies. See, e.g. , JusticeManual§§ 9-13.400, 13.410. (click here) Some of the information obtained via court process, moreover, was
presumptively covered by legal privilege and was screened from investigators by a filter ( or
"taint") team. Even when individuals testified or agreed to be interviewed, they sometimes
provided information that was false or incomplete, leading to some of the false-statements charges
described above. And the Office faced practical limits on its ability to access relevant evidence as
well-numerous witnesses and subjects lived abroad, and documents were held outside the United
States.
That is really cute. The evidence sought by the Special Counsel was held out of reach in other countries. These people are not innocent. Their actions are very nefarious. They were simply out of the reach of USA law because the evidence was withheld in countries the USA could not access.
Further, the Office learned that some of the individuals we interviewed or whose conduct
we investigated-including some associated with the Trump Campaign---deleted relevant
communications or communicated during the relevant period using applications that feature
encryption or that do not provide for long-term retention of data or communications records. In
such cases, the Office was not able to corroborate witness statements through comparison to
contemporaneous communications or fully question witnesses about statements that appeared
inconsistent with other known facts.
These people are not innocent, they are slick. They knew what they were doing in destroying evidence.
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.
The Special Counsel was hobbled in being able to complete a thorough investigation that would no doubt bring about more indictments and convictions.
This ends the Executive Summary of Volume I. When these documents were contested in their handling by Bill Barr, Robert Mueller himself stated at least provide the Introduction and Executive Summaries to the American public.
I will conclude here and will continue at another time in reading the Introduction and Executive Summary of Volume II, BEFORE, I continue reading the rest of the redacted Special Counsel report to the American people.
Thank you for your interest. This is our country. We need to understand it and in that how to best protect it from deceptive people that place themselves above the law because they are wealthy and/or powerful.
