U.S. Department of Justice
When I first looked at that line I thought, "How odd. They didn't clean up the top of the page." See, I find things like that significant. I don't ever recall opening up a government document presented to the public in such a haphazard way. I would expect other people thought the same thing. It is a work document. It is not a finished product. It makes me believe Barr insisted on a quick conclusion. I think it was a very big mistake to provide such a "rough" document to the public. Barr really should have let the Special Council finish it's work.
I don't even think it is a final draft of the final product. Below is the law of which appears at the top of the first page with a line through it.
Disclosure of materials (click here) covered by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e) may be made without a court order "to an attorney for the government for use in the performance of such attorney's duty." See Fed. R. Crim. P. 6(e)(3)(A)(i). "Attorney for the government" is defined in Fed. R. Crim. P. 1(b).
Rule 6(e)(3)(A)(i) does not authorize disclosure to attorneys for other Federal government agencies. See United States v. Bates, 627 F.2d 349, 351 (D.C.Cir. 1980). Nor is disclosure permitted under this section to attorneys for States or local governments. In re Holovachka, 317 F.2d 834 (7th Cir. 1963); Corona Construction Co. v. Ampress Brick Co., Inc., 376 F. Supp. 598 (N.D.Ill. 1974).
Rule 6(e)(2), Fed.R.Crim.P., prohibits "an attorney for the government" from disclosing matters occurring before a grand jury, except as otherwise provided in the rules. Rule 1(b), Fed.R.Crim.P., defines "attorney for the government" to include as the Attorney General, an authorized assistant of the Attorney General, a United States Attorney, an authorized assistant of a United States Attorney, and certain other persons in cases arising under the laws of Guam. In United States v. Forman, 71 F.3d 1214 (6th Cir. 1995), the court of appeals held that an attorney employed in the Tax Division of the Department of Justice who had gained access to grand jury materials but had not been assigned to review the materials or to participate in the grand jury proceedings was not "an attorney for the government" because he was not an "authorized" assistant to the Attorney General with respect to the grand jury materials that he disclosed to the target of the investigation....
That highlighted line is the real issue with the redactions. There are ongoing grand juries. We don't know who is handling them. We do know that Robert Mueller within the Special Council handed the grand juries to others. I really want to know who is carrying out these grand juries. I don't trust Barr as far as I spit and I don't spit.
Such disclosures can take place in OVERSIGHT by the US House and/or US Senate in closed session. The Judiciary Committees of both houses can receive the information. They can provide guidance to any corruption being conducted.
"Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In the 2016 Presidential Election"
That is one heck of an interesting title. Imagine that. Russia wants to control the USA government from the Executive Branch. That should make every American plenty nervous.
Volume I or II
(Volume one of two - in case someone doesn't know their Roman Numerals.)
Special Council Robert S. Mueller, III
Submitted Pursuant to 28 C.F.R. § 600.8(c)
Washington, D.C.
March 2019
Fairly straight forward stuff. He put his name on it.
Page 2 is blank with the same header as page 1.
Page 3 begins the Table of Contents with the same header as page 1. The Table of Contents of Volume 1 looks really interesting. The Special Council even discusses the in Part 2, Section A, the Russian Internet Research Agency known by the acronym IRA. Wow. He went into a lot of detail in examining the mechanisms Russia used to break into the USA election of 2016. No stone unturned, I suppose. That sounds like Mueller.
The table of contents is numbered in small Roman numerals. Page numbers i thought v. That is translated as page number 1 through 5.
There are redactions in the table of contents. Those redactions are in black to block the words and are marked "HOM" or Harm To Ongoing Matter. There are nine redactions in the table of contents. I think there is knowledge of some of those Grand Juries. There are Russians and friends of Trump. The sentencing of Michael Flynn has yet to be decided.
...He and his team (click here) indicted twenty-five Russians and secured the convictions or guilty pleas of several Trump campaign officials for lying in connection with the investigation, including campaign chairman Paul Manafort, top deputy Rick Gates, campaign advisers Michael Flynn and George Papadopoulos, and Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen. Trump’s longtime friend Roger Stone faces multiple criminal charges arising out of his attempts to conceal his contacts with WikiLeaks....
I don't recall hearing much about Rick Gates, except, he was cooperating.
There is a blank page after the table of contents with the same header as the rest of the pages and like page one. Then the introduction begins on page 1. The title page isn't really page 1. It is just the beginning of the report. Just to be clear.
Computer link (click here)
"Introduction to Volume I"
...The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion. Evidence of Russian government operations began to surface in mid-2016. In June, the Democratic National Committee and its cyber response team publicly announced that Russian hackers had compromised its computer network. Releases of hacked materials-hacks that public reporting soon attributed to the Russian government-began that same month. Additional releases followed in July through the organization WikiLeaks, with further releases in October and November.
I remember that. It was more than alarming. Then it shows up in Wikileaks.
In late July 2016, soon after WikiLeaks's first release of stolen documents, a foreign government contacted the FBI about a May 2016 encounter with Trump Campaign foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos. Papadopoulos had suggested to a representative of that foreign government that the Trump Campaign had received indications from the Russian government that it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information damaging to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. That information prompted the FBI on July 31, 2016, to open an investigation into whether individuals associated with the Trump Campaign were coordinating with the Russian government in its interference activities....
So this is the stuff Barr wants to say is illegitimate and the investigation should have never taken place. Is he communist, too? It sure sounds like it. There is no reason to question the integrity of this investigation or the investigation started by James Comey before the Special Council. The entire country knew about the hacking of the DNCC and the Clinton Campaign. That alone is enough to bring about an investigation to find out how the 2016 election was compromised.
The American people don't have the details as to how the investigation began with Papadopoulos. Did the FBI agents come first or did the foreign intelligence service supplying the information about Papadopoulos come first? The important thing is that there is a connection, criminal of course, but difficult to substantiate, between Russia and Trump and his campaign. Heck, Manafort alone made every intelligence officer in any country crazy.
Barr has absolutely no reason to raise doubt to the integrity of this report or the methods that occurred to achieve it. There were red flags everywhere. It was right and necessary. Just because Barr wants to practice politics from the AG office rather than law doesn't make him god.
This introduction states there was a foreign government representative that received information about the connection between Trump and Russia. It would have been completely incompetent of the FBI to ignore such a report. They had to act and seemed to have sent in their own agents to probe the veracity of the facts.
It is all good intelligence work.
...That fall, two federal agencies jointly announced that the Russian government "directed recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including US political organizations," and, " [t]hese thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process." After the election, in late December 2016, the United States imposed sanctions on Russia for having interfered in the election. By early 2017, several congressional committees were examining Russia's interference in the election....
Redundancy is always good. A single agency of the USA would have status, but, two federal agencies were chiming into the facts. An investigation was imminent. There is no reason for Barr to seek to undermine the legitimacy of the investigation or the people that investigated. All the reasons for this investigation are sound, legally and morally. Russia threatened USA sovereignty. End of discussion.
I am going to fix myself a cup of tea.
continued on next entry
