What we still don't know about the Mueller probe

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Attorney General William P. Barr’s letter to Congress summarizing the findings of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s work was pointed in trying to answer the big-picture questions that have surrounded Mueller’s well-protected investigation.

Did President Trump or his 2016 campaign coordinate/collude/conspire with Russian actors seeking to influence the election? “The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities,” Mueller wrote, according to Barr’s letter.

Did Trump obstruct the investigation into Russian interference? Mueller’s team determined that “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, therefore, “concluded that the evidence developed during the Special Counsel’s investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.”

Beyond those conclusions, there’s not a lot new in what Barr presented. There were some details about the scale of the investigation — 2,800 subpoenas, 500 witnesses — and reemphasis on what Russia actually did, like hacking the Democratic Party and attempting to influence voters over social media. Barr’s letter concludes by stating that he will push to release as much of Mueller’s report as possible, once it has been scrubbed for material that might run afoul of rules barring release of certain material from the grand jury process.

In other words, Barr’s letter was not meant to be exhaustive, and it isn’t. And, as such, it leaves several central questions unanswered — some of which may remain unanswered indefinitely. It’s the nature of conspiracy theorizing, in fact, that even the release of Mueller’s full report would necessarily leave tiny cracks that those unwilling to be persuaded on the subject could try to pry open.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/what-we-still-dont-know-about-the-mueller-probe/ar-BBVaDLT?li=BBnb4R7

[RHMerriman]

1. Good piece by Phil Bump from the WP; thanks for posting

Good piece by Phil Bump from the WP; thanks for posting.

His questions/headers:

How specific is Barr’s language?

What did Mueller say about obstruction of justice?

Who was targeted and why?

What happened to the various threads of the investigation that were left unanswered?

Why did so many people lie about their interactions?