MY THOUGHTS ON THE MUELLER INVESTIGATION
AND HIS PRESS CONFERENCE
An Unethical End
to an Unethical Investigation
with An Unethical Beginning
by Ursula Stegall
I do not trust this investigation at all. What were they doing for 2 years? They were supposed to investigate Russian interference in the election and whether the campaign colluded. Did they investigate how Russia interfered? Or did they just take the previous narrative that supposedly was agreed upon by 17 intelligence divisions.
Mueller stated in the Press conference,
'As alleged by the grand jury in an indictment, Russian intelligence officers who are part of the Russian military, launched a concerted attack on our political system. The indictment alleges that they used sophisticated cybertechniques to hack into computers and networks used by the Clinton campaign. They stole private information and then released that information through fake online identities and through the organization WikiLeaks.'
The information released by wikileaks are Hillary's emails. Isn't the investigation supposed to determine if there is evidence to support what is alledged in the indictment?
How in the world did they determine the DNC server was hacked if the FBI never got to examine the server? Did Mueller examine the server or did they just take the previous narrative determined by who? Crowdstrike and all the ties to Hillary? The emails were a result of a leak - not a hack! Exactly what were they doing for 2 years? They were obviously not investigating the email part of the narrative. What were they looking into on that part of the investigation ? ...People from Russia buying ads on Facebook? That is not illegal. .Didn't they need to determine exactly how Russia may have interfered before they could determine whether trump colluded with the interference? Russia did not give the emails to wikileaks as the Mueller report stated . Assange had already said that they did not get them from Russia or any state actor.. The investigation did not even address that nor did they say how they determined their conclusion that Russia did give them to Wikileaks . It seems like there must have been a whole lot of milking the clock and taking a paycheck in those 2 years. Much of the reason for the special counsel and this entire investigation was based on a false narrative . Even if they did not realize the 'mistakes' that contributed to the errors in the narrative., the errors should have been uncovered fairly early in the investigation.
It seems much more likely that the investigation was politically motivated It was not started because there was evidence indicating that a crime may have been committed . Instead the investigation was started in order to look for and find a crime somewhere.
The whole thing began in an unethical manner.The special counsel was appointed as a result of Comey illegally leaking memos to his friend in order to get them to the press in hopes that a special counsel would BE appointed.
It ended with Mueller's press conference where he made what I consider to be an extremely divisive and unethical statement that distorts our system of justice. It is a statement that is unbecoming a prosecutor commenting on ANY investigation let alone the Special counsel concerning an investigation of the President of the United States of America.
"The order appointing me special counsel authorized us to investigate actions that could obstruct the investigation. We conducted that investigation, and we kept the office of the acting attorney general apprised of the progress of our work. And as set forth in the report, after that investigation, if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime."
It is not Mueller's job to determine innocence. Innocence does not have to be proven in our system of justice. INNOCENCE IS PRESUMED! He had no business making a statement about the president's innocence implying that they could not prove and were not satisfied that he was innocent. They would have said so if they thought he was innocent. That is AN UNETHICAL DISTORTION of how our system of justice works. It is Mueller's job to decide if there is enough evidence to indict which usually means from a prosecutors standpoint that there is enough evidence to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. He was supposed to make the decision about the evidence he had as he was the one who did the investigation. But he cowardly and irresponsibly passed the buck to his bosses.
Mueller's press conference smacks of his bias against the president and a divisive political agenda to pass the investigation to the house and open the door for impeachment proceedings:
--commenting that if they would have been satisfied that the president was innocent , they would have said so
--Not making a decision on the evidence and saying the reason, a reason that was not made clear in his report, was because of the long standing policy that a sitting president cannot be indicted does not make sense. By that logic why would there be an investigation at all? Such a policy does not relieve him of the responsibility of making a decision on the evidence and whether there is enough to indict'.
-- saying that there were other processes for dealing with the president if a crime had been committed implying that the other processes would have to take it from there.
Very unethical way to end this investigation!
Sounds like this may indeed have been a witch hunt and the hunt is still going.
AND THIS WHOLE THIS IS LOOKING MORE AND MORE LIKE A TREASONOUS CHARADE! HOW LONG DO WE HAVE TO LET THIS THINLY VEILED COUP ATTEMPT TO REMOVE A DULY ELECTED PRESIDENT BECAUSE HE IS INTERFERING WITH YOUR GLOBALISTS GOALS TO FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORM THIS COUNTRY GO ON?????
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TRANSCRIPT OF MUELLER'S PRESS CONFERENCE
ROBERT S. MUELLER III, the special counsel: Good morning, everyone, and thank you for being here. Two years ago, the acting attorney general asked me to serve as special counsel and he created the special counsel’s office. The appointment order directed the office to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. This included investigating any links or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump campaign.
Now, I have not spoken publicly during our investigation. I am speaking out today because our investigation is complete. The attorney general has made the report on our investigation largely public. We are formally closing the special counsel’s office, and as well, I’m resigning from the Department of Justice to return to private life. I’ll make a few remarks about the results of our work. But beyond these few remarks, it is important that the office’s written work speak for itself. Let me begin where the appointment order begins, and that is interference in the 2016 presidential election.
As alleged by the grand jury in an indictment, Russian intelligence officers who are part of the Russian military, launched a concerted attack on our political system. The indictment alleges that they used sophisticated cybertechniques to hack into computers and networks used by the Clinton campaign. They stole private information and then released that information through fake online identities and through the organization WikiLeaks.
The releases were designed and timed to interfere with our election and to damage a presidential candidate. And at the same time, as the grand jury alleged in a separate indictment, a private Russian entity engaged in a social media operation, where Russian citizens posed as Americans in order to influence an election. These indictments contain allegations, and we are not commenting on the guilt or the innocence of any specific defendant. Every defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
The indictments allege, and the other activities in our report describe, efforts to interfere in our political system. They needed to be investigated and understood. And that is among the reasons why the Department of Justice established our office. That is also a reason we investigated efforts to obstruct the investigation. The matters we investigated were of paramount importance. It was critical for us to obtain full and accurate information from every person we questioned. When a subject of an investigation obstructs that investigation or lies to investigators, it strikes at the core of their government’s effort to find the truth and hold wrongdoers accountable.
Let me say a word about the report. The report has two parts, addressing the two main issues we were asked to investigate. The first volume of the report details numerous efforts emanating from Russia to influence the election. This volume includes a discussion of the Trump campaign’s response to this activity, as well as our conclusion that there was insufficient evidence to charge a broader conspiracy. And in the second volume, the report describes the results and analysis of our obstruction of justice investigation involving the president.
The order appointing me special counsel authorized us to investigate actions that could obstruct the investigation. We conducted that investigation, and we kept the office of the acting attorney general apprised of the progress of our work. And as set forth in the report, after that investigation, if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime.
The introduction to the Volume II of our report explains that decision. It explains that under longstanding department policy, a president cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office. That is unconstitutional. Even if the charge is kept under seal and hidden from public view, that, too, is prohibited. A special counsel’s office is part of the Department of Justice, and by regulation, it was bound by that department policy. Charging the president with a crime was therefore not an option we could consider. The department’s written opinion explaining the policy makes several important points that further informed our handling of the obstruction investigation. Those points are summarized in our report, and I will describe two of them for you.
First, the opinion explicitly permits the investigation of a sitting president, because it is important to preserve evidence while memories are fresh and documents available. Among other things, that evidence could be used if there were co-conspirators who could be charged now.
And second, the opinion says that the Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing. And beyond department policy, we were guided by principles of fairness. It would be unfair to potentially — it would be unfair to potentially accuse somebody of a crime when there can be no court resolution of the actual charge.
So that was Justice Department policy. Those were the principles under which we operated. And from them, we concluded that we would not reach a determination one way or the other about whether the president committed a crime. That is the office’s final position, and we will not comment on any other conclusions or hypotheticals about the president. We conducted an independent criminal investigation and reported the results to the attorney general, as required by department regulations.
The attorney general then concluded that it was appropriate to provide our report to Congress and to the American people. At one point in time, I requested that certain portions of the report be released and the attorney general preferred to make — preferred to make the entire report public all at once and we appreciate that the attorney general made the report largely public. And I certainly do not question the attorney general’s good faith in that decision.
Now, I hope and expect this to be the only time that I will speak to you in this manner. I am making that decision myself. No one has told me whether I can or should testify or speak further about this matter. There has been discussion about an appearance before Congress. Any testimony from this office would not go beyond our report. It contains our findings and analysis and the reasons for the decisions we made. We chose those words carefully, and the work speaks for itself. And the report is my testimony. I would not provide information beyond that which is already public in any appearance before Congress. In addition, access to our underlying work product is being decided in a process that does not involve our office.
So beyond what I’ve said here today and what is contained in our written work, I do not believe it is appropriate for me to speak further about the investigation or to comment on the actions of the Justice Department or Congress. And it’s for that reason I will not be taking questions today, as well.
Now, before I step away, I want to thank the attorneys, the F.B.I. agents, the analysts, the professional staff who helped us conduct this investigation in a fair and independent manner. These individuals who spent nearly two years with the special counsel’s office were of the highest integrity. And I will close by reiterating the central allegation of our indictments, that there were multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our election. And that allegation deserves the attention of every American. Thank you. Thank you for being here today.
