This may be the reason, the cause , of why Mueller fell short.

[shockey80]

We all know Mueller is a straight shooter. We all know he has courage. We all know he goes by the book and will not cross any legal lines. So, what happened?

I believe Mueller feared crossing or even approaching any political line. I believe it played a major role in his decision making. Unfortunately, this moment in history demanded that political lines be crossed.

In his report Mueller basically said this; Yes a crime was committed, I could not charge ANYONE because I felt I could not prove the people committing the crime knew what they were doing was a crime. He was talking about the Trump Tower meeting. He was talking about Trump JR.

If it was you or I in that meeting would Mueller have charged us with crime? I believe Mueller feared charging Trump Jr and maybe Kushner because he feared the political repercussions.

I would bet money there were people on Mueller's team who wanted to indict Trump JR.

Also, I believe the main reason Mueller does not want to testify is because he fears political repercussions. I hope he soon realizes that there is no way around political repercussions.

This moment in history demands political lines must be crossed in order to save our Democracy.

[dchill]

1. Ignorance of the law is no excuse...

...and Mueller doesn't have that excuse, either. Him least of all.

[shockey80]

7. I agree, but that's what Mueller said in his report. It's fucking lame.

Some people wonder why I am so critical of Mueller. I wonder why they don't see what I see.

[mr_lebowski]

8. It is if the law says (or court precedent says, in it's prior enforcement) that willful intent

to violate the law is part and parcel thereof.

Election finance law is often written in a pretty sketchy way, in no small part I'm sure because it was written BY POLITICIANS.

And Muellers explanation was not JUST that it'd be difficult to prove intent, but also that it'd be difficult to establish the WORTH of the Russian's info, given the cutoffs for amount of dollars before election $ violations become actual crimes.

This esp. makes sense given that he doesn't actually KNOW ... what the information would've consisted of. Mueller doesn't have the physical docs.

These laws are written specifically around the concept of physical, tangible value ... currency, hotel costs, restaurant costs, green fees, boxes of Cubans etc. They're not written around the idea of 'information exchanged'.

[Whiskeytide]

10. That's a good point. We have had ...

... laws directed at accepting tangible rewards on the books for a long time. But we have never thought to include expressly prohibitions on accepting information from foreign actors because no one ever thought a serious - nominated - candidate would be a big enough piece of shit to do that. Here again the GOP continues to lower the bar of political decency.

[shockey80]

11. It will take years to pass all the new laws that Trump has made necessary.

[dchill]

17. WORTH? Bottle of beer - $3. Loaf of bread - $2...

Stealing an election? Priceless!

[C_U_L8R]

13. Not knowing the difference between right and wrong is no excuse either

Amorality. Seems to be a Trump family trait.

[dchill]

18. They know the difference...

But they always take the low road. That's amorality on steroids.

[jalan48]

2. I don't think Mueller's a straight shooter. He pimped for Baby Bush's WMDs.

[lark]

3. Yep, when push came to shove, he put the party apparachiks like Barr ahead of the constitution.

He is a Repug before he is an American and that totally sucks for us.

[bahrbearian]

4. This Guy is a straight shooter? He can't even look you in the eye when he lies.

[Little Star]

5. imho.....

That whole Mueller schtick was a waste of tax payer money. Shame on him!

[marylandblue]

6. I think Mueller was chosen because they knew he wouldn't go political.

He's never been political, so he wasn't going to start now.

[Locrian]

9. muellers fundamental problem

is that he thinks he's working in a functional system, and its NOT.

There's "no honorable gentleman from x", there's no ethics, no honnor, etc.

It's a street fight, not a carefully staged Queesnbury rules fight.
Or in trumps case he's literally using the wrestling WWE type approach.

[Thomas Hurt]

12. Mueller pulled his punches and he needs to be on tv under oath answering questions....

why he stopped, undue influence from Barr, the WH, why he lack of investigation of the Trump spawn and Kushner.

He did his press conference wouldn't take questions and seemed emotional worked up about something.

Seems Flynn is about to fn walk. Something stinks.

[FakeNoose]

14. Mueller was stopped by Barr because he was getting too close

Isn't that obvious to everyone? If the investigation had continued Mueller probably would have found everything. As it is he found an awful lot. People are blaming Mueller for ending this, when he had no choice in the matter.

The handling of Michael Flynn is a perfect example, Flynn had way more info that Mueller would have used against Chump and Manafort, maybe Pence too. Secondly we haven't seen Part 3 about the counter espionage, and we probably never will, but things are hidden in there that answer some of the questions about Flynn and the Russians.

[Peace06]

15. Mueller's Integrity

In the Special Counsels regulations, I believe it states that the AG is Mueller's immediate superior. I believe Barr shut down the investigation before Mueller was finished. Rosenstein, Barr, etc. knew Mueller would not talk due to his fierce apolitical stance. I believe Mueller wanted to indict and Barr/Rosenstein refused. This should have been in the report, but so far as we know, it is not. They knew Mueller would play by the rules. In my opinion, they used Muellers integrity against him. Would that surprise anyone?

[Beausoleil]

16. Four main reasons

1. No charges on obstruction due to OLC opinion.

2. No charges on conspiracy mostly because of obstruction in #1.

3. No charges related to campaign finance violations because ignorance of the law is an excuse if you are a politician subject to campaign finance laws written by politicians for politicians.

4. Barr was hired specifically because of his cover-up skills in service of constitutional subversion; he could very well have stopped the investigation.