Mueller Squashes Seth Rich Conspiracy Pushed by Hannity

[_Some Schmo]

It marinated a bit .... anyway, Glen Greenwald used to be a practicing lawyer, read the report, and pointed out, step by step how the report found no evidence of collusion.

That's good of him, I suppose, but you don't need to have a lawyer to explain that to you once you realize Mueller wasn't investigating collusion, since collusion in this context isn't a crime.

Funny how so many people have been focused on collusion... except Mueller and his team.

[_Dr Exiled]

I suspect pre-judgment infects a lot of people. What do you think of these articles? They give a counter story that isn't reliant on the fox news circus.

https://consortiumnews.com/2019/03/13/vips-muellers-forensics-free-findings/

https://www.thenation.com/article/rip-russiagate/

https://theintercept.com/2019/04/18/robert-mueller-did-not-merely-reject-the-trumprussia-conspiracy-theories-he-obliterated-them/

You're obviously correct that we can all have pre-judgement issues. Hopefully you didn't read any ill-intent in my comment, none was intended. I generally think you're willing to shift positions, from what I've read from you, I just take this topic as one you're pretty set on.

To your first link, it is an interesting piece, I've read arguments similar in nature before. For me, it comes down to the idea of taking the findings of those involved first hand, especially those with unfettered access to the evidence. You'll forgive me if I don't find VIPS take on the matter to be definitive enough to undo the rest of Muller and the Intelligence Community's findings. Although I respect the perspective of formal intelligence officials, there are some big names on that list, it doesn't outweigh the differing take from the people holding literally the same jobs that those guys once sat in. I would have to believe in either the complete incompetence of the investigative team and US Intelligence Agencies or believe in a complex and wide-ranging conspiracy against Donald Trump. Neither of those narratives seem convincing given the information available. To call back to your earlier point, Assange is about the only person that I think could prove it wasn't Russia. But so far has not done so. Guess we will wait and see on that one.

Your second link was written before we had the full report and appears to be based on Barr's assessment of the report... we now know that was inaccurate.

Your third focuses heavily on collusion, a point that is fine to tackle but that I think is not really the topic at hand here. It totally ignores that the report does finger GRU for the hacking.

Yes, but the FBI never took possession of the DNC server, curiously. It relied on the DNC paid consultants (crowdstrike) to make a mirror for the hack investigation. There is a chain of custody issue there that would be tough to overcome. Given that plus the speed at which the materials were downloaded points to a local, inside job. Perhaps the Russians were involved but not remotely. Also, there is a timeline issue with Guccifer 2.0 as explained here

https://consortiumnews.com/2019/04/18/the-guccifer-2-0-gaps-in-muellers-full-report/

[_Some Schmo]

by the way, I listened to Greenwald on NPR talking about this, and the dude repetitively lied through his teeth. His take was about as nuanced as a shotgun.

[_Dr Exiled]

It marinated a bit .... anyway, Glen Greenwald used to be a practicing lawyer, read the report, and pointed out, step by step how the report found no evidence of collusion.

That's good of him, I suppose, but you don't need to have a lawyer to explain that to you once you realize Mueller wasn't investigating collusion, since collusion in this context isn't a crime.

Funny how so many people have been focused on collusion... except Mueller and his team.

What was he investigating then?

[_Dr Exiled]

by the way, I listened to Greenwald on NPR talking about this, and the dude repetitively lied through his teeth. His take was about as nuanced as a shotgun.

So, where did he lie? Give examples please.

[_Some Schmo]

What was he investigating then?

Criminal conspiracy and obstruction of justice.

[_Some Schmo]

by the way, I listened to Greenwald on NPR talking about this, and the dude repetitively lied through his teeth. His take was about as nuanced as a shotgun.

So, where did he lie? Give examples please.

You're going to make me look up the interview?

Son of a...

Fine. I'll have to find it and get back to you.

[_Some Schmo]

OK, I found it. Here's the first lie I spotted:

But Democrats and proponents of this theory got what they wanted, which is the Mueller investigation, and now most of the Mueller report and his findings. And his findings are that he looked for 22 months as hard as he could and didn’t establish that these theories were true. And we already knew that because not one American was indicted or charged for conspiracy. But he went even beyond that and said the evidence doesn’t establish it.

BS. Manafort was charged with conspiracy. But he only had the insignificant role of Trump's campaign chairman, so who cares, right? Details.

But at the end of the day, the Democrat leaders in the House have already said they’re not going to impeach him over this. And the reason is, is because the question always was: Was Trump trying to stop the investigation because he genuinely believed that they were—it was based on a false conspiracy, or was he trying to stop the investigation because he knew he had done what people were accusing him of doing with the Russians and wanted to cover that up? And the Mueller report concluded it was the first instance: He was try to stop the investigation because he thought it was a sham all along, and therefore, even though he lied and acted improperly, it doesn’t rise to the corrupt intent needed to charge him with obstruction, which is stopping an investigation to prevent your own wrongdoing from being uncovered.

This is a false dichotomy. It's not "either Trump conspired or was mad he was being accused of it." There is a third, most obvious option, which is that he tried to obstruct to avoid exposing the Trump Tower deal and his business connections in Russia.

But the House did its duty, anyway, under the Constitution, which is, if you really believe that Donald Trump committed serious crimes, it’s the constitutional duty of the Democrats in the House to impeach Donald Trump and then present the arguments and the evidence to convince the public that he ought to be removed from office. And they’ve made clear they’re not going to do that. And I think that’s pretty revealing.

Another lie. Democrats made it clear they weren't going to attempt impeachment before the report was released. Right now, it's up in the air.

But in other areas of the report, on collusion, Mueller went much further than that, to say not just that there’s not enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, but that there’s no evidence at all that this happened.

That's all BS from beginning to end. Mueller was never investigating collusion.

I could go on, but reading this interview again is making me nauseous.

[_Xenophon]

Yes, but the FBI never took possession of the DNC server, curiously. It relied on the DNC paid consultants (crowdstrike) to make a mirror for the hack investigation. There is a chain of custody issue there that would be tough to overcome. Given that plus the speed at which the materials were downloaded points to a local, inside job. Perhaps the Russians were involved but not remotely. Also, there is a timeline issue with Guccifer 2.0 as explained here

https://consortiumnews.com/2019/04/18/the-guccifer-2-0-gaps-in-muellers-full-report/

It is odd to me that you see a chain of custody issue with how the FBI investigated things but no possible shortcomings in the 3rd hand investigation done by VIPS in your previous link. The point remains that Muller, the FBI, and others involved are closer to the evidence than anyone else. I know the server point has been debated a few times on here, I'll just dig those up if we want to go round and round on it.

To the Guccifer "issues", I don't see a timeline problem when I compare it to the entirety of the GRU timeline laid out in the Muller report. If you haven't read it yet and are interested I'd recommend starting on page 44 of the pdf and reading through it. Given that we know encrypted communications were sent and that WikiLeaks has a private communication channel they use for leakers, it isn't surprising that we don't have the entire communication chain (the report even notes as such). We do know that the GRU data breaches began as early as April 2016 and we also know that Assange/WikiLeaks had compiled data about Clinton independent of the GRU's efforts. I'm just not seeing how anyone is finding a problem with timing.

The report for reference: https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf

[_Dr Exiled]

Yes, but the FBI never took possession of the DNC server, curiously. It relied on the DNC paid consultants (crowdstrike) to make a mirror for the hack investigation. There is a chain of custody issue there that would be tough to overcome. Given that plus the speed at which the materials were downloaded points to a local, inside job. Perhaps the Russians were involved but not remotely. Also, there is a timeline issue with Guccifer 2.0 as explained here

https://consortiumnews.com/2019/04/18/the-guccifer-2-0-gaps-in-muellers-full-report/

It is odd to me that you see a chain of custody issue with how the FBI investigated things but no possible shortcomings in the 3rd hand investigation done by VIPS in your previous link. The point remains that Muller, the FBI, and others involved are closer to the evidence than anyone else. I know the server point has been debated a few times on here, I'll just dig those up if we want to go round and round on it.

To the Guccifer "issues", I don't see a timeline problem when I compare it to the entirety of the GRU timeline laid out in the Muller report. If you haven't read it yet and are interested I'd recommend starting on page 44 of the pdf and reading through it. Given that we know encrypted communications were sent and that WikiLeaks has a private communication channel they use for leakers, it isn't surprising that we don't have the entire communication chain (the report even notes as such). We do know that the GRU data breaches began as early as April 2016 and we also know that Assange/WikiLeaks had compiled data about Clinton independent of the GRU's efforts. I'm just not seeing how anyone is finding a problem with timing.

The report for reference: https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf

I think the main point of the VIPS testing was to show that it was impossible to do the hack as the download speeds were too fast for the internet back then. It had to have been done locally.

As for the timing, 4 days isn't enough time to review 28,000 emails for veracity. Here are the points raised by the article I cited:

Avoiding Questions

The narrative raises questions that the press studiously avoids. Why, for instance, would Assange announce on June 12 that a big disclosure is on the way before hearing from the supposed source? Was there a prior communication that Mueller has not disclosed? What about the reference to “new material” on June 22 – does that mean Assange already had other material in hand? After opening the Guccifer file on July 18, why would he publish it just four days later? Would that give WikiLeaks enough time to review some 28,000 documents to insure they’re genuine?

https://consortiumnews.com/2019/04/18/the-guccifer-2-0-gaps-in-muellers-full-report/