This is getting stupid. But those stories about the Mueller team being pissed off at how AG Bill Barr is doing his job of covering up for Donald Trump seem to have had an effect!
On Thursday, the Justice Department released a statement -- yes, another one, after Bill Barr's first letter, and then his second letter -- to try to somehow reassure us that everything is on the up-and-up, and we should just stop worrying our pretty little heads about whether we'll ever get to see the real Mueller report. And as usual for this story, it raises more questions than it answers.
OK! The top line news there, at least according to DoJ spokesperson Kerri Kupec, is that LITERALLY EVERY PAGE of Mueller's report has a "6(e)" marking, which means it may have grand jury information on it. And they are working with Bob Mueller to make sure the redactions get done good and nice-like, as Barr has explained from the beginning, so STOP BOTHERING US WHILE WE ARE TRYING TO DO A COVER-UP! (She didn't say that last part. It is implied.)
But wait, though! According to the reporting we got this week, Mueller and his investigators literally prepared their report in such a way that the different sections had introductions tailored specifically so that they could be released immediately. Let's go back to the Washington Post:
The report was prepared "so that the front matter from each section could have been released immediately — or very quickly," the official said. "It was done in a way that minimum redactions, if any, would have been necessary, and the work would have spoken for itself."
Mueller's team assumed the information was going to be made available to the public, the official said, "and so they prepared their summaries to be shared in their own words — and not in the attorney general's summary of their work, as turned out to be the case."
"Minimum redactions, IF ANY," would be necessary. "The work would have spoken for itself." And most importantly, "TO BE SHARED IN THEIR OWN WORDS," not Bill Barr taking six words to shout "NO COLLUSION NO OBSTRUCTION TRUMP IS KING!"
So ... what in the entire fuck are we waiting for right now?
Are Mueller and his team just A IDIOT, a group of cowboys at their first rodeo who don't even know how to write summaries that can be released to the public? Did they just jizz classified information everywhere by accident, because of how they're bad at life? And as Rachel Maddow asked in her reporting Thursday night, HOW DOES ANY OF THIS MAKE SENSE, especially in light of the DoJ's insistence that Mueller is helping them with the redactions? As Maddow put it:
If Mueller's the one policing what counts as grand jury material, and Mueller's the one who wrote the summaries specifically so they could go to the public, then how could those be withheld on that basis?
Are they saying Mueller got the summaries ready, and then is in there agreeing with Barr that actually the summaries he prepared for public release can't be released to the public? We think there is one possibility of an answer to DoJ here, and it is OH FUCK YOU, BILL BARR IS FULL OF SO MUCH SHIT RIGHT NOW.
Also he is bad at doing coverups.
As you might expect, House Judiciary Committee chair Jerry Nadler is not amused by any of this, and he has had to fire off yet anotherletter to Barr saying FUCKING GIVE IT! The supboenas are ready, he's getting to the end of his fuse, and he's just saying NO SERIOUSLY, FUCKING GIVE IT.
This is just a good paragraph from Nadler's letter, specifically addressing the summaries prepared by Mueller and his team, which reportedly have those little 6(e) MAYBE TOP SECRET markings all over them:
It is notable that the Department's press statement this morning does not deny the existence of these summaries.
As in, that'll be enough bullshit from Bill Barr pretending like he just had to exonerate the president, and then spend weeks upon weeks slow-walking the release of the actual report, which is obviously really, really bad for Trump, since you've just confirmed the Washington Post's reporting.
If these summaries were, in fact, produced for public consumption by experienced prosecutors [AND THEY FUCKING WERE - Ed.], then a precautionary marking should not be an impediment to public production in a very short period of time.
We could be wrong, but it sounds to us like those markings are the type of thing that's sort of standard for this kind of thing, and if Mueller is indeed helping, shouldn't he be able to say, "Duh, Bill, that symbol goes on every page. The summaries are fine, release them"?
The point is OH MY GOD BILL BARR, FUCKING GIVE IT.
Of course, it'll be super weird when those summaries really don't square with all of Bill Barr's statements so far about how Donald Trump is so tremendously and yoogely innocent, you'll get sick of all the innocence. But that's Bill Barr's problem, not our problem.
Watch your Rachel.
New Reporting Suggests Strain Between William Barr And Mueller Team | Rachel Maddow | MSNBCwww.youtube.com
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