If I gives you hope to hang onto the crumbs of semantics, more power to you.Please, cite where Mueller said there was "no collusion". The Mueller Report specifically stated it didn't look into the matter of "collusion". The Mueller Report did say that they "did not establish that the Trump Campaign coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities". That's not the same as "no collusion", and for someone like Barr, who parses his words carefully (like claiming a difference between "attempted to have Mueller fired" and "attempted to have Mueller removed") to use the President's language rather than the language of the Mueller report is concerning. He appears to be setting a narrative rather than providing an straight-forward summary of the Mueller report.
Introduction to Volume I, Page 2:
"In evaluating whether evidence about collective action of multiple individuals constituted a crime, we applied the framework of conspiracy law, not the concept of "collusion." In so doing, the Office recognized that the word "collud[ e ]" was used in communications with the Acting Attorney General confirming certain aspects of the investigation's scope and that the term has frequently been invoked in public reporting about the investigation. But collusion is not a specific offense or theory of liability found in the United States Code, nor is it a term of art in federal criminal law. For those reasons, the Office's focus in analyzing questions of joint criminal liability was on conspiracy as defined in federal law. In connection with that analysis, we addressed the factual question whether members of the Trump Campaign "coordinat[ ed]"-a term that appears in the appointment order-with Russian election interference activities. Like collusion, "coordination" does not have a settled definition in federal criminal law. We understood coordination to require an agreement-tacit or express-between the Trump Campaign and the Russian government on election interference. That requires more than the two parties taking actions that were informed by or responsive to the other's actions or interests. We applied the term coordination in that sense when stating in the report that the investigation did not establish that the Trump Campaign coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."
There were crimes. The Russian hacking the DNC servers was a crime. Trump attempted to interfere with the investigation of that crime and potential connections to it with members of his campaign.
And while the Mueller report didn't establish a coordination between Trump and Russia, they certainly welcomed the stolen information.
The copy and paste of this was a bit rough due to redaction:
In Volume II, Section II, Beginning on P.17
"Within the Trump Campaign, aides reacted with enthusiasm to reports of the hacks.23
discussed with Campaign officials that WikiLeaks would release the hacked material. Some witnesses said that Trump himself discussed the possibility of upcoming releases~. Michael Cohen, then-executive vice resident of the Trump Organization and special counsel to Trump , recalled hearing Cohen recalled that Trump responded, "oh good, alright,"
...
Deputy campaign manager Rick Gates said that Manafort was getting pressure about -information and that Manafort instructed Gates~ status updates on u com in releases.28 Around the same time Gates was with Trump on a trip to an airport
, and shortly after the call ended, Trump told Gates that more releases of damaging
information would be coming.[Redacted] were discussed within the Campaign,3° and in the summer of 2016, the Campaign was planning a communications strategy based on the possible release of Clinton emails by WikiLeaks."
Obama's "stand down" order related specifically to cyber retaliation by the US. It's certainly worth investigating why he reached that decision. He did give a verbal warning to Putin, but it's not correct to say he did "nothing to stop it". It's certainly fair to say he didn't do enough and/or showed poor judgement.
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