Would a country run by a mean old white kleptocratic lawless dictator really be so bad? Would it be so different? There is battle for the American democracy under way and the Trumpublican jihad is winning. Please support regime change in 2020.
House Intelligence Committee chair Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) delivered opening remarks before former special counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony at the panel. Below are Schiff’s prepared remarks.
At the outset and on behalf of my colleagues, I want to thank you, Special Counsel Mueller, for a lifetime of service to the country.
Your report, for those who have taken the time to study it, is methodical and it is devastating, for it tells the story of a foreign adversary’s sweeping and systematic intervention in a close U.S. presidential election.
That should be enough to deserve the attention of every American, as you well point out. But your report tells another story as well. For the story of the 2016 presidential election is also a story about disloyalty to country, about greed, and about lies.
Your investigation determined that the Trump campaign – including Trump himself – knew that a foreign power was intervening in our election and welcomed it, built Russian meddling into their strategy, and used it.
Disloyalty to country. Those are strong words, but how else are we to describe a presidential campaign which did not inform the authorities of a foreign offer of dirt on their opponent, which did not publicly shun it, or turn it away, but which instead invited it, encouraged it, and made full use of it?
That disloyalty may not have been criminal. Constrained by uncooperative witnesses, the destruction of documents and the use of encrypted communications, your team was not able to establish each of the elements of the crime of conspiracy beyond a reasonable doubt, so not a provable crime, in any event. But, I think, maybe, something worse. A crime is the violation of a law written by Congress. But disloyalty to country violates the very obligation of citizenship, our devotion to a core principle on which our nation was founded, that we, the people, not some foreign power that wishes us ill, we decide, who shall govern, us.
This also a story about money, about greed and corruption, about the leadership of a campaign willing to compromise the nation’s interest not only to win, but to make money at the same time.
About a campaign chairman indebted to pro-Russian interests who tried to use his position to clear his debts and make millions. About a national security advisor using his position to make money from still other foreign interests. And about a candidate trying to make more money than all of them, through a real estate project that to him, was worth a fortune, hundreds of millions of dollars, and the realization of a lifelong ambition – a Trump Tower in the heart of Moscow. A candidate who, in fact, viewed his whole campaign as the greatest infomercial in history.
Donald Trump and his senior staff were not alone in their desire to use the election to make money. For Russia, too, there was a powerful financial motive. Putin wanted relief from U.S. economic sanctions imposed in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and over human rights violations. The secret Trump Tower meeting between the Russians and senior campaign officials was about sanctions. The secret conversations between Flynn and the Russian ambassador were about sanctions. Trump and his team wanted more money for themselves, and the Russians wanted more money for themselves, and for their oligarchs.
But the story doesn’t end here either. For your report also tells a story about lies. Lots of lies.
Lies about a gleaming tower in Moscow and lies about talks with the Kremlin. Lies about the firing of FBI Director James Comey, and lies about efforts to fire you, Mr. Mueller, and lies to cover it up. Lies about secret negotiations with the Russians over sanctions and lies about Wikileaks. Lies about polling data and lies about hush money payments. Lies about meetings in the Seychelles to set up secret back channels, and lies about a secret meeting in New York Trump Tower. Lies to the FBI, lies to your staff, and lies to our Committee.
And lies to obstruct an investigation into the most serious attack on our democracy by a foreign power in our history.
That is where your report ends, Mr. Mueller, with a scheme to cover up, obstruct and deceive every bit as systematic and pervasive as the Russian disinformation campaign itself, but far more pernicious since this rot came from within.
Even now, after 448 pages in two volumes, the deception continues. The President and his acolytes say your report found no collusion, though your report explicitly declined to address that question, since collusion can involve both criminal and non-criminal conduct.
Your report laid out multiple offers of Russian help to the Trump campaign, the campaign’s acceptance of that help, and overt acts in furtherance of Russian help. To most Americans, that is the very definition of collusion, whether it is a crime or not.
They say your report found no evidence of obstruction, though you outline numerous actions by the President intended to obstruct the investigation.
They say the President has been fully exonerated, though you specifically declare you could not exonerate him.
In fact, they say your whole investigation was nothing more than a witch hunt, that the Russians didn’t interfere in our election, that it’s all a terrible hoax. The real crime, they say, is not that the Russians intervened to help Donald Trump, but that the FBI had the temerity to investigate it when they did.
But worst of all, worse than all the lies and the greed, is the disloyalty to country, for that too, continues. When asked, if the Russians intervene again, will you take their help, Mr. President? Why not, was the essence of his answer. Everyone does it.
No, Mr. President, they don’t. Not in the America envisioned by Jefferson, Madison and Hamilton. Not for those who believe in the idea that Lincoln labored until his dying day to preserve, the idea animating our great national experiment, so unique then, so precious still — that our government is chosen by our people, through our franchise, and not by some hostile foreign power.
This is what is at stake. Our next election, and the one after that, for generations to come. Our democracy.
This is why your work matters, Mr. Mueller. This is why our investigation matters. To bring these dangers to light.
Far and away the worst take on Mueller’s testimony is that we learned nothing new from it. In fact, the *new* facts we learned were jaw-dropping. This thread focuses *only* on 10 new things we now know.
1. A VAST TRUMP-RUSSIA COUNTERINTELLIGENCE PROBE IS ONGOING. It’s exponentially broader than Mueller’s probe, it covers “collusion” (a fair term in the counterintelligence sphere) and its findings are being kept from America *and* Congress. The fight to see them began yesterday.
2. FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT CAN’T CONFIRM TRUMP ISN’T COMPROMISED BY RUSSIA. Because “compromise” is a counterintelligence issue, and compromised politicians are national security threats, and no one has seen any FBI counterintelligence report, we don’t know if Trump is a threat
3. MUELLER DIDN’T INVESTIGATE ANYTHING TRUMP WAS ACCUSED OF BESIDES OBSTRUCTION. The non-obstruction allegations against Trump were aiding/abetting, bribery, money laundering, and illegal pre-election receipt of in-kind donations from non-Russians. Mueller looked at none of that.
4. THERE IS SUBSTANTIAL EVIDENCE TRUMP AIDED AND ABETTED COMPUTER CRIMES. Mueller testified—under oath—that Trump gave “hope” and a “boost” to WikiLeaks’ “criminal activity” after he knew such activity was afoot. The crime that describes—aiding/abetting—must now be investigated.
5. THERE IS SUBSTANTIAL EVIDENCE TRUMP COMMITTED THE FEDERAL FELONY OF MAKING FALSE STATEMENTS TO LAW ENFORCEMENT. Mueller testified—under oath—that Trump’s written answers to the FBI and the Special Counsel were “generally” *untruthful*, as the facts in Mueller’s report confirm.
6. TRUMP AND GOP CLAIMS OF “NO COLLUSION,” “NO OBSTRUCTION,” AND “NO EVIDENCE OF CONSPIRACY OR COORDINATION” ARE ALL FALSE. It isn’t news to anyone paying attention, but as much of America isn’t, many learned for the first time from Mueller that these GOP talking points are lies.
7. MUELLER SAID TRUMP COULD BE CHARGED WITH OBSTRUCTION POST-PRESIDENCY AND WOULD HAVE BEEN CHARGED NOW IF NOT FOR THE OLC. Mueller’s later (confusing) “walk-back” of the second claim—which many had taken as an accidental truth—didn’t erase the specter that he meant what he said.
8. ANY TRUMP CRIMES INVOLVING OTHER NATIONS ARE STILL UNREPORTED. Mueller’s testimony made clear that evidence involving nations besides Russia—whether past election interference or future election interference, past collusion or future collusion—went to FBI counterintelligence.
9. REPUBLICANS HAVE NO OBJECTIONS TO ANY OF THE DAMNING FACTS IN THE MUELLER REPORT. Media waited with baited breath for Republicans to contest the Report’s damning findings rather than just opine about what else Mueller could have looked at—and shockingly, the moment never came.
10. MUELLER ONLY CHOSE NOT TO INTERVIEW TRUMP FACE-TO-FACE BECAUSE HE ADJUDGED HE HAD ENOUGH EVIDENCE OF “CORRUPT INTENT” ON OBSTRUCTION. Mueller resolved a *longstanding* mystery: why didn’t he insist on keeping Trump to his public promise of a live interview? Well, now we know.
BONUS. MUELLER BELIEVES TRUMP AND HIS AIDES OPENED THEMSELVES TO KREMLIN BLACKMAIL. Mueller told Rep. Correa he “doesn’t disagree” that a series of acts answering to behavior by Trump and his aides would be sufficient to give the Kremlin leverage and blackmail material over them
TRUMP WITNESSES “IMPEDED” THE MUELLER INVESTIGATION. Mueller testified under oath—in answers to questions by Rep. Demings—that contrary to Trump and GOP claims that the White House facilitated campaign aides assisting Mueller, the opposite was true: they tried to stop him.
