Jesse: He just didn’t charge him with obstruction.
Marie: Those are two very different things, Jesse, and he outlines legally why he could
not, under the existing Justice Department guidelines, charge the president.
He outlines a case for obstruction and then in plain text says, “It’s up to the Congress
to decide if this obstruction of justice, which by the way has been a part of two articles
of impeachment for Nixon and Clinton, obstruction of justice, if this rises to the level.”
Jesse: He actually said if Congress wants to do its OWN investigation, they are able
to find and charge the president with obstruction under the impeachment hearings—
Marie: He said, “Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the president’s corrupt
exercise.”
He says that very clearly.
Jesse: Right, but he doesn’t say, “this was the product of ‘here you go, Congress,
take it where I left it.’”
He said if they want to do their own investigation, they can find it too.
Marie: That’s not actually what he said.
But he made very clear— Jesse: Well if you read it closely, that’s
what he said.
Marie: This highlighting here is pretty close reading.
But he said very clearly, I am not saying the president did not commit obstruction of
justice.
He also does not say there’s no collusion.
He says there’s no conspiracy or coordination that rose to the level of criminal standards.
So he is not-- And then he outlined very clearly multiple contacts between the Trump administration
and Russians.
Bongino: Yeah but is that illegal?
Marie: But my final point on that, to answer Dan’s question, I think we should have higher
standards for the president than whether things are illegal.
I read this and thought, it may not be illegal, I find it abhorrent, I find it unethical,
I think it’s nothing that any other Democratic or Republican candidate for president—
Bongino: Should he have fewer rights than you?
Marie: I don’t think that any other presidential campaign, Democratic or Republican, would
ever engage in this kind of behavior and I don’t want my president doing it either.
Should he have less right?
I mean, he released that.
I wouldn’t have released it.
Bongino: I’m just trying to be clear that meeting with Russians is meeting now?
Or is unethical?
Marie: Trying to accept help to influence an election—
Jesse: Like Hillary did?
Bongino: Hillary did accept help! Marie: Okay.
You guys are actually wrong-- Jesse: Marie apparently is a collusion truther—
Marie: No, I just think we need to read the actual report.
I only wish I had the confidence of Fox News’ Jesse Watters to be so self-assured while
being proven wrong on LITERALLY everything he says on national television.
This is Fox News analyst Marie Harf pushing back against a seemingly endless barrage of
misinformation by Jesse Watters.
Watters erroneously claims that special counsel Robert Mueller gave Congress …permission
to do their own investigation about obstruction of justice, rather than handing the decision
to act off of HIS investigation to Congress.
And this is a lie that’s been repeated ad nauseum by the right.
Even attorney general William Barr, when asked point blank if the special counsel indicated
whether he wanted HIM to make the decision or if it should be left up to Congress, said,
“special counsel Mueller did not indicate that his purpose was to leave the decision
to Congress.”
Which literally could not be further from the truth, because what the Mueller report
ACTUALLY said, in plain English, was, “The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction
laws to the President’s corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our constitutional
system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law.”
In other words, Mueller specifically, explicitly, left the decision up to Congress.
So for Bill Barr, who is SUPPOSED to be the highest law enforcement official in the land,
all the way down – and, I mean down – to Jesse Watters, to pretend that this ISN’T
what Mueller wanted is like them telling you that right isn’t right and left isn’t
left.
By the way, this isn’t a new concept, that a special counselor wasn’t going to indict
a sitting president.
The DOJ has touted their own guidelines saying explicitly that a special counselor CANNOT
indict a sitting president, so Mueller specifically granted Congress the ability to make that
determination.
Like Marie said, Nixon AND Clinton were both investigated by a special or independent counselor,
and the info in their reports was given to Congress, which made the determination to
impeach.
Of course, for the right to acknowledge that would blow a hole in their bad faith argument.
And that’s not the only lie that’s being perpetuated by the right.
While they cry out “no collusion” like they’re getting paid royalties on it, that’s
not what this report found.
Mueller couldn’t prove criminal conspiracy, but that doesn’t mean that there weren’t
instances of possible collusion.
We know that two Trump campaign officials, Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, gave polling
information to a Russian consultant Konstantin Kilimnik, who is known to have ties to the
Kremlin; that Papadopoulos attempted to arrange meetings between Trump and Putin; that Trump
Jr., Kushner and Manafort attended a Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer who promised
dirt on Hillary Clinton; and that one really small thing – you might have even missed
it - where Trump asked Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails on national television
and then five hours later, Russia …tried to do just that.
Trump: Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that
are missing.
I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.
And beyond that, Mueller’s report says that the Trump campaign, “expected it would benefit”
from Russian meddling in the election.
So just because Trump didn’t call Putin and say, “Hey Vlad, let’s win this thing,”
doesn’t mean there weren’t untoward actions on both sides in pursuit of a common goal.
And with ALL that we know, all of the information that’s come out over the last two years,
for Republicans to still try to spin this as a win, when this probe resulted in 199
criminal counts, 37 people and entities charged, 7 guilty pleas, and 5 prison sentences, with
448 pages detailing unethical behavior and demands to fire prosecutors and nearly a dozen
instances of obstruction of justice, if THAT’s what the GOP considers a win these days, that
says a lot about the state of that party.