Thursday, March 26, 2026

The Situation: The Enduring Truths of the Mueller Report

...
And yet, the Mueller Report contains a number of important truths"enduring truths"about Trump, about the people around him, and about The Situation more generally. These are truths one simply cannot doubt, however much smoke gets thrown up around them, if one bothers to spend quality time with the document.

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More from the cited article...

...The first enduring truth of the Mueller Report is that the Russians conducted a significant "active measures" operation on a variety of social media platforms to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. As the report puts it: "By early to mid-2016, [these] operations included supporting the Trump Campaign and disparaging candidate Hillary Clinton."

This point is important for a few reasons. The most important of them behind the bare statement of fact lies a deep reality Americans"and others around the world"have been struggling with ever since 2016: Our information environment is not an organic development of ideas competing in a marketplace.

It is, rather, manipulated by malign actors, public and private, foreign and domestic. It is manipulated both covertly and overtly and for purposes commercial, political, ideological, and often masked. People knew this at some level before 2016, to be sure. The Russian active measures were not the first operation of their kind, by any means. But the audacity of a concerted operation to attempt to affect an American presidential election using Twitter bots was new. And it has conditioned the American information environment ever since.

The second enduring truth of the Mueller Report is that Russian military intelligence, in addition to the active measures, also conducted a campaign of hacking emails associated with the Democratic campaign and dumping them into the public domain. ...


#1 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-03-26 01:16 AM

@#1

Well, yeah ... the Mueller Report presented evidence (lots of it) of Russian interference on our elections to get Pres Trump elected.

#2 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-03-26 01:18 AM

The enduring truths, emphasis original:

The first enduring truth of the Mueller Report is that the Russians conducted a significant "active measures" operation on a variety of social media platforms to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The second enduring truth of the Mueller Report is that Russian military intelligence, in addition to the active measures, also conducted a campaign of hacking emails associated with the Democratic campaign and dumping them into the public domain.

The third enduring truth of the Mueller Report is that there were repeated and extensive contacts between Russian entities purporting to represent the government and officials of the Trump campaign.

Finally ... That truth is that ... the president and the people around him behave like gangsters. ...

Don't knee-jerk. This is a typical Lawfare deep dive.

#3 | Posted by et_al at 2026-03-26 01:20 AM

For starters...

Key Findings of the Mueller Report
www.acslaw.org

... The Special Counsel investigation uncovered extensive criminal activity

- - - The investigation produced 37 indictments; seven guilty pleas or convictions; and compelling evidence that the president obstructed justice on multiple occasions. Mueller also uncovered and referred 14 criminal matters to other components of the Department of Justice.

- - - Trump associates repeatedly lied to investigators about their contacts with Russians, and President Trump refused to answer questions about his efforts to impede federal proceedings and influence the testimony of witnesses.

- - - A statement signed by over 1,000 former federal prosecutors concluded that if any other American engaged in the same efforts to impede federal proceedings the way Trump did, they would likely be indicted for multiple charges of obstruction of justice.


Russia engaged in extensive attacks on the U.S. election system in 2016

- - - Russian interference in the 2016 election was "sweeping and systemic."[1]

- - - Major attack avenues included a social media "information warfare" campaign that "favored" candidate Trump[2] and the hacking of Clinton campaign-related databases and release of stolen materials through Russian-created entities and Wikileaks.[3]

- - - Russia also targeted databases in many states related to administering elections gaining access to information for millions of registered voters.[4]


The investigation "identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign" and established that the Trump Campaign "showed interest in WikiLeaks's releases of documents and welcomed their potential to damage candidate Clinton"

- - - In 2015 and 2016, Michael Cohen pursued a hotel/residence project in Moscow on behalf of Trump while he was campaigning for President.[5] Then-candidate Trump personally signed a letter of intent.

- - - Senior members of the Trump campaign, including Paul Manafort, Donald Trump, Jr., and Jared Kushner took a June 9, 2016, meeting with Russian nationals at Trump Tower, New York, after outreach from an intermediary informed Trump, Jr., that the Russians had derogatory information on Clinton that was "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump."[6]

- - - Beginning in June 2016, a Trump associate "forecast to senior [Trump] Campaign officials that WikiLeaks would release information damaging to candidate Clinton."[7] A section of the Report that remains heavily redacted suggests that Roger Stone was this associate and that he had significant contacts with the campaign about Wikileaks.[8]

- - - The Report described multiple occasions where Trump associates lied to investigators about Trump associate contacts with Russia. Trump associates George Papadopoulos, Rick Gates, Michael Flynn, and Michael Cohen all admitted that they made false statements to federal investigators or to Congress about their contacts. In addition, Roger Stone faces trial this fall for obstruction of justice, five counts of making false statements, and one count of witness tampering.

- - - The Report contains no evidence that any Trump campaign official reported their contacts with Russia or WikiLeaks to U.S. law enforcement authorities during the campaign or presidential transition, despite public reports on Russian hacking starting in June 2016 and candidate Trump's August 2016 intelligence briefing warning him that Russia was seeking to interfere in the election.

- - - The Report raised questions about why Trump associates and then-candidate Trump repeatedly asserted Trump had no connections to Russia.[9]

#4 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-03-26 01:26 AM

"Oh, those Russians."

Boney M - Rasputin
www.youtube.com

#5 | Posted by snoofy at 2026-03-26 01:31 AM

I did not post this to start a flame war, which is where that post will lead, over the ins and outs of the Mueller reports.

I posted this because its about the situation that exists today, right now, in the oval office from truths revealed by Mueller.

Most salient, ... the president and the people around him behave like gangsters. ...

That's the point. Not minutia.

#6 | Posted by et_al at 2026-03-26 01:44 AM

@#6 ... I posted this because its about the situation that exists today, right now, in the oval office from truths revealed by Mueller.

Most salient, ... the president and the people around him behave like gangsters. ......[emphasis yours]

I agree.

Which is why when you mentioned the endearing truths of the Mueller Report, I cited some of them in my #4 comment.

OK, more to your point, let's discuss the apparent situation your comment says exists today, right now.

Please elaborate on that situation.

...

#7 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-03-26 01:53 AM

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