Next day takeaways

Even the liberal media was disappointed. While there were a handful of liberals out there demanding that the day was win for them (E.J. Dionne), the bulk of them were admittedly disappointed. I watched both Anderson Cooper and Don Lemon last night, and you would have thought someone had died by the mood of these broadcasts. The only happy person was the one conservative from the Anderson Cooper panel. Everyone on the Don Lemon show looked like they sucked on one of Don's namesakes.

Was Mueller even in charge? The fact that Mueller looked like a guy who didn't understand the report he "carefully wrote" suggested to many that in fact he may have not actually written the report himself. More to the point, if Mueller didn't write the report itself, how involved in the actual investigation was he? He admitted to only being involved in a handful of the interviews and seemed fuzzy on many details. Obviously one doesn't expect the person in charge to be doing all the work himself, but Mueller left the impression that perhaps he was left out of the loop on many, if not most things. The concept that he would refuse to move off from what was in the report may have been a defensive move, in order to prevent him from making contradictions or exposing himself as not being up on the facts within. The entire "if it is in the report, then I stand by it" remarks he repeated could have been answered by most anyone, even without any familiarity with the report itself.

Mueller didn't know the make up of his own team? One of the times where Mueller showed genuine frustration was when he didn't seem to know exactly how to respond to the idea that of the seventeen attorney's that were hired for the team, that fourteen of them were registered Democrats, most gave money to Hillary, one was a former Clinton Foundation attorney, one attended Hillary's election night "victory" party, and not a single one was a registered Republican. His excuse that he doesn't ask political affiliation was not very convincing. Not only does a political investigation like this warrant the optics of a fair investigative make up, there is no way that you got fourteen Democrats and no Republicans by pure chance. The obvious intent was to stack the team with anti-Trump attorneys. Whether that was actually done by Mueller or done by Weissmann is anyone's guess.

Mueller didn't know what Fusion GPS was? It's inconceivable that anyone involved with politics would not know who Fusion GPS was, much less someone leading the investigation into Russian interference, which relied much on a dossier that they were largely responsible for. He looked confused by the reference several times, and then literally stated that he wasn't aware of who they were. Another sign that Mueller's personal involvement in this investigation was questionable.

Mueller parrotted the Democrat talking points, even when they were not true? While Mueller did a pretty good job not answering anything in the first hearing, he let things get away from him in the second. Repeatedly he agreed with statements to the effect that George Papadopoulos received information from "the Russians" or that Paul Manafort shared information with "the Russians". From a legal (under oath) sort of matter, those statements are false, and under different circumstance could leave Mueller vulnerable to charges. Papadopoulos received his information from Joseph Mifsud who is not Russian. Manafort shared polling information with one of his own employees (Konstantin Kilimnik) is either Ukrainian or Russian depending on which reports you read. The fact is that Mueller's own report (which he stated he would stick to) never established that either Mifsud or Kilimnik had any direct contact with anyone associated with the Russian Government, the GRU, or the Trolling farm. Referring to these people as "the Russians" was either because he didn't know better, he was too tired by that point to repute, or he was looking to throw the Democrats a bone or two.

Judge exposes another Mueller report false narrative? This was unrelated to the hearings, but very relevant to the overall situation. A Judge overseeing the prosecution of the trolling farms requested the "evidence" that the Mueller prosecutors had in regards to ties between the trolling farm operations and the Russian government. Under oath and within the legal proceedings Special Counsel attorneys had to admit that they literally had no evidence what-so-ever that the trolling farms were associated with the Russian government. The judge is currently deciding how to proceed, but it may end up that Special Counsel attorneys could be sanctioned in some form. This also means that one of the larger narratives of the report itself is not actually true (or at least not provable by any known evidence).

What now? With so many hopes pinned on the Mueller testimony, Democrats and liberals in the media were asking "what now"? Oddly, the idea of moving on and simply having Democrats work to accomplish something was only suggested as somewhat of a political move to help retain House power so that something could still be done about Donald Trump if he wins reelection. Pelosi stated already that they are looking to follow up and finish up with their various legal fights before looking at anything else. There was some suggestion that Don McGahn was the great white hope and if they could just get him in front of congress. But as Cooper suggested, they (Democrats and liberal media) just keeps moving the goalposts. First it was the report, then it was the Mueller testimony, now it's Don McGahn (who 90% of the country has never heard of)?