And he has personal knowledge of how these things work and of the people handling them. I trust what he says more than Rachel's occasional Debbie-Downer routines.

Why should Barr risk anything for Trump?

I'm projecting my feelings......

I feel crappy about the entire Mueller thing.

An AG cannot shutdown a SC investigation, so that is not what is happening.

Maddow hedged her bets tonight. This, IMO, was a rare departure from her usual tight reasoning. Throughout her presentation, I was waiting for evidence, even qualified hearsay, to corroborate her hypothesis. Aside from the time line, I heard nothing else. Rosenberg made more sense.

could get it and protect his good buddy Mueller. Also perhaps the Republican establishment has really had just enough of this bullshit that rump offers. Perhaps Barr was encouraged by top R's to fish for this job.

This is what I'm hoping for since it would be the best scenario.

hope

Interesting. This process is just going to weigh so heavy in 2020.

So you’re thinking the Rs are saying better finish it quick

a false sense of security for rump...meanwhile the fucking axe is about to fall.

Because whatever happens now will be forgotten by '20 by the average voter. Unless trump actually gets charged with something.

and we know Rosenstein has protected Mueller and somehow fended off getting fired by Trump.

It's possible Mueller's wrap up could include some more indictments and transfer of ongoing pending cases to other jurisdictions and then leave evidence of Trump's complicity and obstruction for the Congress to deal with through impeachment.

of watching the tv show, The Americans, but without such high stakes. Is Barr a good witch or a bad witch?

with the clearly uncomfortable Barr in the front row sparked a bit of an epiphany...

We know Barr from way back, and his inclination to protect the preznit...but maybe he can see now that this preznit is not worth protecting.

Isn't there a bridge too far for these people? (she asks plaintively).

I'm glad I'm not alone.

He won't go near Trump's version of a Saturday Night Massacre, not even a little bit.

impeach and convict. Half of this DU community is Jones'n to get moving on removal of the puspocket. That's what his report will do... move toward removal from office. The web of criminal investigations and indictments will continue to the utter ruin of all traitors, crooks and thieves.

We may soon know much more. Like Rachel implied; is it a coincidence that this happens so soon after
Barr took office? I don't believe in this kind of coincidence.

She is borderline conspiracy theorist. I love her and she is whip smart, but she does her fair share of sending out false alarms and hair on fire topics that don't pan out to be true. More than likely, Mueller was waiting for Barr to take office before finalizing the report. I read back in Nov or Dec that mid-February was when Mueller would act.

Rachel Maddow is one of the worst I have ever seen at weighing variables toward outcomes. It is a completely different skill set than being able to backtrack and piece together political shenanigans. Throughout this process she has drastically inflated the likelihood of significant charges from Mueller sticking to Trump.

It is par for the course for her. During election years she has no clue how to interpret polling data from various states and demographics. It lends to one smug-grinned inept conclusion after another, like when she waved a preposterous South Carolina poll in the air and exclaimed just imagine how much Hillary is winning by elsewhere, if she is neck and neck in South Carolina.

That type of thing does more harm than good. It lends to all the vote rigging claims here and elsewhere. Now Rachel is moody and finally beginning to recognize that all her Russia research and uncovering may have been great journalism, but the burden was simply too great to damage Donald Trump, given the realities of our political system. Anyone with a competent big picture grasp would have understood that years ago. But Rachel is a day-to-day type, and as I've emphasized that is the worst possible mindset to project accurately. When Rachel finds something new on Wednesday she can't wait for her show and the game changer info. Meanwhile, absolutely nothing has changed.

Her contributions on this matter will be immensely appreciated by scholars and historians decades and centuries from now toward what actually happened circa 2016. But in today's world it is mostly trivia. Trump can accomplish more with one fear-based lie than Rachel with a year's worth of factual investigating. That is the sad reality.

but she always assumes the worst and the worst case scenario. I don't know how many elections would be stolen from the Dems due to voting fraud yet the Dems won. Yes, Repugs are suppressing the vote, but she is an alarmist and Debbie downer for the most part. I've started watching Chris Cuomo lately.

The worst case scenario approach so that those of us who do fear the worst can hear someone allay those fears.

But I don't think there's any chance Mueller was delivering this report to that 2-bit hack Matt Whitaker. I think the timing perhaps isn't coincidental at all, but not in the way Rachel was insinuating. Perhaps Mueller WAITED for Barr, knowing he'd handle it properly, where Whitaker would bury it.

the last time a prediction like this was made.

But worst case scenario, if Barr did shut it down, I agree with her: Mueller probably has been planning for this ever since his first day. But don't expect him to announce it.

have control over who and what Congress and the American people get to see of an investigation into wrongdoing by the person who appointed him/her?

What a weird question that is.

What if Dump had appointed somebody like Rudy or Dershowitz to be AG? Would you trust them not to protect their godfather? Maybe somebody other than a political appointee should control who sees what of a special counsel investigation.

Particularly after the likes of Meese, Gonzales, Sessions...

It is not as if the office magically conveys integrity on the holder, is it? I mean, what a weird idea!

Funny, they are all Republicans! I feel sure there is a message in that.

statutue and regulation. The SCO is mandated to deliver a confidential report to the AG. The AG is mandated to give a "brief" written report to Congress on the SCO findings.

Remember the context of this law is the aftermath of the Starr Report that read like a soft porn novel. It's what lead to the Special Prosecuor law that was in place since Watergate not being renewed by Congress. The idea of confidentiality is that no innocent bystander will be publically named and shamed by association with the guilty party(ies).

Since this is the first application of the new law, no one knows what "brief" means. My guess is that at the very least, it will be an executive summary type document on the order of the public version of the yearly national security threat assessment.

Further, I believe that the judge overseeing Mueller's grand jury will follow the Watergate precedent and allow the GJ testimony to be released to provide Congress a roadmap to hearings and further investigations.

...and rational.

...nor can its many spinoffs. New York is not the only state that has cases to work on.

Sure, they can send Mueller home, but starting with Obama and continuing on to McCabe, the Russia investigation was designed to be something that could not be killed and buried.

As for Trump himself, McCabe/Mueller did not open a second, separate, investigation on him -- Trump's name was added to the existing Russia investigation, which had all the tools necessary to proceed with no need to ask permission for more.

When Nicolle asked Frank Figluzzi about separate aspects being separate investigations (like the obstruction charge that is sure to come), he said, "No. It is all one big, fat, investigation."

None of us here is going to be particularly happy with the slow pace of subsequent revelations -- some will be secret, and none of it will be easy to pry from Trump's fingers-- but the Democrats have the House now and they have subpoena power.

I know I'll feel a whole lot better if major indictments are issued in the next few days. There's no way Junior isn't guilty.