Journalist's notebook: Mueller's investigation results trigger another type of March madness at Capitol Hill



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Iowa had upset Cincinnati. Oregon was denouncing Wisconsin. And everyone had just learned that the basketball team of the University of California at Irvine was known as Anteaters.

However, few people inside the Beltway could exhaust the time of the madness of March and the difficulties of hard wood.

It was the news hour in Washington.

Of course, the news would arrive just before 5 pm On a Friday, special advocate Robert Mueller had completed his investigation and delivered his report to Attorney General William Barr.

Things have happened like this, in Washington.

Last week, it was assumed that the report could be released Tuesday. Even Wednesday.

Really? Wednesday? Has anyone really thought that the Mueller probe would end up in the middle of the "top four" games in Dayton? North Carolina and State of North Dakota? Doubtful.

Friday afternoon?

Perfecto

That's how Washington rolls.

Dinner plans are delayed. Date fractured nights. Journalists already at the bar sipping cocktails and going back to the office. Weekend excursions to Virginia wineries are postponed.

Everyone would be on the clock this weekend in Washington.

Few legislators rushed to the Capitol at 19 hours. Friday. The House and the Senate had been on a break for more than a week. But the Rotonde Russell journalists were all on the air, hammering their computers in the media galleries and walking in the Senate metro station.

All they knew for sure on Friday was that the report was in Barr's possession. The Attorney General would soon produce a memo to inform lawmakers of the results of this investigation (which would take place on Sunday during the Washington / North Carolina switchover), and Mueller would not do so. to charge anyone in connection with his probe.

It was not really a story to tell. But perhaps Senator Chris Coons, D-Del., He said best, channeling Winston Churchill: "This is the end of the beginning. But this is not the beginning of the end.

This did not stop lawmakers from both sides launching a series of press releases to reporters on Friday and Saturday. They speculate on Mueller's findings and describe the story to their advantage.

On Saturday, Democrats welcomed the fact that Mueller's investigation produced more than 30 indictments. They highlighted the condemnations of former President Trump's campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and Michael Cohen's confidant.

"The reports that there will be no new charges confirm what we have always known: there has never been any collusion with Russia," said House minority whip Steve Scalise, General Manager, Friday night. "The only collusion was between Democrats and many media outlets who peddled this lie because they continue to refuse to accept the results of the 2016 election."

Mueller launched his investigation at Ma in 2017. Many Republicans complained during the course of his investigation. Presidential Loyalists claimed that the investigation was dragging on for too long.

For background, the Watergate survey lasted four years. The Iran-Contra investigation lasted six and a half years. The review of the land deal in Arkansas, known as "Whitewater", involving Presidents Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has turned into an investigation into Monica Lewinsky. He has spent seven years.

The House of Representatives voted 420-0 (with four Republicans voting "present") on a non-binding resolution earlier this month to urge Mueller and Barr to release the report. It is unclear whether this will happen – although some legislators have suggested that the document be summoned.

Things went differently when the then independent lawyer, Ken Starr, investigated President Clinton. This is because Starr's investigation was fundamentally different from Mueller's. Starr was operating under a different status as an "independent lawyer". The old law, now expired, gave Starr greater latitude. Thus, the investigation began in 1994. It was a glimpse of Whitewater and the curious death of White House Deputy Attorney Vince Foster, who was initially assigned to independent lawyer Robert Fiske. , before moving on to the president's involvement with Lewinsky.

Because of the law, Starr only reported to a panel of three judges in Washington – outside the realm of justice. Starr presented his report to Congress at the end of the summer of 1998. A few days later, the House of Representatives voted in favor of publishing this report.

Following the publication of the Starr report, some lawmakers claimed that the statute was too broad and allowed independent lawyers too much latitude. The Congress did not renew the status of the independent council. He wrote a new one for "special councils" in 1999. The special councils would now be under the auspices of the Department of Justice.

There would be more oversight for special councils under the umbrella of the DOJ. But questions would arise about the "independence" of these special councils, which would eventually be reported to the Attorney General.

TEAM OF TRUMP CALLS FOR AN INQUIRY ON THE ORIGIN OF THE PROBE RUSSIA

Democrats in the House called a teleconference with members of the base on Saturday afternoon. The presidents of the six-chamber democratic committees were the main speakers of the call. They told the Democrats that the mere fact that Mueller's investigation was over did not mean that everything was complete.

Some sources with which Fox News has maintained have downplayed the idea that this call was an effort to appease Democrats who want to launch jugular with the administration. However, other sources said the Democrats were trying to control their colleagues and bring them behind their probes.

One of the outstanding issues during the conference call was whether the Department of Justice had decided that a sitting president could not be charged. In other words, Mueller may not have been willing to sue or lacked sufficient information to sue the president, even though Congress could do it. The Democratic presidents have argued that they could go further if the facts lead them there.

The Democrats told Fox News they never spoke about indictment.

When Buffalo faced Texas Tech Sunday afternoon, the Democrats had already suggested the possibility of a whitewash, accusing Barr.

"Attorney General Barr's letter raises as many questions as it answers," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, said in a joint statement. "Given Mr. Barr's public record of bias against the Special Advisor's investigation, he is not a neutral observer and is not in a position to make objective decisions regarding the report."

Many Democrats will now ask Barr and Mueller to testify before Congress to see if there is a day between them. Barr wrote in his letter that he had reached conclusions with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein without consulting Mueller. The missive represented Barr's and Rosenstein's interpretations of what Mueller had written. Therefore, legislators will want to see whether Barr or Rosenstein jumped to conclusions on their own or whether the letter was consistent with Mueller's findings.

The chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the House, Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., And other committee chairs have called for documents from the administration. They will want to analyze the information to see if they come to a conclusion similar to that of Mueller, Barr or Rosenstein. They will want to decide for themselves whether the results are justified.

Democrats must exercise political caution as they move forward in more in-depth investigations. They risk playing too much when they question what Mueller has found and Barr's conclusion. Democrats took control of the House, not because of success in the districts represented by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. They overthrew the House because of the victories of moderate Democrats representing districts of Virginia, Colorado, New Mexico, California, New Jersey, Michigan, Maine and Iowa. Pushing too hard against the president could threaten the ability of Democrats to occupy these seats.

Similarly, Democrats might find it advantageous to strike the president. If so, they would lift a page from the GOP game manual. House Republicans convened a small committee to investigate the US response to the Benghazi terrorist attack in Libya. In an interview with Fox News in 2015, Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., Then Majority Leader in the House, suggested that Republicans had instructed the Benghazi Committee to weaken Hillary Clinton as a candidate for the Presidency. Democrats could use the surveys to cast doubt on President Trump and his administration as the 2020 approach approaches.

Finally, Republicans in Congress do not have a rich program for the year. They spent much of their time criticizing the way the Democrats treated the remarks of liberal-democrat freshmen. Congressional Republicans are likely to change their message to denounce the Democrats who continue to sue Trump, despite the Mueller report and the memo Barr.

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Congress returns to town Monday after a break of one week. The University of Central Florida has almost upset Duke.

We will see what news is available next weekend for Sweet Sixteen.

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