The final installment in the myths of the Mueller report

 Myth 6. Because Trump was unsuccessful in ending the investigation, he couldn't have obstructed justice.

RESPONSE: The report finds substantial evidence that Trump asked McGhan to fire Mueller. McGhan said he was prepared to resign rather than comply. Because the law punishes attempts, Trump's effort      to end the investigation constitutes obstruction of justice, even though McGhan did not follow through on the order. In addition, Mueller found that all elements of obstruction were satisfied with regard to Trump's efforts to limit the investigation to future elections: Trump directed then Attorney General Jeff Sessions to 'unrecuse' himself from the investigation and to publicly announce that the investigation would focus only on future elections. If successful, this effort would have prevented us from learning the truth about Russia's efforts to attack the 2016 election.

Myth 7. A President cannot obstruct justice as a matter of law when he is exercising executive power.

RESPONSE: Mueller found that this theory, advanced by Barr in an unsolicited 19-page memo before he became Attorney General, was inconsistent with the law the Constitution and the foundational notion of separation of powers. The Constitution requires not just that the President execute the law, but also that he do so "faithfully." As Mueller and his team stated, subjecting the President to obstruction [of the] law is consistent with the principle of our government that "no person in this country is so high that he is above the law." Even under Barr's theory, a President commits illegal obstruction when he engages in conduct that is outside his executive power, like directing a witness to create a false document, as Mueller found that Trump did with McGhan.

Myth 8. Mueller wanted Barr to make the call on whether Trump committed obstruction.

RESPONSE: Mueller didn't invite Barr to make a decision about prosecuting obstruction. He left it to prosecutors who could decide whether to pursue charges after Trump left office and to Congress, which has impeachment power. Barr's peremptory dismissal of obstruction happened with no explanation of how he was able to resolve the evidence of obstruction when Mueller could not. Since then, more than 1,000 former federal prosecutors, including us, have signed a letter stating that the evidence establishes multiple counts of obstruction of justice.

The myths about the Mueller report that just won't die, continued

 This is a continuation of the myths about the Mueller report, with the first two already posted.

Myth 3. Case closed. No do-overs.

RESPONSE: Mueller investigated the case under criminal statutes, which is a narrow window of inquiry. Congress has a broader responsibility to determine whether the President committed high crimes and misdemeanors for which impeachment is appropriate.

Myth 4. Focus on obstruction detracts from focus on Russia.

RESPONSE: Focusing on obstruction is focusing on Russia. Mueller concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 election in a 'sweeping and systematic fashion.' The report documents Trump's efforts to end or curtail the investigation, his refusal to be interviewed, and written answers that Mueller found 'inadequate.' It also notes that members of the campaign lied, refused to answer questions and deleted communications. Obstruction is a crime precisely because those who engage in it seek to keep investigators from arriving at the truth. As Mueller wrote in Volume I of the report, pertaining to a conspiracy with Russia, 'given these identified gaps, the Office cannot rule out the possibility that the unavailable information would have shed additional light on (or cast in a new light) the events described in the report.' Efforts to obstruct the investigation may have shielded not only the conduct of members of Trump's campaign, but also active measures by Russia to interfere with our election.

Myth 5. If there was no underlying crime, there can be no obstruction of justice.

RESPONSE: Obstruction of justice included not just completed acts but also attempts. Regardless of Trump's motive -- perhaps to conceal his payments to silence Stormy Daniels, perhaps to avoid the appearance that his election was illegitimate because it was achieved with assistance from a foreign adversary -- his efforts to interfere with Mueller's investigation legally amounts to obstruction of justice, even under the narrow definition and high standard of proof Mueller used. Of course, crimes 'were' charged against 37 individuals and entities, including more than two dozen Russian nationals.

The Myths about the Mueller report that just won't die

 Although this essay dispelling myths about the Mueller report was published in TIME magazine on July 8, 2019, the myths they dispel are timeless in terms of setting the record straight. Regarding the authors: Barbara McQuade is a professor at the University of Michigan Law School and a former U.S Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. Joyce White Vance is a distinguished professor at the University of Alabama School of Law and former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama.

In this view essay, eight myths will be covered in several postings, starting with the two authors lead-in. 

"When we testified before the House Judiciary Committee in June [2019] regarding lessons from former special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, it became apparent from the questioning that misconceptions about Mueller's findings still exist. The narrative was shaped by Attorney General William Barr, who issued his description of Mueller's conclusions more than three weeks before the public saw the full 448-page report. In a letter to Barr, Mueller complained that Barr's summary 'did not capture the context, nature and substance' of his team's work and created 'public confusion.' Mueller will testify before Congress on July 17. In the meantime, here is our effort to dispel some of the most persistent myths."

Myth 1. Mueller found "no collusion."

"RESPONSE: Mueller spent almost 200 pages describing 'numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign.' He found that 'a Russian entity carried out a social media campaign that favored presidential candidate Donald J. Trump.' He also found that 'a Russian intelligence service conducted computer-intrusion operations' against the Hillary Clinton campaign and released stolen documents He wrote that the 'investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts.' 

To find conspiracy, a prosecutor must establish beyond a reasonable doubt the elements of the crime: an agreement between at least two people to commit a criminal offense and an overt act in furtherance of that agreement. Mueller found that Trump campaign members Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner met with Russian nationals at Trump Tower in June 2016 for the purpose of receiving disparaging information about Clinton as part of 'Russia and its government's support for  Mr. Trump,' according to an email arranging the meeting. The meeting did not amount to a criminal offense, in part, because Mueller was unable to establish willfulness,' that is, that the participants knew their conduct was illegal. Mueller was also unable to conclude that the information was a 'thing of value' exceeding $25,000, the amount that makes a campaign-finance violation a felony.

Mueller found other contacts with Russia such as the sharing of polling data about states where Trump later won upset victories and attempts to influence Russia's response to sanctions imposed by the U.S. government for election interference. While none of these acts amounted to the crime of conspiracy, all could be described as 'collusion.' 

Myth 2. Mueller found no obstruction.

RESPONSE: Mueller found a least four acts by Trump in which all elements of the obstruction statute were satisfied -- attempting to fire Mueller, directing White House counsel Don McGahn to lie and create a false document about efforts to fire Mueller, attempting to limit the investigation to future elections and attempting to prevent Manafort from cooperating with the government. 'As Mueller stated, 'while this report dos not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.' Following the Department of Justice policy that a sitting President cannot be charged with a crime, Mueller did not attempt to reach a legal conclusion about the facts. Instead he undertook to 'preserve the evidence when memories were fresh and documentary materials were available,' because a President can be charged after he leaves office. In fact, Mueller thought it would be improper to even accuse Trump of committing a crime so as not to 'preempt constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct, meaning impeachment.

Children's Teeth Can Show the Damage of Nuclear Testing

In 2020, Harvard University's T.C. Chan School of Public Health began a five-year study funded by the National Institutes of Health, that will examine the connection between early life exposures to toxic metals and later-life risk of neurological disease. A collaborator with Harvard, the Radiation and Public Health Project, will analyze the relationship of stronium-90 ( a radioactive element in nuclear weapons explosions) and disease risk in later life. 

The centerpiece of the study is a collection of nearly 100,000 baby teeth, gathered in the late 1950s and early 1960s by the St. Louis Committee for Nuclear Information.

The collection of these teeth occurred during a time of intense public agitation over the escalating           nuclear arms race between the U.S. and Soviet governments that featured the new hydrogen bomb (H-bomb), a weapon more than a thousand times as powerful as the bomb that had annihilated Hiroshima. To prepare themselves for nuclear war, the two Cold War rivals, conducted well-publicized, sometimes televised nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere -- 434 of them between 1945 and 1963. These tests sent vast clouds of radioactive debris aloft where, carried by the winds, it often traveled substantial distances before it fell to earth and was absorbed by the soil, plants, animals, and human beings.

The hazards of nuclear testing were underscored by the U.S. government's March 1, 1954 explosion of an H-bomb on Bikini Atoll, located in the Marshall Islands. Although an area the size of New England had been staked out as a danger zone around the test site, a heavy dose of nuclear fallout descended on four inhabited islands of the Marshall grouping, and on a Japanese fishing boat, the "Lucky Dragon" -- all substantially outside the danger zone --with disastrous results.

The public grew alarmed, particularly by the fact that stronium-90 from nuclear tests was transmitted from the grass, to cattle, to milk, and finally to human bodies -- with special concern as it built up in children's bones and teeth. By the late 1950s, polls found that most Americans considered fallout a "real danger." 

In August 1958, Herman Kalckar, a biologist at the National Institutes of Health, published an article in the journal "Nature," calling on public-health agencies in multiple nations to engage in large-scale collection of baby teeth. Kalckar proposed testing teeth for stronium-90 from bomb fallout, as children are most vulnerable to the toxic effects of radioactivity.

Washington University scientists recognized that a tooth study could change public policy. In December 1958, they joined with leaders of the Committee for Nuclear Information. a citizen group opposed to nuclear war and above-ground bomb tests, and adopted a proposal to collect and test teeth for stronium-90 concentrations.

For the next 12 years, the Committee worked furiously, soliciting tooth donations through community-based institutions like schools, churches, scout groups, libraries, and dental offices. A total of 320.000 teeth were collected, and a Washington University lab measured stronium-90. 

Results clearly showed a massive increase in stronium-90 as testing continued. Children born in 1963 (the height of bomb tests) had an average of 50 times more than those born in 1951 (when large-scale tests began). Medial journal articles detailed results. Information on the tooth study was sent to Jerome Wiesner, science adviser to President John F. Kennedy.

Kennedy, already seeking a test ban treaty, was clearly influenced by the uproar over the fate of children. In his July 1963 speech announcing the successful conclusion of test ban negotiations by the governments of the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom, he argued that governments could not be indifferent to the catastrophe of nuclear war or to "children and grandchildren with cancer in their bones, with leukemia in their blood, or with poison in their lungs." The outcome was the Partial Test Ban Treaty, which banned nuclear testing in the atmosphere, in outer space, and under water.

According to the ongoing tooth study, the average stronium-90 in baby teeth dropped by half just four years after the test ban. With their goal apparently accomplished, the Committee on Nuclear Information and the University halted tooth collection and testing. Soon thereafter the Committee dissolved.

Three decades later, Washington University staff discovered thousands of abandoned baby teeth that had gone untested. The school donated the teeth to the Radiation and Public Health Project, which was conducting a study of strnium-90 in teeth of U.S. children near nuclear reactors.

Now, using stronium-90 still present in teeth, the Radiation  and Public Health Project will conduct an analysis of health risk, which was not addressed in the original tooth study, and minimally addressed by government agencies. Based on actual radiation exposure in bodies, the issue of how many Americans suffered from cancer and other diseases from nuclear testing fallout will be clarified. (Source: Excerpts from "Children's Teeth Collected Decades Ago, Can Show the Damage of Nuclear Testing," History News Network; also, reference https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/180951.)

NSA's Bulk Collection Failing, and the Price of War

 I. NSA's Bulk Collection Failing

194M - Average number of text messages the NSA collected per day in April 2011.

O - Number of terrorist attacks the government could prove were prevented by the NSA's bulk collection of phone records, according to a recent court ruling.

18k - Minimum number of Facebook users whose private data was given to law enforcement in the last half of 2012.

100 - Radius in miles from New York City within which every mosque experienced government  surveillance after 9/11.

$100k - Amount government informants can earn per job excluding "performance" bonuses.

357% - Percentage by which terrorist attacks committed by Muslims receive more media coverage from attacks by non-Muslims.

$3.8b - Budget for the FBI's counterterrorism and counterintelligence units. (Source: Jarod Facundo, "By the Numbers," The Nation, September 2021.)

II. The Price of War

Post-9/11 war-related spending, 2001-2022, plus the projected cost of future veterans' care in current dollars. Homeland Security/Domestic Counterterrorism, $1,117b --- Estimated Future Obligations for Veterans' Care, Through FY2050, $2,200b --- Veterans' Care Through FY2022, $465b --- DOD Overseas Contingency Operations, $2,101b --- State Department, $189b --- Interest Payments on War Spending Through FY2022, $1,087b --- Increases to the Pentagon Base Budget, $884b. (Source: The Nation, 9 . 20 - 27. 2021.)

III. The War Chest

The base budget of the Department of Defense, plus the cost of Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO), or actions in war zones, in current dollars. The Emergency/OCO spending increased by at least $170b in the years 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011. Ever since then, except for 2006, the Emergency/OCO spending has increased by less then $100b. War spending jumped in 2018 and 2019 by about $680b, after reaching $600b only once in the preceding five years. (Source: Same as II.)

IV. The Peaks of War Spending

War spending on Iraq & Syria peaked in 2008  at slightly over $140b. War spending on Afghanistan peaked in 2011 at $120b. War spending on the three countries is projected to decline to $20b in 2022. (Source: Same as II.)

V. The Total Cost of America's Post-9/11 Wars

"The United States reacted to the 9/11 attacks with a military mobilization of unprecedented cost. Over the past 20 years, the US military has spent or requested about $5.8 trillion in today's dollars. Add in future medical expenses and disability payments for veterans, which according to research by Harvard's Linda Bilmes will likely exceed $2.2 trillion by 2050, and the total cost of two decades of war is more than $8 trillion."

Direct war deaths in the major war zones of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria/ISIS, Yemen, and a category designated as "Other," will reach a range of  897,150-928,558 since 9/11. (Source: Neta Crawford, "The Numbers," The Nation, 9 . 20 - 27 . 2021.)

Contradictory Impeachment Positions

The Trump Watch: Sen. McConnell's  Impeachment Positions - When Sen. McConnell gave his speech on the Senate floor after his vote acquitting former President Donald Trump, the bulk of it excoriated Trump for his actions of inciting a riot in the Capitol; however, instead of leading up to justifying a vote of guilty, McConnell ended up explaining his vote to acquit McConnell by saying, in part: "There is no question former President Trump bears moral responsibility. His supporters stormed the Capitol because of the unhinged falsehoods he shouted into the world's biggest megaphone." "His behavior during and after the chaos was also unconscionable, from attacking Vice President Mike Pence during the riot to praising the criminals after it ended." McConnell even described Trump as seeming to be "happy" as he  watched television coverage of the riot. 

The gist of McConnell's rationale for voting to acquit Trump is as follows: There is unbreakable linkage between the provision in the Constitution that authorizes the impeachment of the president, and the provision that calls for removal from office. Therefore, since Trump was a private citizen when the trial was held, he  had already been removed from office, thus breaking the linkage.

McConnell's own actions weaken his case for voting to acquit; also, there is precedent that is contrary to Trump's reading of the impeachment clause in the Constitution. Many constitutional scholars also disagree with the contention of Trump's defense lawyers that his January 6th speech was protected free speech.

1.) The House of Representatives properly approved an article of impeachment on January 13th,while Trump was still president, they were turned aside at the Senate door.

2.) McConnell, while still Senate Majority Leader, insisted on a trial date starting after Trump would no longer be president, meaning that it would be a sham, or show, trail.

3;) The House managers had made the point that there was no January exception in the Constitution to block the impeachment for presidential action occurring in January.

4l) Senate jurisdiction had been established by required majority votes -- there were actually two majority votes to establish Senate jurisdiction. Therefore, McConnell could not make a lack of jurisdiction argument.

5,) There was precedent for impeaching a civil officer who was no longer in office.

The Secretary of War, William Belknap, was determined to have accepted bribes dating back to 1870. In 1876, while the House was debating whether to impeach him, Belknap raced back to the White House and resigned. The House voted unanimously to impeach him on five counts, and the Senate decided that it had authority to try former officials, and conducted a trial in April and May 1876. The Senate voted to convict Belknap by majority vote, but since they didn't meet the two-thirds threshold, they had to acquit him.

The Belknap Senate Resolution read: "That it is the opinion of the Senate [that] William W. Belknap, the respondent, is amenable to trial by impeachment for acts done as Secretary of War, notwithstanding his resignation of said office before he was impeached."