Hi @freemo

I saw you claiming that you prefer Trump to Biden for US president, which surprized me as I was under the impression that Trump is so bad for democratic & rule of law standards that no reasonable person valuing these things could support him. I also saw you point out some anti-Trump propaganda that was just factually wrong, so you seem to be knowledgeable in that matter. Since I am now wondering whether my views are just a result of such propaganda I was hoping you could verify some of the things that led me to my conclusions.

I am not a US citizen and this exercise is mostly for anti-propaganda calibration purposes for me. You seem to enjoy this kind of discussion, but I know that you are a busy man, so I won't assume a lack of response to have big significance. I will still be grateful for any you give.

Thread follows, ordered by a combination of severity and how sure I am of specific claims.

@freemo
One: Obstruction of justice

Trump took multiple actions to hinder the Mueller investigation, including firing and pressuring people to resign, publicly verbally attacking people who cooperated with authorities, and ordering his subordinates to thwart the investigation in various ways.

The Wikipedia page on the Mueller report provides a reasonable overview of the situation, but the report itself is obviously the main source, and I have read significant fragments of it (but not everything).

This issue seems like an obvious abuse of power to me, and the facts associated with it are mostly a matter of public record, so I don't think I am a victim of propaganda in these regards (although I am open to somehow being wrong here). If I were to guess what I might be getting wrong -- maybe this is not unusual for US politics, and such abuses of power are normal there? And in this case the propaganda only highlighted Trump's abuses to me, despite them being a common occurrence?

@timorl

There is a lot of validity in this point. I think it is obvious trump had no interest in cooperating and did everything within his power to derail the investigation.

On the one hand this doesnt look good for trump, and for the most part I agree with you that he handled it in a way that didnt look good.

However to play a bit of devil's advocate I can also see Trumps side in why. We were talking about something he perceived as a witch hunt, which to some extent I agree. If the investigation were handled in a court of law judged by his peers, and not by congress, it would have been thrown out for lack of evidence on day one I'd imagine. Typically in court a person would have the ability to push for such a motion, to have the case dropped due to lack of evidence, not to mention those juding him would have been impartial by definition.

Instead, however, the investigation was prompted from political motivations, carried out by the FBI, and never made it to a court room. Moreover any lawyer defending a client, especially during the investigation stage, would tell their client not to "cooperate", the general advice of a lawyer is if a cop asks you questions refuse to answer them as it can be twisted and used against you in court later.

Not only is it well within a persons rights not to cooperate with an investigation that seeks to specifically incriminate said person, it is the norm and expected.

Combine this witht he fact that Trump perceived it as a witch hunt, a waste of time, and ultimately a political move to discredit him without basis. So he felt as a political tactic it was abusive on the part of the democrats..

So with all that said there are parts of how he responded I can justify, parts I cant... Him telling people not to cooperate or him not cooperating himself seems ok, thats the advice lawyers give as standard... where he crossed the line as you point out is when he used his power as president to fire people, as you say. So the one glaring issue on this point, for me, and the most damning for trump, is that there are claims he ordered people fired in an attempt to derail the investigation.

Presuming for a second this is true It would be that point, the abuse of power, that would be the most damning for me. The problem I face though is my inability to verify these claims. The claim of Trump wanting Mueller fired came from a report by the new york times and provided absolutely no evidence that I could follow to verify that claim. The New york time was the one who broke the news and they simply asserted it as true without providing the evidence. Considering the low integrity of US news my personal rule is that if there isnt evidence I can follow and verify I dont treat a statement as true. So I am pretty much left in a state where the claim against trump would be very damning if true but since I cant verify the claim I cant draw a conclusion.

With that said even if this were true it is also comparable to many things biden has done, whom has abused his power on many occasions as well, so even if it were true it would put them toe to toe at best.

@freemo This response reads as if you haven't read the Mueller report – if that is the case I would definitely recommend at least reading the various conclusion subsections, they are quite informative.

To be more explicit, Russia was influencing the elections and there were undisclosed meetings between Trump campaign officials and Russians – that much was established by the investigation, before it had to focus on the obstruction angle, since it was so disruptive. While this doesn't say much as to whether there was actual illegal activity by the campaign (at least with respect to Russians; other illegal activity of the campaign is matter of public record), it definitely shows the obstruction was significant.

Many instances of obstruction are also clearly documented in the report, if you want more reliable sources than media.

I would also argue that not cooperating with investigations, while may be good advice for most people (although it's scary that it is in the US), shouldn't be the standard by which public figures are held. And, as far as I know, the standard was higher before – I recall at least Clinton having no problems testifying (both of them actually, on separate occasions) and I thought other people from the Obama admin also testified, although finding the instances is harder, so maybe I'm wrong in that regard.

Some examples of Biden abusing power would be nice.

@timorl I have read the mueller report, and that is not true.. The following are direct quotes from either the report itself or the special investigators giving the report. What is clear is that while the report did determine russia interfered in the election there was no evidence to suggest Trump was aware of or coordinate with russia in doing so. Their interference was of their own accord. Here are the quotes directly from the investigators and the report itself:

"“The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities,” this is a direct quote from the report iself, specifically from the four page summary of the report.

Moreover Barr directly addressed the question of obstruction of justice and determined trump did not commit obstruction of justice during the investigation, here is the quote for that "[Investigators] have concluded that the evidence developed during the Special Counsel’s investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.”"

@freemo Yes, "did not establish". That's why there is a whole part 2 of the report. The wording is also very cerful, since from what I understand it at least established that information was transferred from Russia to the campaign (without coordination or conspiration) regarding the timing of the e-mail leaks. Afaik that's not illegal, so maybe it's a moot point, but it seems at least questionable morally.

The Barr letter is a gross mispresentation of the report and this specific passage is both implicitly contradicted by the report (it stresses heavily that the reasons Trump was not charged are due to the rules and memos on charging the president) and somewhat more explicitly by Muellers response (during his hearings) to the question if Trump could be charged after his term. I don't see a reason to trust Barr in this case, especially since he was appointed by Trump during the investigation iirc.

@timorl I provided one quote from barr, the other is directly from the report. Both assert the same point, that no collusion was found.

@freemo No, the one from the report only states that no evidence of cooperation with Russia has been found. The one about obstruction of justice is pure Barr.