The Mueller Report
June 1, 2019 8:00 AM - by The Washington Post - Subscribe

The final report by Robert Mueller on Russian interference in the 2016 election, whether the Trump campaign conspired with the Russians, and whether the President obstructed justice by getting to limit the effectiveness of the investigation.
posted by Going To Maine (17 comments total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
I'm still working my way through this dense monster, and I'm curious if other folks are trying as well.
posted by Going To Maine at 8:02 AM on June 1, 2019 [2 favorites]


Read it day one. ★★★★★ would recommend to anyone.
posted by mazola at 8:15 AM on June 1, 2019 [2 favorites]


PSA from the latest megathread: The Digital Public Library has converted the redacted Mueller Report PDF into a text-based EPUB version
posted by Doktor Zed at 8:33 AM on June 1, 2019 [13 favorites]


read it from day one through ... some days later. also directed attention at democratic congresspersons' reading of it on c-span (for the most part they read it very poorly, and not quite completely; the effort was impressive nevertheless). striking in vol. 1 was how frequently all these people lied to one another in the normal course of business, as they openly (?) recounted in their fbi/special counsel interviews. like one after another: i told x i had communicated y to z, but i had not. routinely lying to their partners, teammates and cohort is just how these guys roll. vol. 2 was an undeniable referral for impeachment, more forceful and compelling as it concluded, leaving me breathless (for 400pp of bureaucratese values of breathless) and confirmed in the righteousness of my longstanding outrage. i am unaware -- out here in meatspace -- of anyone else who has read it, even the very serious politically engaged newshounds and attorneys.
posted by 20 year lurk at 11:04 AM on June 1, 2019 [4 favorites]


Got about 60 pages into Vol 1 when I started last weekend and planning to make more progress tomorrow. I should just start reading it in dribs and drabs weekdays on the train instead of listening to podcasts, but prefer devoting larger chunks of time. Reporting over the past couple years has already provided a good account of the events in Vol 1 and it's hard to resist jumping ahead to Vol 2.
posted by theory at 12:23 PM on June 1, 2019


The episode Idiot Monster Fog has two left leaning lawyer types going into the report in detail, ialternating horrifying and hilarious , and they comes to some good conclusions about how it go forward and about what’s not being said directly,
posted by The Whelk at 1:39 PM on June 1, 2019 [2 favorites]


Definitely have this on my reading list. Right now I'm working my way through Buttigieg's autobiography Shortest Way Home.
posted by Roger Pittman at 6:57 PM on June 1, 2019


The podcast Mueller, She Wrote is going through a portion of the report each week, with commentary, in addition to their regular shows, and publishing them for free / outside the Patreon paywall. Parts one (.mp3) and two (.mp3) are out already, from an expected ten parts.
posted by XMLicious at 2:23 AM on June 2, 2019 [2 favorites]


I was surprised to get a copy of this in the mail for free from a nonprofit I support. Perhaps I should start reading it on the bus... I'll become more informed, and maybe it'll encourage the neighbors, too.
posted by eirias at 8:09 AM on June 2, 2019


heh... last week at [very large, membership-based warehouse retailer], I overheard the following conversation:

... "put it back honey, why would you buy a book where so much of it has been redacted"...

We are in Canada, so - the main reason I think the fellow wanted to buy it was for laughs.
posted by jkaczor at 5:37 PM on June 2, 2019


(Note: this comment is not intended to encourage or discourage anyone from joining Audible or Amazon Prime or using Amazon at all, it's just here for information in case anyone wants to know this.) If you have Amazon prime and you haven't tried audible before you can get one month free to try out audible which also gives you two books you can get for free that you can keep even if you cancel, so if you want to listen to the report, you can get it for free that way. Audible books are drm protected though so I think you need their app or something to listen, and also you need to remember to cancel if you don't want to incur the $15 a month fee. Just putting this here in case anyone's interested.

I have the paper copy but have only read a little so far.
posted by Rufous-headed Towhee heehee at 6:56 PM on June 3, 2019


I downloaded the audiobook free from Audible last month and zipped through the whole thing while I was ripping up fire fuel (dead weeds) from my yard.

Reaction 1: wtf is all this You have to have willful criminal intent therefore since Don Jr didn't know it was a crime (arranging to receive what he hoped was Kremlin-derived campaign dirt on HRC), we can't nail him for it bullshit? I'm not a lawyer, so I was all, "Ignorance of the law is no excuse"!

Then that Monster Idiot Fog episode (linked by Whelk above) tells me this: the importance of proving willful criminal intent is characteristic of statutes for crimes committed mostly by RICH WHITE GUYS.

Reaction 2: More independents and nominally Dem voters who haven't being paying attention would pay attention, if Pelosi started the impeachment process and got Mueller on the stand to testify, etc. Mueller's report says, "Now go use my findings to do your job." I'd bee undecided about starting impeachment, before. Reading this decided me.

Reaction from a white woman in her 60s in my Resistance group, who's relatively plugged in, who's in the middle of reading it, re the obstruction of justice issues: she was nearly speechless about what she'd read, so nearly all she could say, over and over, was: "I'm shocked!"

"And you're relatively plugged in!" I said, "So that's why I think Dems need to start the impeachment process, to educate the public about what's in there. A lot of people who currently think 'He'll be out in 2020, no biggie' will be more shocked than you are."
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 5:40 PM on June 5, 2019 [1 favorite]


A little further in, but man it is easy to distract yourself from a homework assignment. If people are interested in more book commentary, there are three episodes of the Politics and Polls podcast by Sam Wang and Julian Zelizer at Princeton that go through the report:
posted by Going To Maine at 9:58 AM on June 15, 2019 [1 favorite]


Gah! Page 76! Planning to go to Russia for a business meeting after becoming the nominee! I know there will be many moments like this, that there have been 2.5 years of moments like this, but gah!
posted by Going To Maine at 8:44 AM on June 18, 2019


(Not indictable, obviously, but just such a big picture story about the man and his run, and his own expectations for it. Lord, grant me this confidence.)
posted by Going To Maine at 8:46 AM on June 18, 2019


Via the main uspolitics thread: We hired the author of 'Black Hawk Down' and an illustrator from 'Archer' to adapt the Mueller report so you'll actually read it
posted by XMLicious at 3:38 PM on July 10, 2019


There's another podcast recounting the report out from Lawfare, though it’s only two episodes in: The Report
posted by Going To Maine at 2:06 PM on July 27, 2019


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