Justice Department Appoints Former FBI Director Robert Mueller As Special Counsel For Russia Investigation (thehill.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Hill: The Justice Department has appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel to investigate Russia's involvement in the U.S. election. Mueller, a former prosecutor who served a 12-year term at the helm of the bureau, has accepted the position, according to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. "In my capacity as acting attorney general I determined that it is in the public interest for me to exercise my authority and appoint a special counsel to assume responsibility for the matter," Rosenstein said in a statement. "My decision is not a finding that crimes have been committed or that any prosecution is warranted. I have made no such determination. What I have determined is that based upon the unique circumstances, the public interest requires me to place this investigation under the authority of a person who exercises a degree of independence from the normal chain of command." UPDATE: President Trump has released a statement: "As I have stated many times, a thorough investigation will confirm what we already know -- there was no collusion between my campaign and any foreign entity. I look forward to this matter concluding quickly. In the meantime, I will never stop fighting for the people and the issues that matter most to the future of our country."

Comments

Done, done, done

[fnj]

Trump is a stupid helpless infantile bastard. Stick a fork in him. He is DONE. What a goddam disappointment.

Excellent.

[ScentCone]

The existing FBI investigation will continue (just as it was going to anyway), and we'll have yet ANOTHER person echoing the multiple agency heads and senior legislators (from both parties) who have after months of investigations repeated that there is no evidence of any collusion.

Mueller is tasked with looking into "Russian attempts to influence the election," a given - something they've always done, and continue to do in elections all around the world. That's not the same as the thing that political partisans on the left are attempting to conflate with it, which is their narrative that somehow the campaign was involved in that - again, something for which there appears to be zero evidence, as has been authoritatively said multiple times by people in the know from multiple angles. The question is whether or not Mueller will be re-hashing the ten months of investigations already conducted by multiple entities. Note that this is NOT a special prosecutor. This is a special counsel, and setting up somebody in that role doesn't indicate any awareness that there is something to prosecute (the statement from the DoJ AD explicitly says this is not a finding that there is even anything prosecutable). More like a chance to finally settle the dust on this after ten months of FBI investigation and shut down the unhinged narratives being bandied about by people who don't even seem to understand the constitution.

Re:Excellent.

[ScentCone]

Right! "Working with the Russians." Which isn't even vaguely related to "colluding with Russians to manipulate the election." I know, the truth isn't nearly as fun because it forces you to think about why the Democrats ACTUALLY lost so many legislative seats and governorships along with both houses of congress and the White House. But your instinct to deliberately mis-represent the very thing you're citing as some sort of evidence tells us all we need to know about what your real agenda is: deflection and distraction. OK, at least it's consistent with the way the Ds ran their entire election season into the ground and shows you still haven't grappled with the fact that continuing with that narrative isn't actually effective (except in turning even MORE Democrat voters away from the party).

Re:Winning

[Osgeld]

you are probally right about the conclusion of muleer's findings, but its so much fun for us to dish it right back yo you all after 8 years of non stop bashing and drama... problem is you elected a hot head who is already starting to cry like the bitch he is

Re:Is there any reason not to impeach Trump?

[ScentCone]

he's admitted in absolutely no uncertain terms that he interfered with Comey's investigation

Other than you're deliberately mis-characterizing what happened and what was said, making your description of it just simple trolling.

Hillary committed actual crimes, but got away with it through political leverage (everyone in the prosecution food chain presumed she was going to be president). Telling the FBI director that you hope a long-running investigation that has produced zero evidence of collusion will wrap up soon is NOT obstruction of justice. You can tell because ... absolutely nothing changed then, or since, in that ongoing investigation. And the acting director of the FBI agreed that was the case. You're just spinning because you'd like impeachment to be what happens when you simply don't like somebody.

Re: Winning

[Bartles]

Haha. Imposing net neutrality is suppression of free speech. Regulation infringes the 1st amendment, not the lack thereof.