Good morning.
Sunday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of fifty-three. Sunrise is 5:52 AM and sunset 7:52 PM, for 14h 00m 19s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 35.3% of its visible disk illuminated.
Today is the nine hundred first day.
On this day in 1945, Benito Mussolini and over a dozen other fascists are executed by partisans.
Recommended for reading in full:
Benjamin Wittes of Lawfare offers Notes on the Mueller Report: A Reading Diary:
Thursday [4.18.19] I surveyed the entire Mueller report. I read some sections carefully; I skimmed others. My job was to anchor Lawfare’s initial coverage, so I needed to have a sense of the big picture, as well as detailed knowledge of certain findings and arguments. Starting Friday [4.19.19], however, I am reading the entire document carefully, starting at the beginning. I’m writing up my thoughts as I go in this post. There will be no cohesive argument to this journal. It will simply be a collection of my observations, questions and thoughts as I go through the document. It will get long. I will not attempt to summarize the underlying document, merely to reflect on it, but I will organize this post by document section. I will update the post as I read. I hope people find it useful.
The following table of contents are links to the sections of this journal, which correspond to sections of the report itself:
The Special Counsel Investigation
Russian “Active Measures” Social Media Campaign
GRU Hacking Directed at the Clinton Campaign
Russian Government Links to and Contacts with the Trump Campaign
Prosecution and Declination Decisions
Background Legal and Evidentiary Principles
Factual Results of the Obstruction Investigation
B. The President’s Conduct Concerning the Investigation of Michael Flynn
C. The President‘s Reaction to Public Confirmation of the FBI’s Russia Investigation
D. Events Leading Up to and Surrounding the Termination of FBI Director Comey
E. The President’s Efforts to Remove the Special Counsel
F. The President‘s Efforts to Curtail the Special Counsel Investigation
H. The President’s Further Efforts to Have the Attorney General Take Over the Investigations
I. The President Orders McGahn to Deny That the President Tried to Fire the Special Counsel
J. The President’s Conduct Toward Flynn, Manafort, [REDACTED]
K. The President’s Conduct Involving Michael Cohen
Legal Defense to the Application of Obstruction-of-Justice Statutes to the President