Michael Tracey @mtracey on twitter, going through the Mueller Report, asking questions, making observations:
Mueller's staff spent hours and hours interviewing crazy people like Jerome Corsi, but for some reason didn't seek out allegedly key players in the collusion conspiracy like Assange or Kilimnik (whose receipt of polling data from Manafort was supposed to be a smoking gun.) Why?
Mueller asserts that Kilimnik met with Manafort in Madrid on February 26, 2017. Manafort initially denied this, but then apparently admitted to it under pressure. Kilimnik says he has never been to Madrid. Why didn't Mueller seek out Kilimnik to resolve this bizarre discrepancy?
Kilimnik reportedly lives in Moscow. But he says he would have voluntarily cooperated with Mueller. And further, Mueller saw no issue with indicting other Russian nationals (such as GRU figures and social media proprietors) who will almost certainly never appear in US court
Mueller's basis for concluding that Papadopoulos willfully lied is so weak. He joined the Trump campaign on March 6, 2016 and misidentified the timing of his first meeting with Mifsud by 8 days: March 14, 2016. (Establishing willfulness is required per the relevant statute)
Mueller further alleges that Papadopoulos describing Mifsud as full of "BS" was another "lie." But Mifsud failed to deliver on any of the Russian "connections" he promised Pap. So in that sense, Mifusd was in fact "BS'ing." Construing this as a material, willful lie is ridiculous
Papadopoulos voluntarily told FBI agents about his meeting with Misfud, so why would he willfully lie about something as trivial as the date, when he proactively reported to them Mifsud's bombshell revelation about Russians supposedly having "dirt" and "emails" on Hillary?
Mueller says Mifsud made false statements to investigators. So why didn't Mueller charge him with a crime? Mueller charged numerous other foreign nationals, including some who almost certainly will never show up in US court, with a variety of crimes, including false statements
None of it makes sense. Strains credulity that the charges against Papadopoulos would've held up at trial had he not pleaded guilty (which Mueller's team aggressively pressured him to do). Also lends credence to Pap's theory that he was the "fall guy" for a flailing investigation
Mueller cites two media reports, by strident Russiagaters Julia Ioffe and Ken Dilanian, related to a "meeting" Sessions supposedly had with Kislyak on April 27, 2016. Ioffe and Dilanian use innuendo to cast the meeting as highly suspicious. Muller concludes it was inconsequential
This "undisclosed meeting" caused one of thousands of media meltdowns in 2017, and led to Sessions' recusal. Mueller says it was essentially a brief exchange of pleasantries at a public event. Just as "skeptics" had said all along was the most plausible explanation.
Mueller asserts that the GRU hacked DNC/Podesta, but he doesn't establish a chain of custody whereby the hacked materials were transferred to WikiLeaks. In fact, he explicitly leaves open the possibility that a non-state actor (as Assange always claimed) transferred the materials
Furthermore, this redacted passage is curious. What's with the "although" qualifier? And why didn't Mueller seek to interview Assange, who is cast as a key figure in the entire matter? He interviewed hundreds of people who played even the most tangential roles. Why not Assange?
There's not a single mention of Maria Butina anywhere in the Mueller Report. Yet she was subject to one of the most disgusting, sexist smear campaigns in memory (labeled a transactional slut) because of the vague impression that she was implicated in "Russian interference." Sick
