Best quote from the Mueller report: ‘[Trump] then asked, “What about these notes? Why do you take notes? Lawyers don’t take notes. I never had a lawyer who took notes.” McGahn responded that he keeps notes because he is a “real lawyer”’

Don’t have time to read the whole report? Here are some summaries:

1. There are short, readable executive summaries at the beginning of each of the two volumes.

2. Lawfare Blog has a lengthy article discussing the report. Take-away quote: “the more time one spends with the obstruction section of the report, the more it suggests that the Mueller team believed the evidence of obstruction to be very strong.”.

Lawfare

3. Opening Arguments has an episode on the report, where they break down some of the legalese and explain some details including: Mueller used a very high legal bar for what is considered criminal conspiracy; Trump Jr and Kushner were considered to be too stupid to charge; Trump’s written response to Mueller’s questions was considered insufficient and inadequate, but Mueller was unable to get an in-person interview to resolve the matter; some of the key redactions by Barr, such as why Trump refused to testify, were clearly inappropriate. Take-away quote: “Trump was helped by the fact that only a handful of people who worked for him were remotely competent and experienced at any of the things they’ve ever done before”. I suspect OA will have a more thorough breakdown of the report in a future episode.

Opening Arguments

4. My own impression (without having read most of the report) is that it doesn’t contain any new smoking gun to add to the pile of already known smoking guns, but the investigation would have found a great deal more if not for the extensive obstruction of justice.

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