Good-bye to you too, old Rights of Man

Billy Budd is a merchant seaman on "Rights of Man". He is also the title character in Herman Melville's "Billy Budd". Billy is a nice young man. He was a foundling. He stutters.

When the "Rights of Man" is stopped at sea by a British warship, "HMS Bellipotent". Billy is taken off his vessel and impressed into service on the British ship. As the merchant ship sails off without him, Billy says."Good-bye to you too, old Rights of Man".

Billy's fate goes from bad to worse. He is ultimately hung after being falsely charged with mutiny by John Claggart, the Master at Arms. He is tried at sea by Captain Vere. Vere and the other officers on board know that Billy is innocent.

Melville named "Rights of Man" after the book of that title by Thomas Paine. Thomas was big on liberty and freedom. He was jailed for his beliefs.

On June 8th of last year Barr wrote an unsolicited memo to the Justice Department that was critical of Mueller's investigation.

https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/549-june-2018-barr-memo-to-doj-mue/b4c05e39318dd2d136b3/optimized/full.pdf#page=1

On December 10th of last year, Trump nominated Barr for the Attorney General position. Barr had served as Attorney General once before during George H.W. Bush's Presidency, where he was an advocate for pardoning 5 administration officials who were involved in the Iran-Contra Affair.

Barr was confirmed as Attorney General on February 14 of this year. Within weeks, he announced that the Mueller investigation was coming to an end.

On Friday, March 22, Mueller completed his investigation and submitted his report to Attorney General, William Barr.

Mueller's report was the result of a 2 year investigation. During the investigation Mueller, headed a team of "19 lawyers and 40 FBI agents, intelligence analysts, forensic accountants, and other professional staff. The Special Counsel issued more than 2,800 subpoenas, executed 500 search warrants, obtained more than 230 orders for communication records, issued almost 50 orders authorizing use of pen registers, made 13 requests to foreign governments for evidence, and interviewed approximately 500 witnesses". 

Mueller indicted and got either guilty pleas or convictions for 35 people and 3 companies. 6 of the people were Trump advisers, including Trump's former campaign manager, Paul Manafort.

Any report of this nature with all its attending documents and records would be rather large. I suspect just storing the documents would take up quite a bit of space.

Yet, Barr managed to summarize the Mueller investigation in 3 1/2 pages within 48 hours of receiving it. Yes he did.

Barr's summary letter went to 2 Senators (Lindsey Graham and Diann Feinstein), the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and 2 Representatives (Jerrold Nadler and Doug Collins), the Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee.

Barr allegedly quotes Mueller as saying in the report, "The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities." and "while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him."

Within hours, Trump was on TV saying the report "totally exonerated" him. 

Lindsey Graham is now calling for an investigation of Hillary Clinton.

Devin Nunes wants the Mueller Report "burned".

Mitch McConnell has moved in the Senate to block the release of the Mueller Report.

For 2 years, Donald Trump has been attacking Robert Mueller and his investigators relentlessly. He has referred to the investigation as a "witch hunt".

Since Mueller turned his report over to Barr, the internet has been burning up with stories and Tweets about it. The news media have panels of experts dissecting the Mueller Report. Republicans want it destroyed, burned and blocked. All this despite the fact that no one, save William Barr and Rod Rosenstein, has actually seen the Mueller report.

Yep, everyone seems to be confusing the Mueller Report with the Barr letter. Everyone in the GOP, including Trump, is also lying about what Barr's letter actually says. Case in point, Barr quotes Mueller as saying, "while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him." yet our Liar-in-Chief Tweets:

On 3/14, the House voted unanimously (420-0) calling for the Mueller report to be made public when it was finally turned over to Barr. Today we are witnessing another shameless display to suppress information on the part of the Republican Party.

I'm starting to feel like Billy Budd. I've been watching our move toward totalitarianism for years. I'm feeling like I've been "impressed" along with all my fellow countrymen onto a ship of state that has been taken over by a gang of pirates. We are more of a kleptocracy than a Democratic Republic. Our votes have been neutralized and our voters have been suppressed.

I was not alone in supporting Robert Mueller and his investigation. Many of us have held our collective breaths as Trump trashed and attacked the Special Counsel while the GOP either stood idly by and or, more often, actively assisted him. As I watch us sail into fascism I find myself saying, "Good-bye to you too, old Rule of Law".

When do you suppose we will have our Reichstag Fire?

We need to see the actual Mueller Report. If we resort to book/report burning, the country is lost.

Holy Moly!