I agree the Hillary camp (aka CAP) pushed Russiagate for all it was worth, and routinely uses spin and distorted narratives to push their brand of neoliberalism and corporatist ideology. I also believe Podesta is at the heart of a lot of pay-for-play corruption, some of which is hinted at in leaked emails.

BUT can’t we also see in the Mueller report that Russia attempted to interfere in our election (as other countries also do) and the Trump campaign accepted that help. When they learned Russian officials were peddling sensitive stolen emails, they not only had a duty to report it to the authorities, they lied to pretend the meeting was about adoptions. Mueller may have concluded this did not rise to the chargeable level of aiding and abetting a foreign government in the interference of a US election, but others might disagree, especially if they could see the underlying evidence.

Also, didn’t Mueller already successfully prosecute Manafort for Russian collusion? He went to jail for financial crimes related to his cooperation/conspiracy with Kilimnik and Derapaska, during the time he was in the campaign. Is the Mueller report splitting hairs by saying there was no collusion with the Russian *government* instead of cut-outs that work for Putin outside of the government by design?

I’m a big fan of Kevin and Taibbi’s work, but I saw a bunch of articles come out after Barr’s initial deceptive misinterpretation of the report that seem to conclude there was less wrongdoing than the report, once released, does show. I can appreciate those that say there are plenty other Trump crimes to go after, like tax fraud, campaign finance fraud, or emoluments violations, but I don’t think Trump’s campaign should get a pass on Russian interference just yet.

There is a valid point in telling Maddow watchers or Hillary devotees they need to realistically temper their expectations that Mueller would produce a definitive smoking gun to chase Trump out of office, but there is more than enough to begin impeachment proceedings and much more still unresolved on many fronts, including obstruction, pending House subpoenas of witnesses like Hicks and Sater and about 14 other investigations by other agencies or states.