Mueller Report: Hollywood Can’t Make This Stuff Up

Wow!   We are still digesting the full redacted version of the Mueller Report.

We only had to get through the first few pages within an hour of its release on Thursday for us to conclude the House Democrats will have no choice but to move on Impeachment.   See our post, Impeachment Market – The Only Market That Matters Now here.

If we could make any investment right now, it would be the media that takes the report and runs with it.  Books, movies, conspiracy theories, and others will use the Mueller Report as the original source for the next 50 years, and beyond.   The Mueller Report reads like a Tom Clancy novel and makes the Bridge of Spies look like a Flinstones cartoon.

We find it interesting that most cannot abstract themselves from the heat of the political moment to recognize the historical importance and consequences of this document.  It is the classic case of the boiling frog fable.

We have pulled just a few money quotes from the first few pages, which we believe will resonate throughout history.   Don’t use it as an excuse not to read the entire report.

Keep an open mind and stay flexible.   Read the full report for yourself and do not depend on the spin from either side. 

Hollywood can’t make this stuff up.    

See the full redacted version of the Mueller Report here.

The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion. Evidence of Russian government operations began to surface in mid-2016.  – Mueller Report, P. 1

• RUSSIAN SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN
  The Internet Research Agency (IRA) carried out the earliest Russian interference operations identified by the investigation – a social media campaign designed to provoke and amplify political and social discord in the United States. The IRA was based in St. Petersburg, Russia, and received funding from Russian oligarch Yevgeniy Prigozhin and companies he controlled. Priozhin is widely reported to have ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin………[redactions]
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• …The IRA later used social media accounts and interest groups to sow discord in the U.S.political system through what it termed “information warfare.”  The campaign evolved from a generalized program designed in 2014 and 2015 to undermine the U.S. electoral system, to a targeted operation that by early 2016 favored candidate Trump and disparaged candidate Clinton.   The IRA’ s operation also included the purchase of political advertisements on social media in the names of U.S. persons and entities, as well as the staging of political rallies inside the United States. To organize those rallies, IRA employees posed as U.S. grassroots entities and persons and made contact with Trump supporters and Trump Campaign officials in the United States. The investigation did not identify evidence that any U.S. persons conspired or coordinated with the IRA. Section II of this report details the Office’s investigation of the Russian social media campaign. – Mueller Report, P. 4
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• The social media campaign and the GRU hacking operations coincided with a series of contacts between Trump Campaign officials and individuals with ties to the Russian government. The Office investigated whether those contacts reflected or resulted in the Campaign conspiring or coordinating with Russia in its election-interference activities. Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.  – Mueller Report, P.5
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• IRA employees posted derogatory information about a number of candidates in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. By early to mid-2016, IRA operations included supporting the Trump Campaign and disparaging candidate Hillary Clinton. The IRA made various expenditures to carry out those activities, including buying political advertisements on social media in the names of U.S. persons and entities. Some IRA employees, posing as U.S. persons and without revealing their Russian association, communicated electronically with individuals associated with the Trump Campaign and with other political activists to seek to coordinate political activities, including the staging of political rallies. 5 The investigation did not identify evidence that any U.S. persons knowingly or intentionally coordinated with the IRA’s interference operation. – Mueller Report – P.14
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• Collectively , the IRA’s social media accounts reached tens of millions of U.S. persons. Individual IRA social media accounts attracted hundreds of thousands of followers.  – Mueller, P. 
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• From June 2016 until the end of the presidential campaign, almost all of the U.S. rallies organized by the IRA focused on the U.S. election, often promoting the Trump Campaign and opposing the Clinton Campaign. Pro-Trump rallies included three in New York; a series of pro-Trump rallies in Florida in August 2016; and a series of pro-Trump rallies in October 2016 in Pennsylvania. The Florida rallies drew the attention of the Trump Campaign, which posted about the Miami rally on candidate Trump’s Facebook account (as discussed below). /86  – Mueller Report, P. 31

• IRA employees monitored the reaction of the Trump Campaign and, later, Trump Administration officials to their tweets. For example, on August 23, 2016, the IRA controlled persona “Matt Skiber” Facebook account sent a message to a U.S. Tea Party activist, writing that “Mr. Trump posted about our event in Miami! This is great!” /105  The IRA employee included a screenshot of candidate Trump ‘s Facebook account, which included a post about the August 20, 2016 political rallies organized by the IRA. – Mueller Report, P. 34