Sunday, April 21, 2019

How Robert Mueller De-Fanged His Own Report


There were plenty of long faces when special counsel Robert Mueller's report on a 2-year investigation into the Trump campaign's dealings with Russia reached no finding of criminal conduct on the part of Trump and his campaign team. 

The Washington Post reports that was a choice taken by Mueller from the outset. There would be no charges, no sealed indictments, there wouldn't even be findings of possible crimes.

For nearly two years, the public, Congress and the White House waited to learn if special counsel Robert S. Mueller III would find that President Trump had committed crimes. When the answer was finally revealed, it turned out Mueller didn’t think that was his job at all. 
The special counsel ended his investigation last month, pointedly choosing not to reach a conclusion about whether the president had obstructed justice. 
In a report of its findings, Mueller’s team said that choice was driven in large part by a long-standing legal opinion at the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) that a sitting president should not be indicted, even if the charges remained sealed
Mueller's team concluded that also meant they could not accuse the president of a crime, even in secret internal documents, the report said.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've never understood why Democrats expect Republicans to do their job for them. Mueller, Rothstein and Barr are all Republicans. I can understand them being unwilling to take down Trump. It's Pelosi and Schumer taking impeachment off the table that I can't understand. Do your f'ing job or step aside and let someone else do it.

Cap

Anonymous said...

I never understood why they got so hung up on "collusion". When I go to work, I do not "collude" with my boss. I obey my boss. So does Trump.

the salamander said...

.. followed the Mueller thingy.. from the beginning (I wanted to see just how f'd up Trump & GOP et al were..) At this point, I'm wowed. Robert Mueller delivered. Its like he pitched a no-hitter.. even a perfect game !! He and his gang never put a foot wrong.. Their strategy ?? They INVESTIGATED.. They followed EVIDENCE.. TESTIMONY .. they reported with bulletproof precision. Hell the lead was old hand infantry grunt. No partisan barriers.. 'just the facts, M'aam'.. Did America proud they did.. handed the flag to Congress. Congress may fail & flail.. BUT Mueller Company.. stormed & took the hill. That hill is a great high ground where Trump & Russia.. Greed & Deceit can stand stark naked on high

thwap said...

It seems pretty clear that Trump is guilty of obstruction of justice. And that Mueller has blatantly decided to give him a pass on this.

Therefore it's up to the Democrats to pursue impeachment, even if only to force the Republican Senate to vote against it. This appears to be the reasoning of Ocasio-Cortez.

Fine. Trump has also brazenly ignored the emoluments clause. Go after him for that too. And go after Obama for his "kill-list." And go after Bush 43 for torturing some folks. And for an illegal war based on lies.

Go nuts.

But personally, I thought it was insane to believe that Trump is Putin's puppet. To imagine that even if he was, that the state apparatus and the political class would stand-down as Trump subverted the interests of the US ruling classes to Russia is demonstrably absurd.

Can we not summon the self-control and the objectivity and do an accounting of what Trump has done that benefits Russia, what he has done that harms Russia, and what he has done that harms the US ruling classes, and judge how much he's Putin's puppet by the results?

Maybe Putin's agents hacked the DNC. Maybe. But anyone who thinks the social media ads by RussianS was some sort of sophisticated Kremlin psy-op really needs to seek psychiatric help.