I have skimmed the report. Considering it’s length and my time limitations, on the whole it seems very good.
The failure to find collusion is really well-documented.
The explanation for Mueller’s actions re: obstruction is very murky.
If I’m reading it correctly, Mueller found mixed intentions in Trump’s actions, some of which could be deemed deliberatively obstructive while others were clearly born out of his frustration in having to deal with a non-existent crime, 99% of which was the product of an artifice concocted by his political opponents. In other words, they played rough, and he wanted to reply in kind. Establishing a corrupt motive at trial would be very, very difficult
Trying an obstruction case on mixed motives, some perfectly legal, is not a recipe for a conviction.
Many of the things he wanted to do that might have been otherwise clearly probative of obstruction never happened, e.g., the instructions to fire Mueller which Trump’s lawyer prudently and wisely refused to follow. I’m not sure that qualifies as an attempted crime. It probably does. But given Trump’s mixed motives, trying to hang attempted obstruction around his neck in the absence of a substantive crime would have been as difficult as establishing criminal intent.
And behind it all is the unstated practical/political truth behind it all: No one will dare prosecute a sitting President for obstruction when the underlying collusion crime was criminally concocted by his political opponents in the DOJ and FBI, the same organizations that investigated him.
I’m reading a lot of squawking about how the soft coup was not investigated. People need to get over that; doing so was not part of what Mueller was tasked to do. That happens starting now.
One thing that stands out is that Trump is a bull in a china shop. If his advisors had not refused to do some of the things he wanted them to do, he’d be facing some very serious trouble. He really is a street fighter.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
But who’ll guard the guardians? |
