Imagine my surprise when the front page top headline story in the Jerusalem Post, my religiously required reading on Friday morning, was on the Mueller report on Donald Trump, his circle and the issue of Russia collusion (Conspiring) and obstruction of justice. The Post did a reasonably good job of summary.
I had hoped that the report would end the focus on this, and that the Congress and the President could get on with the issues facing the country. That was naïve on my part. Whatever the report said, the Democrats would argue that it showed Trump was guilty even if the report did not show such, and the Republicans would say that it showed he was not guilty. There is so much spin that avoiding dizziness is almost impossible. What was I to do? I downloaded the report and read it myself. Here is my take from a direct reading.
First, on the issue of collusion and conspiracy, the report was quite clear. There was no substantial evidence that President Trump, his circle or any American colluded or conspired with the Russians. This is the big conclusion. However, Democrats are saying that Trumps use of the material that came from Russians and Julian Assange was almost a crime. Really? It was in the public domain. If the Democrats had such material, they would not use it? Also, the Steele Dossier used against President Trump for this investigation came from Russian sources! The Democrats argue that the contacts Trump team’s with Russians was somehow terrible when such contacts are par for the course.
The issue of obstruction of justice is more complex. This section of the report did not conclude that Trump was guilty of obstruction and did not conclude that he was exonerated. It appears at times that he wanted to end, disrupt or influence the investigation. However, his advisors and lawyers prevented this, so it did not take place. Most of the issues of obstruction came from his hard push back against the investigation in public comments. Could this influence grand juries in an undue way? There were also cases where he wanted to contain the investigation. However, none of this happened. The descriptions of the President in this section are terribly unflattering. They show that side of the President that his opponents and even some supporters most hate. However, Mueller did not conclude that he obstructed and noted that different views and disagreements on what constituted obstruction was a factor in not coming to a clear conclusion. So, there was no conclusion that he did obstruct justice or that he did not. Several past prosecutors and leaders of the justice department noted that it is hard to make an obstruction case when there is no underlying crime. The case is undercut by the first conclusion of no consipiracy/collusion. Therefore, the issue is trying to disrupt an investigation when the person being investigated is innocent. Does hindering the investigation or pushing back against it constitute obstruction? The report says again that this is a matter of disagreement in viewpoints. Obstruction of an investigation where the person would be found innocent is still on one interpretation obstruction. But what if the innocent party believes that the investigation itself is unjust and a set up that is presenting false information? The person in fear may try to prevent such an unjust conclusion. It is clear that the President did not trust this investigation since the investigation team was a team of almost all Democrats and even some connected to Hillary’s team. But Trump’s advisors persuaded him to cooperate to an unprecedented level, having his staff testify, providing tons of documents and not claiming likely upholdable executive privilege for some matters. So the Special Prosecutor did not come to a conclusion. If there was a clear and provable case of obstruction with corrupt intent the prosecutor would have said so. He left this ambigusous. There was not such a clear case. The President’s actions were to proclaim his innocence and influence the process so this would be established, not to see a false conclusion made. Corrupt intent would therefore be very hard to prove. Congress can establish that his actions were so bad that he could be censored or impeached. This would go nowhere in the Senate, so is a waste of time.
Now the Republicans want to investigate possible criminal behavior in the Justice Department, the FBI, the Intelligence Agencies and the State Department that led to the investigation in the first place. They want to look at why Hillary Clinton was not found guilty in handling classified information and also for obstructing justice (the case there seems very strong). So if a corrupt regime led to the investigation how could President Trump be guilty of obstruction? How complex this is?
The danger of both Republicans and Democrats is losing the independents who probably want the country to move on and end all these investigations.