What the release of the redacted Mueller Report proves [image above]--and US Person thinks it proves a lot including the impeachable offense of illegal campaign finance contributions--is two fold: one, the decision not to indict Don Veto for obstruction of justice was a policy decision, not one based on the evidence. DOJ has a policy of not indicting sitting presidents¹ espoused in two Office of Legal Counsel memorandums; two, any "fake news" about the so-called "witch hunt" is only that created by the Very White House's extensive propaganda machine.
There may be no evidence beyond a reasonable doubt of Don Veto's illegal conspiracy (a term of legal art with a specific definition) with foreign agents (Russia's Internet Research Agency) running a "sweeping" agitprop operation intended to undermine our political institutions, but as columnist David Brooks points out, while there was no evidence of illegal conspiracy, "[the report] also shows that working relationships were beginning to be built [i.e.collusion²], through networkers like Paul Manafort, Donald Trump Jr. and Roger Stone. More important, it shows that many of the Trumpists, the Russians and the WikiLeaks crowd all understood that they were somehow adjacent actors in the same project." Trump said nothing--worse, he publicly denied what was going on in the shadows³. As one Democratic congresswomen put it, "Eisenhower would not recognize this presidency." The bottom line is: Individual I and his senior campaign officials had guilty knowledge of foreign influence in the 2016 election. Further, his minions expressed willingness to use any derogatory information Russian operatives could provide them. If an ordinary individual has knowledge of a felony being committed and does not report it to authorities, that person could be prosecuted for being an accessory to the crime. If you are a candidate for president, not so much. His disloyalty is astonishing.
Mueller generally corroborates reporting on the Russian Connection investigation which began as an FBI counterintelligence investigation code named "Crossfire Hurricane", and tosses the ball to Congress on the issue of obstruction. Mueller wrote, "If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state." "Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgement." If the congressional investigations go forward on a legitimate basis, and it seems at this point they will, impeachment will be necessary to uphold the integrity of the country's justice system. Trial in the Senate is for another day.
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| credit: Dave Granlund Wackydoodle sez: Garunteed to get the dirt out! |
¹ That policy is not written in stone. It is a legal opinion that can be disputed, and is disputed because both opinions,
in 1973 and another in 2000, were written by DOJ lawyers working for an Executive Branch wherein a chief executive was under threat of impeachment for wrongdoing. In 1973 it was Nixon bag man Spiro Agnew; in 2000 it was the morally unreliable Bill Clinton. Scholars have called the opinions "shaky and political".
²Collusion is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as, "agreement, especially in secret, for an illegal or dishonest reason". It is unarguably illegal for a foreign agent to seek to influence a US federal election, thus the reason for the indictment of GRU agents by the Special Counsel.
³As expected--for no sovereign nation engaged in espionage voluntarily gives up the principle of plausible deniability--the Kremlin continues to deny that it interfered with the 2016 election. It suggests the Mueller report is "low quality" and a waste of American taxpayers' money. To all those pundits counting senators on their fingers, US Person would like to remind them Bill 'Issy' Clinton escaped conviction by only one vote, and Nixon resigned rather than be tried. The point being that the evidence eventually amassed against this President may be so clear and convincing that even Repugnants could not afford politically to exonerate the pseudo mobster, Don Veto Trumpilini. And what if Congress abdicates its constitutional duties by leaving the removal of a corrupt president to the voters in another demonstrably unrepresentative election, as suggested by some inexperienced presidential candidates? If he wins again with the support of the sixty-three million members of his personality cult, the demigod would justifiably declare complete and total victory over "democracy". No governmental institution would then be capable of stopping his march to fascist dictatorship.