And this report is the “gold standard” coming from “honorable” Robert Mueller according to the Trump Administration. Of course, that was a whole month ago.
Trump is basically saying he can’t be charged criminally nor can he be impeached. It’s untenable considering Mueller just said if he could have cleared the President, he would have. According to the Constitution, Congress has a duty to act. The ball resides wholly in their court.
Then let’s start charting that territory dammit - and get someone better at the helm
He “cleared” Trump on conspiracy only in the sense that he couldn’t meet the high threshold required for prosecutors to bring charges in order to secure a verdict of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Which is not to say there was no conspiracy. In fact, the Obstruction -which sticks out like a sore thumb in the Report by comparison, I would submit -is the main reason Mueller couldn’t prove conspiracy.
I think he did in fact make a determination about Obstruction, albeit in a nuanced manner. When Mueller says, “If we could have cleared the President, we would have”, the very best case scenario for Trump is that Mueller’s equivocating on this issue. But the fact he pointed out eleven examples belies that. Rather than pound the table, he’s asking for Americans to read the report and Congress to do its job.
The policy, including arguments pro and con, is discussed in the OLC document that embodies it.
I’ve taken the time to read the Mueller report thru end to end three times now. Using the available bits I can identify 10 instances that in my non-lawyer opinion are obstruction complete with corrupt intent. The are a couple ithers that are less solidly backed by evidence or intent. Are there more?? Time will eventually tell. But there are most certainly enough air tight instances that trump ought to be indicted as soon as legally possible.
The DoJ has a policy of not indicting a sitting POTUS with which I disagree. Their reasoning is a president’s time would be consumed by an indictment. Unfairly so. As if other folk indicted are somehow treated differently. The dept. also blithely ignores the obvious fact that we have a Vice President. The dept reasons as if there is none who could replace a president. I find it bone headed.
I read them, but I’m thinking of the value of a public discussion.
Added: I mean I read Mueller’s analysis, but perhaps you are referring to the memo itself. I assume that’s publically available or one of the appendices to the MR I admittedly didn’t read.
Mueller said it was unconstitutional for him to seek an indictment of trump. I contend not so. Mueller was forbidden from issuing an indictment or finding any crime was committed because of DoJ policy. Policy is not law and therefore cannot be though of in Constitutional terms. Laws are Constitutional or not. Policy is something else. Change the goddam policy then. Or not. The better option is to test it in court. I think it will be found wanting.
Here is the relevant part of the OLC finding. Read it for yourself:
Not germane to the issue. The DoJ is supposed to operate independent of the president.
The OLC memo is a leftover unintended consequence of the efforts to unseat VP Sprio Agnew for corruption. In order to arrive at a way to get rid of Agnew, the OLC concocted this farrago out of whole cloth.
And as I recall Agnew was abusively and epically corrupt.
Agnew once came to Tucson to speak at the downtown Pioneer Hotel. I went with my dad. He got in. Me being a bearded long hair hippy was turned away in no uncertain terms. My dad to his credit told the Secret Service agent who had physically removed me that he (the agent) was close to a broken jaw if he did not unhand me and that anyway the GOP had just lost his vote. I was let go. So was my dad.
Agnew was the Maryland version of Trump.
So the “Principle of Fairness” is more important than the fact that our president is a criminal, and an agent of an enemy country?
I added to my post
Yes, according to the DoJ
Yes.
You wrote:
Why doesn’t congress hold hearings on this very question? […] The one expert on this matter I would really like to hear from, the one person with direct experience thinking about this in both an abstract and a concrete way, is Mueller.
Not a bad idea to hold such a hearing, if you are willing to take the risk that the policy may be further entrenched as a result!
No, the analysis applies only to the president.
Again, a mass shooting 11 dead and 6 injured. I want to scream.
https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2019-05-31/police-11-people-killed-in-shooting-at-virginia-beach-municipal-center-suspect-is-dead
Remember that other classic Republican “good cop”, Patrick Fitzgerald? You know, the stalwart white knight that had us all on the edge of our seats in anticipation of the indictments that would expose the Cheney Administration’s conspiracy to out CIA agent Valerie Plame? Hold on, you might say, they did end up nailing Scooter Libby for uh… something to do with Robert Novak and right, whatever it was Trump pardoned him for.
First, I should just repeat what I have said before, which is that given the extreme partisanship in the US, but also Mueller’s personal views on his roll, I think he did the right thing by just laying out the evidence, and not “editorializing” on it when he was not authorized to bring charges. The problem is that the stupid Democrats did not pick up the ball he left them.
Second, this press conference was once again to say “here is the ball, run with it”
Third, to the extent that I disagree with anything that Mueller did, I think he should have indicted Don, Jr. at least, for seeking aid from the Russians. I think it was a relatively clear violation of the campaign finance rules. However, harder to do vs. Kushner as he (a) did not lie when questioned,and (b) was rather perifrial as was infact Manifort, and they lack the clear evidence of intent to take aid shown in Don, Jr.'s e-mails.
That said, Meuller may have felt that a charge of “attempting to obtain/solliciting foreign campaign contributions” just raised too many questions that would result in years of appeals, and also take the spotlight off Trump’s much more serious deeds.
People are noticing.