I disagree in part. First of all, what is at issue with Mueller is not his credibility, but his tactics. Mueller, like Lt. Col. Vindman, had great faith in the system, and if they worked hard and played by the rules and didn’t cheat, truth and justice would eventually prevail and they would ultimately be shown to be the good boy scouts they were. And maybe–with time–they still will be, if the country manages to survive that long.
And Mueller did, in the end, complete a report which, if incomplete because Trump & Co refused to cooperate, will be for history, one of the biggest indictments of Trump and his presidency. It was no small achievement that the Report we have (or eventually will fully have once we get the unredacted version) even was completed. But for people I am not wild about, like Jeff Sessions and Rod Rosenstein, we wouldn’t even have what we have, as they and others ran interference for months to allow Mueller to complete what we have.
Mueller simply trusted that once he had dutifully done his part, that others–those in the Senate–would do theirs. And they were derelict in their duty. Mueller must be bitterly disappointed by so many he had once considered friends and colleagues, for abandoning him to the attacks of Barr and Trump, who knew the ultimate boy scout would never breach legal protocols and fight back and fight dirty, like they would.
With Trump’s de facto pardon of Stone, I think Mueller was probably brought past the breaking point of being the brave, tight-lipped loyal warrior and soldier. And while it may no longer matter to the impeachment, it may matter once we get to a new administration, and to history, that in the end he fought back to defend the reputation of the work he and his people had done.
And you say Mueller could have stopped this two years ago. Well we can never know what would or wouldn’t have happened, but I am increasingly convinced he couldn’t have stopped Trump, no matter what he’d said or done. Just look at the GOP Senators and Congressmen since the impeachment–from Trump’s handling of the pandemic, to the Russian paid Afghani bounty hunters, to his openly racist rhetoric–very few Republicans (who hadn’t already quit the Party before Trump took the reins) have been willing to make Trump accountable for anything. And who, other than the Senate, could have stopped Trump? Other than Courts, some of the time, the GOP-run Senate is the only entity that could hold Trump accountable, but they wouldn’t and won’t or can’t, no matter what Trump does or says. They are all too beholden to the voters of the base and the money of the billionaires and terrified of making either mad.
So yeah while we all had hoped Mueller would be Superman and rescue the country from Trump, and he didn’t–many of us were disappointed. Maybe we all expected too much from him from the outset. The fact he didn’t do so doesn’t make him a villain. If you look at Mueller’s record through the years–from Vietnam to leading US Attorney’s offices and the FBI, I think it is unfair to accuse him of no courage or strength. Compare his record to that of Trump or Barr as to who has courage or strength, Or of most other Republicans. Or most of us.
Mueller may have been tasked with the impossible, and was probably the only one alive who could have, in the end, and through his discretion of tight lips and discipline, gotten us the written indictment of Trump and his enablers we will have for the ages. The full report will eventually get out. Stone and others may be spared jail (for now), but they won’t be spared the indictment of history. I think that, in the end, Mueller will still matter and we will owe him a debt of gratitude.