Well, it appears the Mueller special prosecutorial circus has come to an end with little to show of it.
Literally, because it wasn’t made public.
That’s right, the most anticipated piece of literature in the past ten years, the report that American taxpayers funded and have been waiting two years for, is, evidently, not suitable for public consumption.
President Trump’s recently-appointed Attorney General (who can’t possibly be biased, even though, prior to being nominated for A.G. by Mr. Trump, he had badmouthed the Special Prosecutor and the investigation), read it and then (surprise!) announced that there was nothing in it to evidence “collusion” on the part of the Trump campaign with the proven Russian tampering in the 2016 election.
Who could have predicted that?!
The President’s appointee also went on to note that the idea that the Commander-in-Chief “obstructed justice” to hinder the Mueller investigation was not proven (or, dis-proven). So, Mr. Trump is now crowing that Mueller didn’t find anything because he (the President) wasn’t indicted.
(Duh. Almost all legal scholars agree that a sitting President can’t be indicted for a crime. Dick Nixon wasn’t indicted, either. So, Trump wasn’t going to be indicted, anyway. Impeachment…that’s how Presidents are prosecuted, by Congress. Something like that may still happen, once the Democratic leadership gets a chance to read the actual report.)
Gee, one would think that the American public, who paid untold millions in taxes for the investigation, would be entitled to catch a glimpse of the actual report. Trump says he has no problem with it becoming public, and the House of Representatives recently voted 420 to zero to release the full report.
HaHa.
Don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen, even though the President controls the Department of Justice, which produced the report. He could order it released right now…but he won’t. (He’ll claim it’s being “audited”, there’s “secret stuff in it”, there’s “National Security” implications, or some other bullshit reason. Or, at a minimum, there will be a bunch of redacted pages.)
More game-playing by our President, more delay, more obstruction. It’s who he is.
I have no idea whether Trump personally “colluded” with the Russians on the election meddling. He certainly benefited from the Russian hacking, his top campaign staff was thick as thieves with the Russkies, and a bunch of those folks are going to prison. His children, who were involved in the campaign, appear to have gotten excited when hearing about the dirt that the Russians had on Clinton.
Just coincidences, according to Trump’s attorneys.
However, recall that candidate Trump publicly announced at a campaign rally the big Wikileaks info dump (stolen from the Democratic National Committee by Russian hackers) in advance. How could that have happened if he wasn’t in the loop?
Attorney General Barr didn’t explain that. Neither have Trump’s attorneys.
Since we can’t read what Mueller found out about such stuff, it is perfectly normal to be suspicious. Trump lies like a rug, so we can’t read much into his protestations of innocence. Hitler had more credibility.
What we citizens absolutely know about Donald Trump, after decades of seeing and reading about his slimy personal and business exploits and his one-ring circus Presidential Administration, is that he controls everything…himself.
The man is historically weak on delegation, he micromanages, and, because he doesn’t think things through or accept expert advise, is prone to stupid blunders like failed business endeavors, getting caught cheating on his wife and paying hush money, and lying constantly to cover-up various chicanery that he is constitutionally unable to avoid. (And, then, blames subordinates for his mistakes. What a great “Boss” to work for!)
Everything in his life story indicates that he is definitely dumb enough to have accepted Russian help.
All of this leads me to believe that nothing went on during his Presidential campaign that wasn’t personally directed by himself or by one of his very few, most-trusted advisors (typically his family members, political advisor/soon-to-be jailbird Roger Stone, or campaign chairman/soon-to-be jailbird Paul Manafort). The latter two were found guilty of crimes by the Special Prosecutor, and Trump’s family members were spared indictments either because of: (1) insufficient “smoking gun” evidence; or, most likely, (2) Trump threatened the A.G. (i.e. Mueller) to lay off or he would torpedo the investigation (which he had threatened to do for two years).
I’m guessing that, years from now, when the truth comes out like it always does, the American public will find out that number (2) came into play.
By the way, that is the “obstruction of justice” angle, which was neither proven nor dis-proven, according to Barr’s hasty/rehearsed reading of the Mueller report. Of course, that’s Barr’s opinion…and it is possible that Barr is, in fact, one of the parties to the “obstruction”.
It is unlikely that Trump would have appointed Barr if the President didn’t know, in advance, how his new appointee would shade the interpretation of Mueller’s report. The President seemed quite calm and confident about the release of the Mueller report between Barr’s appointment and the termination of Mueller’s investigation. The word went out quickly for the Special Prosecutor to “wrap it up”.
One wonders if Barr’s “interpretation” of the investigator’s report was already in the bag, before Mueller handed over his report? Rudi Giuliani might have written it; it would fit the sequence of events.
In the meanwhile, the Mueller report cover-up by Attorney General Barr will probably serve to further incite the Democratic majority in Congress, which will stimulate investigations into every aspect of the President’s life, taxes, relations with foreign governments, and his business dealings.
Accordingly, the Republican majority in the Senate will do everything in its power to offset the Democratic fervor, and we, the American public, will endure another couple of years of spitwad shooting between so-called “adults” and virtually nothing else getting accomplished in Washington D.C.
Maybe that’s a good thing, because they won’t have a chance to screw anything else up.