Five Things I Learned From the Mueller Report

[demmiblue]

A careful reading of the dense document delivers some urgent insights.



I spent the week after the release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report going through it section by section and writing a kind of diary of the endeavor. My goal was less to summarize the report than to force myself to think about each factual, legal, and analytical portion of Mueller’s discussion, which covers a huge amount of ground.

Here are five conclusions I drew from the exercise:

The president committed crimes.

There is no way around it. Attorney General William Barr’s efforts to clear President Donald Trump, both in his original letter and in his press conference the morning of the report’s release, are wholly unconvincing when you actually spend time with the document itself.

Mueller does not accuse the president of crimes. He doesn’t have to. But the facts he recounts describe criminal behavior. They describe criminal behavior even if we allow the president’s—and the attorney general’s—argument that facially valid exercises of presidential authority cannot be obstructions of justice. They do this because they describe obstructive activity that does not involve facially valid exercises of presidential power at all.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/04/ben-wittes-five-conclusions-mueller-report/588259/

[underpants]

1. 👀 Keystone Kollusion

Long read. I’ll get back to it later. Thanks.

[empedocles]

2. Strong article. Mueller did some great, important, very useful work.

By providing a kind of well documented 'certified evidence', of criminal activities; while not attacking trump directly, his impact may be more powerful. Much harder to dismiss as a partisan effort 'to get trump.'

[The way some thought Mueller should bring down trump; then be so dismissive of Mueller for not doing so, is not useful].

[Big Blue Marble]

3. Wittes also effectively points out the predicate for impeachment

and sooner rather than later. As I read it, Wittes is speaking directly to the House:
impeach now or regret it later. And I might add, Wittes is the opposite of a hair-on-fire
kind of guy!

[empedocles]

4. I like Wittes and Tribe a lot. However, as some seasoned, ol' pol once

said, [best as I remember], of JFK's 'best and brightest' appointees - I wish one of them, had successfully gotten elected to at least Sheriff.