Report on the Report
Report on the Report.
I finished reading the Mueller Report. The whole thing.
Except (of course) redactions, which I can’t imagine materially alter what we need to know.
The whole thing:
Not just the POTUS gloating Twee-terpretation.
Not just the Schiff there-must-be-more-if-only-we-keep-looking witch-hunting psycho-read.
Not just the Barr high-level, un-nuanced preliminary condensed version.
Not just the Romney holier-than-thou, sour-grape, Monday-morning-quarterback, if-only interpretation.
I’m pleased that the Report was completed and published and shared. Say what you will, but I can’t imagine another nation on earth where a government chief executive would say, “go ahead and investigate me, even though I believe I haven’t done any of the things I’m accused of.” I also couldn’t imagine a government executive not bitching about it the whole time. That the investigation was completed and reported upon is a testament to the greatness of this nation and to the strength of its institutions, even in the face of forces bent on undermining those institutions. Trump may have wanted to end the investigation many times—probably many times a day—but he didn’t. He could have, but he didn’t.
Mueller’s team was thorough and provided deep insight into the context —from The Federalist to legislative history to SCOTUS opinion to the inherent tension between Article 1 and Article 2–of the investigation. The Mueller team was fair and remained professional (and tight-lipped) as it chased the truth.
My main conclusions are:
1. Russians attempted to infiltrate the campaign as part of its broader goal of undermining American institutions and hegemony.
2. Rotten people in Trump’s periphery with selfish motivations gave Russians the best chance of meeting the broader goal of undermining American institutions and hegemony.
***Although this essay is about the Report itself, I do want to go on record and say that I think Comey is an honest professional and an American patriot. Although I believe he has swerved into the political since leaving the FBI, his actions as FBI director reflected a sincere search for truth. What underlies his character is not partisanship, but rather a defensiveness against forces that would undermine important American institutions. That tension, to some, played out as antipathy toward Trump, but I think it was a nearly impossible line to walk between Constitutional rule of law and following the democratically ratified will of the people as vested in a chief executive who is openly ambivalent toward some of those institutions. Comey did his best to walk that line though he seems to have swerved into the personal—leaned into the antipathy—since then.***
While there are few sentient Americans in any circle of our current political Venn diagram who doubt that the Russians attempted to hack our election, the question of Trump’s involvement was answered. He neither colluded (a term that has no legal pertinence but that was the phrase leveled early on and what we stuck with) nor conspired (the term the Report prefers as there is ample legal definition). True, there were some pretty rotten people in Trump’s periphery.
1. Politically naïve relatives who may have been manipulated and outsmarted by foreign espionage agents.
2. Politically astute advisers who were certainly interested in their own power and their own wealth who attempted to capitalize on the actions of foreign espionage agents.
3. Politically genius, foreign espionage agents who used the collected resources of a Russian government led by a former KGB chief-President.
Of course, these rotten actors were only as successful as they were because they were on the periphery of a megalomaniacal political shaman who was just dumb enough to claim plausible deniability and just smart enough to have a handful of competent experts to serve as a shield against his own lucky imbecility.
Based on the Report, I believe that Trump was definitely not a Russian agent, he was not a Manchurian candidate; he wasn’t even attempting to enrich himself by leveraging Russian government relationships. Any attempts to make those cases are strictly unsupported by the Report. More to the point, Trump was the unwitting tool of the perfect storm of idiotic family members, rotten opportunists, and genius Russian spies who were mostly interested in sowing political instability in America.
The rotten people prevailed when Trump won. We are more divided now than ever. Every institution, from SCOTUS to the Electoral College to the Press, is under assault. The Russians prevailed when the rotten people (at least on his periphery, but probably also including Trump, himself) prevailed.
True: many of the rotten people were rooted out by the investigation and will be spending time in prison for their criminal rottenness. Also true: most of the prosecutions were for past (or ongoing) crimes brought to light by the investigation. Those prosecutions confirmed what most Americans believe about most politicians and political strategists: they are rotten, power and money-driven flouters of their rottenness. Attempts to cloak their own rottenness were less about protecting an aloof (probably also rotten) president than they were about protecting their own interests in money and power.
The closest the investigation comes to implicating the Trump campaign with conspiracy is around the June 9 “Trump Tower” meeting. It did happen. It was attended by high level campaign officials and relatives. That meeting yielded nothing of criminal consequence. When the Trump periphery realized that it was a sham, they ended it and attempted to cover up that it ever happened. Should they have taken the meeting in the first place? Probably not, given the pretense. Would overzealous political novices from the “other side” have taken the same meeting? Probably, but that is, admittedly, speculative on my part.
More importantly, should Trump’s peripheral ambassadors have lied to the American people about the meeting’s existence? Definitely not. Especially in light of the corroborating reports of the meeting that were uncovered by the investigation, there was nothing to lie about. It was a stupid meeting to take, but not criminal. To many speculators, this meeting would have been the smoking gun that tied together conspiracy and obstruction; it was neither. It came closest to implicating Trump himself, but he is cleared. Don’t misunderstand, it absolutely underscores my two main conclusions (repeated here for emphasis):
1. Russians attempted to infiltrate the campaign as part of its broader goal of undermining American institutions and hegemony.
2. Rotten people in Trump’s periphery with selfish motivations gave Russians the best chance of meeting the broader goal of undermining American institutions and hegemony.
The closest the Report comes to convincing me on the Obstruction implication was in the “Flynn episode.” The (now) president was in his right to fire Flynn. That action was probably one of the best, most thought-out decisions of his early presidency. Flynn was rotten and lied to save himself. He lied to the Vice President, straight to his face. That could not be overlooked. In the full light of the investigation, Flynn’s rottenness reflects a level of rottenness beyond what Trump seems to have recognized at the time.
The potential (implicated) obstruction was when Trump told then-FBI director Comey that he “hoped” Comey could “let it go,” regarding Flynn’s subterfuge. For whatever reason, Trump believed that Flynn was not as rotten as he was (is). Perhaps he was balancing Flynn’s lifetime of service to America against a single rotten act. Perhaps Trump wanted to protect his young and unstable administration from further instability. Because we can not know Trump’s mind and what drove his request of Comey, the Mueller Report tells us, we cannot possibly know that the “hope” was voiced “corruptly.”
The second hurdle that Trump’s Flynn-related “hope” had to pass was whether or not it was an “order,” as Comey interpreted it to be, or if it was simply an out-loud musing. Like Mueller, I equivocate here. If the most powerful man in the world—my boss—“hoped” I would do something, I’d probably feel obligated to do it: an order. If a shaman businessman said it to me as part of a sleezy real estate negotiation, I’d probably take it as just that, a sleezy tactic. Weeks into his first stint as an elected official, my gut tells me that Trump was acting more as the latter than the former. How Comey interpreted that is on him, not the president. Ultimately, the probe declined to prosecute on this. I think that is the right decision. The Flynn “‘hope’ affair” came closest to proving obstruction by Trump himself, but Trump is cleared. Don’t misunderstand, it absolutely underscores my two main conclusions (excuse my second reiteration, made for emphasis):
1. Russians attempted to infiltrate the campaign as part of its broader goal of undermining American institutions and hegemony.
2. Rotten people in Trump’s periphery with selfish motivations gave Russians the best chance of meeting the broader goal of undermining American institutions and hegemony.
In summary, I am happy that the Mueller investigation completed and that it ultimately yielded a comprehensive Report for the American people. While I don’t think it proves that Donald Trump is not rotten, I believe it evidences that the president is not guilty of criminal collusion or conspiracy with the Russians nor that his actions cross the line into criminally, “corruptly” obstructing justice in the conduct of the investigation itself. I do believe it proves that we have a lot of rotten (and stupid and novice) people in Trump’s periphery. Those rotten (and stupid and novice) people have provided a dangerous foothold for espionage in the highest reaches of government.
I also think that (and this is not evidenced within the Report, but by the existence of the Report itself), despite all of that rottenness, our American institutions will survive. The Constitution will be tested and will evolve as it always has. The rule of law will survive. The United States will survive—it must as, even with all of the rotten people in and in the periphery of power, it is the best hope of protecting liberty and human rights in the world.
If we needed the Mueller Report to make this all more clear, then so be it: thanks, America, for it.
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