Well, Special Counsel Robert Mueller finally delivered live testimony to the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, and now one thing is clear: The reason he wanted the printed Mueller Report to speak for itself is because Robert Mueller isn’t very good at speaking for himself.
All the liberal talking heads on networks like MSDNC were saying that Mueller’s testimony on TV was necessary because people needed to actually hear him say what was in the report rather than having to read it. So much for that. Most of what he said was variations of “I refer you to the Report.”
Not like it matters. All televised congressional hearings are exercises in grandstanding, but as is usual these days, Republicans were that much worse. With their shouted delivery and all their change-the-subject conspiracy theories, the Party of Trump acted like they were the ones being put on trial. Which in a way, they are.
But I go back to a point I’ve made at least once: There is a clear distinction between the government’s Rules as Written (the Constitution) and the house rules everyone plays by, mostly for the convenience of the two-party system running the government. The government hasn’t been run by Rules as Written in a long, long time. And what we saw today is another aspect of a government that is in danger because it gives more and more power to the Chief Executive as though he were a Roman Emperor, regardless of whether that Emperor is Trajan or Nero. And the reason for that is that while the Rules As Written place the Congress – in Article I of the Constitution – as the center of the system, Congress as it exists now is a collective exercise in dodging responsibility.
Republicans wanted Mueller to say – as William Barr did – that there was No Collusion (TM) and their Leader has a clean bill of legal health because they don’t want to take the responsibility of voting no on the impeachment of a president who is not only unpopular but (for some reason) widely perceived as crooked as hell. Democrats wanted Mueller to indict Trump for them because they don’t want to take responsibility for pushing an impeachment knowing that Mitch “the Bitch” McConnell will slam it down in the Senate and then turn around and help Trump milk that for all it’s worth.
As I’d said: Even if there was no specific standard prohibiting the Justice Department or one of its agencies from indicting a sitting president, that would mean that the Party of Trump could whine that the president was being brought down by an unelected institution, and for once they would have a point. There already is a mechanism for the government to investigate and try a criminal or unfit president. That mechanism is impeachment. It is not Robert Mueller’s place to do Congress’ job for them.
And again: not like it matters. Because almost despite Mueller, Democrats got the legal pieces they wanted. Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler asked Mueller, “the president has repeatedly claimed your report found there was no obstruction and completely and totally exonerated him. That is not what your report said, is it? ” Mueller said, ” Correct, not what the report said.” Longtime Trump foe Ted Lieu (D.-California) asked Mueller, ” I would like to ask you the reason again that you did not indict Donald Trump is because of OLC opinion stating you cannot indict a sitting President, correct?” Mueller responded, “That is correct.”
But another one of Nadler’s lines of questioning was actually strengthened by a Republican. Colorado Republican Ken “The Schmuck” Buck tried to grill Mueller, saying, “You made the decision on Russian interference, but when it came to obstruction of justice, “you threw a bunch of stuff at a wall to see what would stick.” “I would not agree with that characterization at all,” Mueller replied, adding he believed he could not charge Trump with obstruction, because of the Office of Legal Counsel’s determination that a sitting president could not be charged. Buck pressed on this: “Could you charge the president with a crime after he left office?” Mueller said, “Yes.”
“You believe you could charge the president of the United States with an obstruction of justice after he left office?”
“Yes,” Mueller said again.
In the immortal word of Ben Stein: “Wow.”
I always found it ironic that the people who most oppose teaching Darwinian evolution in school are not only the biggest advocates of Social Darwinism in politics but the biggest examples of Darwinism in action.
So because Mr. Mueller was constrained not only by his professional ethics but the directives of William Barr’s Department of Justice, he would not do Congress’ work for it. He would not do the math for them. But it was left to a Republican to define the point: if this were anyone else, they would have been prosecuted. Ergo, there is enough evidence in the Mueller Report for Congress to start an impeachment, since Republicans were certainly able to impeach Bill Clinton with less. I agreed with them then that there was cause to impeach on obstruction of justice, and the Republicans’ new messiah makes Slick Willie look like Albert Schweitzer.
Your move, Speaker Pelosi…