There are three main things to understand about the report, and one that is the main thing: Trump was cleared completely.
Look, I’m no admirer of Trumps, but the crap that the Democrats are pushing, now that, supposedly, “Mueller didn’t exonerate Trump for obstruction of justice!” is just that… crap.
Here are the three things that you need to understand about the Mueller report:
- Trump — and the Trump campaign — were completely exonerated by the report.
- The Mueller report’s wording does exonerate the Trump administration, and Trump in particular, on the obstruction of justice nonsense.
- The report did show that the Clinton campaign “colluded” with foreign agents in order to influence an American Presidential election.
Focusing on #2: The language said something about not being able to make the statement that the President had not obstructed justice.
Well. I guess that’s bad news for Trump, right? Nope. The following language would be equally accurate:
We were unable to find any evidence that Trump obstructed justice.
Oh, they used weasel words… Found lots of things that “didn’t rise to the level of obstruction of justice.” Okay. Things that “Don’t rise to the level of obstruction of justice”… aren’t obstruction of justice. He could have used that, more precise, language as well. In a bit of whataboutism, please recall what Hillary Clinton’s supporters all said after Comey’s little speech.
Look: I’m unable to conclude that my neighbor is not a child molester. Therefore, according to the Trump-haters’ “logic,” she’s… a child molester. Right? I mean, I haven’t found any evidence that she’s not, so she must be, right? Right?
Of course not.
It is important to note also that I’ve never seen any evidence or indication that she is a child molester either.
Now, I can go out and run around yelling that my neighbor’s a child molester, and you can be sure that the police will quickly become involved, and they’ll investigate my allegations. And, likely, they’ll find nothing against her. But… they haven’t yet. so she still might be, right? Right?
It should be noted, further that if I were to run around shouting that my neighbor is a child molester, the only reason I would do that would be from sheer malice. Because I have no evidence, and have never had any evidence, that she is.
That’s how this whole “Mueller investigation” started. The Democrats, who hate Trump, were running around shouting “Collusion! Collusion!” And that — like my hypothetical accusations of child molestation — was the only evidence they had. Of course, as soon as the Democrats started shouting that crap, their lapdogs in the media took it up, and it all became inevitable.
But it was never more than the very same thing as my hypothetical fabrication of a child molestation charge against my neighbor.
So, bottom line, I have no evidence that my neighbor is not a child molester. Further, I have no evidence that she’s not a liquor store holder-upper either; or a mugger, or a drug addict, or a tax cheat, or even a lousy person.
Oh, and I have no evidence that she is any of those things either.
That’s what the Mueller Report said: It said that there was no evidence that Trump hadn’t obstructed justice… and that there was no evidence that he had.
Oh, there were all manner of circumstances that one could imagine would be things that might be done by persons who had obstructed justice, but my neighbor has all manner of circumstances related to child molesters, liquor store robbers, etc. also.
She has a daughter — as do many child molesters; she has drunk adult beverages — as do many liquor store robbers. She has money and a new car — as do many liquor store robbers. I don’t know how she came by all that money and the new car — as for liquor store robbers. She has a new grandchild — as do many child molesters. She’s divorced — as are many child molesters. Worse, she’s a leftist — as are virtually all child molesters! Holy mackerel! She is a child molester! But, really, I don’t have any actual evidence — even the fact that she’s a leftist! — that indicates that she’s a child molester.
And that’s, in so many words, what Mueller said.
— xPraetorius
The Praetorian Writers' Group 
..and where do all the Presidential lies fit in? You’re forgetting ethics. Congress does not need a crime to impeach should they (the House at least) choose to go that route.
You say you are no friend of Trump, but you sure do bring out their mindless and blind arguments for their devotion to him. If you aren’t a Trump supporter and not a Dem supporter… what are you?
I’m all about ethics, but I’m afraid I don’t think it’s possible anymore to be ethical and be the President of the United States. It pains me more than you might know to say that, but the evidence of something that I’ve long suspected — a Deep State that makes the arrival of a clean person to the presidency impossible — is unavoidable.
Unlike most, I don’t worry all that much about Presidential lies. If I were to do that, then one would be hard-pressed to beat any of them at it.
For example, Obama lied pretty much from one end of his presidency to the other. The media, though, loved him so he got clean away with it. The media, and all other Obama sycophants, really forfeited any right to whine about Presidential lies.
Obama’s Administration committed the largest-scale Civil Rights crime in the history of the country… and everyone involved got clean away with it. (Yes, the IRS abuse of Conservative organizations was on a larger scale than slavery, or segregation, or Jim Crow. Worse? No. Larger-scale? Yes.)
Obama lied constantly and, simply, got away with it. No, if lies were the standard by which we judge Presidents, Trump wouldn’t even be in the top 10. If importance of lies were the standard, then Trump wouldn’t even be in the top 20!
As for what I am, I’m a pretty run-of-the-mill Conservative.
I didn’t like Trump, but not because he’s a rude vulgarian, but rather because he’s spent his entire public life being a run-of-the-mill New York center-leftist. Then he declares all of a sudden that he’s a Conservative Republican? I didn’t believe him then, and I still don’t. I think he does what’s expedient for himself. I guess you could call that a pretty good summation of Hillary Clinton too. So, I still don’t like him. With that said, the “Russia collusion” thing was a hoax and a fraud.
Russia collusion? “The blame for ignoring the Russian threat, Mueller’s team says, is squarely on the Obama Administration, which ignored Russian efforts at destabilization until the summer before the 2016 presidential election, when Obama’s Department of Justice began to suspect Russian interference was leaning against then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. The Obama Administration’s efforts to curtail Russian hackers reached a crescendo only after the 2016 election, when Clinton herself was pushing the “Russian interference” excuse.” (from Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire)
Obama’s looking the other way before 2016 was not a passive thing. It was active collusion. Obama understood as did everyone else that Putin wanted… Clinton to be elected President, so he was unconcerned about “Russian meddling in our election.”
I happen to know that as soon as Trump was elected, though, the Democrats went into “We control the dominant media and the mobs, so now we’re going to pull out all the stops just to thwart his agenda” mode. Sorry, can’t tell you my source, but you have to admit that all the news corroborates that. That was the Kavanaugh hogwash, and that was the whole Russia fraud. That’s the entire impeachment racket as well.
Lost in all this is the simple fact that Putin’s interests would have been, obviously, best served by a Clinton presidency. That Putin might try to hedge his bets should surprise no one. However, there’s no doubt whatsoever that Putin wanted Clinton to win. And why not? Obama gave Putin Crimea, and was standing by as Putin moved to make Ukraine a vassal state.
Putin had every reason to expect that Clinton’s first term would be the same as Obama’s third term. Trump was, for Putin as well as everyone in America: a wild card. We said it in these pages, when we said that there was a 100% chance that Clinton would be a terrible President, and an 80% chance that Trump would be a terrible President.
Given those odds, the nod in the voting booth obviously should go to Trump. It doesn’t change the fact that it surely was a bleak choice.
Also lost in all this silliness is the fact that the Clinton campaign actually did collude actively with the Russians. The well-known fact of the Bill Clinton $500,000 speech in Moscow is way more real evidence than there ever was that anyone in the Trump campaign ever colluded with any Russians.
I have no affection for Trump, but like all fair-minded Americans when someone is being targeted by fraudulent charges for which there’s no evidence, I rail mightily against that… and you should too. As should all Americans. Furthermore, the Left is doing its level best to take people like me and push us into Trump’s orbit. I won’t go there, but others might be persuaded.
Trump is not a fascist, a racist, a misogynist or any of the other crap that the Left is whining on and on about. As I figured, he’s a run-of-the-mill, conventional, ordinary New York center-leftist, who’s had to parrot Conservative or Republican thoughts and ideas in order to have a base at all. That base consists of the following demographic: the ones that brung him to the dance. Without that base, his presidency may be a lot of things, but one thing it’ll be for certain is: 4 years. So, no, I still would prefer an out-and-proud Conservative, who makes no bones about it, is deceiving no one, and who loves and lives Conservative values.
Trump’s not as Jonah Goldberg, or possibly Kevin Williamson, once said quite eloquently, one who “speaks Conservatism as a first language.”
Lots of his policies are good, and his Supreme Court picks appear to be fine, but he’s done a lot wrong as well. His decisive action against ISIS was outstanding. He’s been way firmer in the face of Russian aggression than Hillary ever would have been (offering nearly dispositive evidence of the fact that Putin was hoping for a Clinton presidency).
Protectionism is a leftist thing, being polished up, wrongly, to be a Republican or Conservative thing. It’s not. Obamacare is still with us. The tax cut was too little, incorrectly targeted and not accompanied by more than offsetting spending cuts as it should have been. He’s promised to withdraw from Syria — too soon, risking a new resurgence of ISIS.
One quick thing: the defenders of Trump, and their defenses, are absolutely not mindless or blind. One of my favorite writers, and one of the finest writers and thinkers in America today, is Victor Davis Hanson. My thinking about Trump tracks pretty well with his, if you’d like a fuller explanation of what I’m saying when I tell you I don’t like Trump. Hanson writes for National Review Online, and he has a finely-honed gift for compiling the salient facts about something, and explaining them intelligently and rationally.
One more quick thing: During the Civil War someone told Lincoln that then-General Ulysses Grant was a heavy drinker. Lincoln said something to the effect of: if that’s true, he’d send Grant a case of his favorite drink to keep him doing what he was doing (heavy paraphrasing).
I feel about the same about Trump: I don’t care if he’s a complete bum of a person, if he can be a good President. Because it’s a sure thing that Hillary Clinton would have been a catastrophe as President. And it’s a sure thing that she’s a complete bum of a person.
I wish we didn’t have such unpleasant choices, I truly do, but that doesn’t change the fact that we still have to try to do what we can to make the very best of it all. We’ll never do that by railroading someone who might be a boor and a jerk, but who has never given any indication that he committed any crimes. It just ain’t illegal to be a boor and a jerk. It ain’t even, in a sane world, worthy of an investigation of any kind, much less the travesty that was the Mueller probe.
Now, as far as impeachment is concerned, that is a political thing. You’re absolutely right that no crime is needed to proceed with impeachment hearings. However, if one impeaches Trump and one leaves Obama alone? Seriously? Siccing the IRS on taxpayers is what Nixon only threatened to do, and that was the main reason for the impeachment hearings against him. Obama actually did it.
Nope… impeachment is not warranted here. Now, if you were to tell me that the IRS is still doing what it was doing under Obama, then I might be persuaded. 🙂
Best,
— x
A succinct reply and I can respect your stance. But it appears you are a political cynic. I would guess that comes from age and maybe some level of being on someone’s receiving end. You’re no run-of-the-mill Conservative from my vantage point… because I am and I am not holding to anything you’ve written. But you are entitled to be whomever you wish to call yourself. My “thing” is humanism… people are who they are and I can accept that. The fact that somehow you dislike Trump because of some politics of the past over his current performance might suggest you have trouble with perspective. Of course, that’s only my perception… and I’ve been wrong before… and will again. What you seem to be hoping for is truth and honesty in order for you to not personally grapple with human frailties and filtering for yourself. But that’s neither here nor there.
You see, I don’t spend time comparing Trump and his antics to previous political figures. Trump holds the office currently, no one else. Of course, I’ve disliked the fellow as President from the day he won the election… his inability to formulate any sort of policy is more an “I told you so.” He’s pretty much a mental case in my book. But he certainly has 40% of the voters sold on his propensity to regurgitate fear. I’m far more the optimist.
We don’t agree… but you responded well and in kind.
The framers of the constitution clearly wanted three branches of goverment, each branch with a particular selection process.
Therefore, we can presume that they didn’t want a president to be impeached just for any reason or for purely political reasons.
The bar for removing a president through impeachment better be pretty damn high. If the President could be removed at any time for any reason by Congress, what’s the point of having presidential elections? Why not having the President selected by Congress?
A mechanism that allows for the removal of the President for political or any other resasons does already exist. It’s called the presidential election.
You can vote or not vote for a candidate for whatever reasons you like. You can vote based on a candidate’s politics, race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, the way he looks and dresses, his mastery of Klingon poetry …
In a country where the law still rules, a person, even a President you don’t like, is innocent until proven guilty and Mueller’s job cannot be to exonerate the President. Mueller’s job is to tell whether there’s enough evidence to bring charges.
Since there is not enough evidence, the Democrats have to stretch Mueller’s findings to the max in order to come up with creative constructions of obstruction cases against the President. This does clearly not reach the high bar necessary for impeachment.
I’m fully aware that X is more than capable of speaking for himself and I don’t want to interfere too much with your conversation but since you seem to make yourself the standard for who is a run-of-the-mill Conservative I have to say this:
My understanding was always that in contrast to the Left who views everything as a means to an end, real Conservatives care about the constitution and the rule of law.
Shouldn’t concern for the constitution and the rule of law trump dislike for Donald Trump?
As for me, I don’t care which labels are attached to me. I’m just a European who admires your constitution and who is interested in American politics.
This was for Doug. I clicked the wrong link.
Well, here’s the thing with your impression of our impeachment process… it’s not designed to be a court of law. Mueller stated very succinctly that his stance was that a sitting president… based on current DOJ rules.. cannot be indicted. So.. evidence or not, Trump would never have a “day in court”, hence Mueller’s summation that the evidence he was providing be deliberated in Congress “the extent of presidential abuse of power and corruption.” Our entire Constitution is a political document but it was intended to be that way; this is what democracy is… debating political will. What you are suggesting is that politics is influenced by party loyalty and affiliation… which tends to suggest a less-than-country reason for doing things… and in many cases it is exactly that.
You can’t think of our impeachment process as a court of law… it’s more like a performance review you would get from your boss. The “high crimes & misdemeanors” is very wide open and non-specific. Having said all that.. your remarks do represent many of the Conservative defenses against the report.
Forgot to submit for your review my most recent post on impeachment…
https://findingpoliticalsanity.com/impeach-or-not/
Thanks, Doug… I’ll read it when I get the chance.
Best,
— x
Doug,
You said: “… evidence or not, Trump would never have a “day in court”.
Response: I respectfully disagree. That’s not true. The President can still be indicted after he leaves office.
You said: “Our entire Constitution is a political document but it was intended to be that way; this is what democracy is… debating political will. What you are suggesting is that politics is influenced by party loyalty and affiliation… which tends to suggest a less-than-country reason for doing things… and in many cases it is exactly that.”
Response: The funny thing is: Conservatives usually make sure to tell me that the US is not a democracy but a republic. Concerning political will, what about the political will of those who voted for Donald Trump? What about their rights?
I’m not suggesting anything. I merely pointed out the inconsistency of you making yourself the standard for a run-of-the-mill Conservative and your lack of concern for the constitution and the rule of law which is typically a concern of conservatives. I’m not talking about loyalty to a party or affiliation to groups. I’m talking about loyalty to conservative principles. Look, you can do whatever you like and you can call yourself whatever you like. You can even disregard conservative principles for “the good of the country”. But then I find it a little bit presumptuous of you to make yourself the standard of conservatism.
You didn’t address my “constitutional” argument but that’s ok. American history proves me right. No president has ever been removed through impeachment and of the 45 US Presidents only 2 were impeached.
That fact alone tells us that the bar for impeachment has to be pretty high. Knowing human nature and knowing that prior Presidents have done pretty bad things one has to believe that President Trump is the worst President in US history in order to justify his impeachment.
I’ve read your article and I commend you for your effort. However, I didn’t find your arguments convincing.
You recommend impeachment on the grounds of the crime of obstruction of justice based on the folliowing points.
Trump
1.Asked Sessions to reverse recusal.
2.Told McGahn to lie.
3.Asked Flynn’s lawyers for a “heads up”.
4.Commended Manafort for not flipping.
5.Criticized Cohen.
6.Orchestrated Trump Tower lies.
7.Wanted Sessions to limit the investigation.
8.Tried to oust Mueller.
9.Tried to stop Sessions recusal.
10.Fired Comey.
11.Asked Comey to let Flynn go.
None of these points constitute a crime. If you still want to build an obstruction case based on these points you have to show that there was currupt intent on the part of the President. That’s going to be virtually impossible when we consider that accoording to Mueller himself there was no underlying crime. No collusion, no conspiracy or any other crime.
All these points you listed could also be interpreted as the actions of an innocent man with no corrupt intent. Following the principle “in dubio pro reo” (when in doubt, for the accused), Donald Trump is not guilty.
Point 11 is not entirely correct. Donald Trump said to Comey “I hope you can let this go”.
That could be interpreted different ways. Besides, if Comey thought at the time that this was obstruction of justice, he was obligated to notify his superiors which he didn’t.
He testfied under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 3 2017 that there was no obstruction of an investigation for political purposes.
He only changed his tune after he was fired a few days later.
I didn’t check the other points but even if they are correct, none of them constitute a crime.
Coming back to the rule of law.
In your article you appear to recommend the release of an unredacted Mueller report. Please, correct me if I’m wrong.
I hope you’re aware that AG Barr is forbidden by law to release the full unredacted report and I hope that you’re not suggesting that Barr should violate the law. Ironically, some of the rules preventing Barr from releasing the full report were put in place at the behest of the Democrats who wanted to spare then President Clinton the public exposure of some juicy, shameful details.
What struck me when I was reading your article, is that you divide the world in “Trumpsters” and “anti-Trumpers”.
You identify yourself as an anti-Trumper.
For the “Trumpster” Donald Trump can do no wrong.
For the “anti-Trumpers” Donald Trump can do no right.
Unless you believe that Donald Trump is messiah or devil incarnate, both views are obviously wrong.
Anyway, nothing you have written so far does really matter.
Why?
Here is why, in your own words from your article “My Prediction That Trump Would Not Get Elected In 2016: A Personal (Distorted) Reflection”:
“My reasons he would not win in 2016 became the impetus for my new blog to be started the following January, 2017… and became the initial theme for my reasons he should not be president, and should be removed from office post-haste. While my preference for his impeachment has been slightly tempered, at least until some of these investigations conclude, he still represents an appalling excuse for a leader.”
In other words. You wanted the guy removed from day one. The will of the voters be damned. (How constitutional and principled).
All you needed was an excuse. You are still grasping for one. If that attempt at removing Donald J. Trump as President of the United States of America fails, you will shurely find another excuse (no matter how flimsy) to remove the guy.
I agree with you that one should not sacrifice the good for the country on the altar of party affiliations but, equally important, one should also not sacrifice the good for the country on the altar of personal animosity.
You should reconsider.
I replied a week ago.. where did it go?
Oops! Yes you did! My apologies! I’ll get to it as soon as I can.
Best,
— x