After Mueller's report — still no glimmers of worthy smarts — in the American landscape

25 March 2019

With Attorney General William Barr's summary of Robert Mueller's report — now in the Senate Judiciary Committee's hands

It is pretty clear that the Deep State and Democratic Party's attempt to coup d'état President Trump with a series of lies has failed.

From a national perspective

We can conclude that both of the United States' two intensely partisan populations are comprised of slimeballs:

On the one hand, we have the ethically unattractive set of Trumpists remaining in executive power. For all their coarse nastiness, they got (and remain) there legally, according to Electoral College custom.

On the other side, we have the coup-plotters. Those who manufactured one lie after another. And afterward, imbecilically, began believing their own societally toxic fantasy.

Act two begins

You may already have seen Democrats claiming that Attorney General William Barr's declination to prosecute the President for obstruction of justice is an indication of Barr's bias. Rather than of the Attorney General's (at least arguably) solid legal perspective.

Here is what AG Barr told Congress about his reasoning, regarding the obstruction matter:

In making this [no prosecution] determination, we noted that the Special Counsel recognized that “the evidence does not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference,” and that, while not determinative, the absence of such evidence bears upon the President’s intent with respect to obstruction.

Generally speaking, to obtain and sustain an obstruction conviction, the government would need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a person, acting with corrupt intent, engaged in obstructive conduct with a sufficient nexus to a pending or contemplated proceeding.

In cataloguing the President’s actions, many of which took place in public view, the report identifies no actions that, in our judgment, constitute obstructive conduct, had a nexus to a pending or contemplated proceeding, and were done with corrupt intent, each of which, under the Department’s principles of federal prosecution guiding charging decisions, would need to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt to establish an obstruction-of-justice offense.

The Attorney General is almost certainly correct.

It pretty difficult to prove an obstruction of justice, when:

the target did not do anything substantively illegal in the first place,

or, if he did —

what he did cannot be proven

and

his purported corrupt intent in hindering the subsequent investigation cannot be demonstrated to the necessary standard of proof.

Lawyers know how difficult intent is to prove.

Especially so, under complex circumstances like these — in which powerful players (on both partisan) sides did a whole lot of booby-trapping and tracks-hiding.

The lack of persuasive proof, regarding the President's alleged obstruction, are probably exactly what motivated Robert Mueller to pass prosecutorial judgment on to the Department of Justice. Reportedly without leaving any substantive hints, as to what he really thought.

Why (counsel Mueller might have reasoned) start a gargantuan political storm, when the quality of evidence justifying it is troublingly unclear?

So today

At most, some associated with the Trump Administration have been indicted as corrupt. Since we already knew that the President himself leans that way, why get too excited about the taint now?

Presumably, this "get things done, no matter what" trait is one reason that so many voters were attracted to the Presidents can-do leadership style.

Not one thing that Special Counsel Mueller turned up, regarding the Trump Administration, falls outside the category of routine corporatist-rich-guy (or their flunkies) illegality.

And if either of Trump's two immediate predecessors had been investigated the same way, can you can imagine the volume of hypocritical slime that would have emerged?

Today, there is the coup-mongers' new idea that suggests . . .

. . . Trump is guilty of obstruction because he refused to talk to Robert Mueller about any of the allegations.

Huh?

Since when, in the United States, does one need to talk to law enforcement, when not forced to?

Only an idiot — I say this as an attorney myself — is going to give the Feds a chance to get a client just for lying, rather than for the original charge.

I have addressed this legalized bit of Gestapo-like American Stalinism before.

The moral? — The United States' culture of political influence is comprised entirely of malicious dopes

Thanks, Bob.

Your willingness to be employed as a Deep State tool — for so long — has made this depressing lesson about American political culture as clear, as it possibly could have become.

PeteFree.com

After Mueller's report — still no glimmers of worthy smarts — in the American landscape