REPUBLICANS genuflecting to tRump! Disappointing!
We will have a battle of headlines, hot takes and hot air. We will have polls and politics. We will have the schisms plaguing American democracy plunge deeper. I fear little said today will, at least in the short term, provide any balm to our national struggles.
But this was historic. It confirmed what we already should have known. America was attacked by a hostile foreign power. That attack was welcomed and benefited a candidate for president. And that president lied about that attack and minimized it. His enablers and confederates have played along. Many of his aides have pled guilty to lying about their foreign contacts. This is un-American at its core.
That should be enough for bipartisan outrage. Whether we move towards impeachment will be the calculation of House leadership. But we saw in the questioning this afternoon a lot of tap dancing from Republicans eager to not infuriate their president but also not wishing to seem to countenance this type of foreign attack.
In all the smoke, in all the outrage, in all the posturing, we cannot forget the core truth. In between the lines of Mueller’s testimony we see his determination that the risk to our democratic ideals and function is deep and remains very present today. He has performed his service. How he performed that will be for others to judge. But the action now lies with Congress. How they respond, how we respond, will determine the verdict of history.
The morning session is over, and here are my thoughts:
The Mueller Report is one of the most damning investigations of a sitting administration in recent American history. It was always about the report. Everything was already in the report. And everyone in Congress already knew that. The real action should be by the House of Representatives taking up the baton of accountability, investigation, and justice not asking Robert Mueller to hand them the baton yet again.
It is clear that the President of the United States obstructed justice, but the Special Council felt he could not indict a sitting president under existing legal principle. It is also clear that there were many concerning and meaningful associations between the Trump campaign and the Russians, who were conducting a high-level and sophisticated campaign to undermine American democracy. We heard that today. We knew that before today.
The report does not exonerate the president. Of course it doesn’t. And Robert Mueller made that clear in a headline answer early in his testimony today. Could the president be charged with a crime after he left office? Once again, the answer from Mueller was yes. Did lies from the Trump administration officials impede the investigation? Another yes from Mueller.
But for all who hoped for a grand theatrical moment that crystallized and unified a nation against the outrages of this president, I don’t think any such moment occurred. And probably none should have been expected. We are a deeply divided nation where millions support and normalize the actions of a reckless president.
Mueller was obviously a reluctant witness who refused to paint a colorful sound bite narrative for the Democrats. Time and again he said “I would refer you to the report.” But any careful parsing of his answers would find many
Mueller was also mostly muted and restrained in defending his team and his own actions against the Republican members who waded into the numerous conspiracy theories and distractions that the president’s defenders have long peddled to muddy the investigation. Once again, Mueller understood it was all in the report.
I don’t know what the long-term effect will be of Mueller’s day on Capitol Hill. This moment of history is still being written. To think that Robert Mueller should be the main actor in the drama was always misplaced casting. This was not and should not have been about him. This is about the rule of law. This is about the separation of powers. This is about a reckless president and the confederates who enable him.
Was this an opening act for a rigorous launch of oversight by Congress, which is clearly what Mueller and his team felt was their constitutional duty? Or will it be the capstone on a political calculation by Democratic leadership that impeachment proceedings are unwise for their future electoral prospects?
If a Democrat wins the presidency in 2020, I predict there will be an explosion of chin stroking, sternly-worded op-eds, and endless Fox News segments about how we suddenly need to cut spending and take deficits seriously.
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