Mueller’s Diner Special of the Day: the Nothingburger

I actually wanted to post about other topics, but the Mueller Report is so front and center in the collective political consciousness right now that I’d be remiss to ignore it, plus readers are asking me to address it, so here goes.

In a nutshell, the report was simply a repeat of the 2016 election: Dems were salivating in anticipation of it, because they were so cock-sure of its outcome, which turned out to be the opposite of what they were expecting, and in the aftermath they can’t accept the result.

Once again, the Democrat party has proven that it doesn’t believe in democracy. It only exists to get its own way, and pout when it doesn’t.

The report concluded that there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians, and that while Russia attempted to interfere in our election – which should be concerning to all, but is surprising only to the naïve (in part because we do it to them, too) – Russian influence did not affect the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

Repeat that until you get comfortable with the fact. Because it is fact.

The Left is raising questions as to whether the report was conclusive on the question of obstruction of justice. First, let’s look at the law.

Obstruction of justice is defined as attempting to interfere with a legal proceeding. It certainly appears that Trump’s actions met that definition. However, let’s dig deeper. Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute states:

“Someone obstructs justice when that person has a specific intent to obstruct or interfere with a judicial proceeding. For a person to be convicted of obstructing justice, that person must not only have the specific intent to obstruct the proceeding, but that person must know (1) that a proceeding was actually pending at the time; and (2) there must be a connection between the endeavor to obstruct justice and the proceeding, and the person must have knowledge of this connection.”

Did Trump have intent when, for example, he asked his personal legal counsel to pressure Rosenstein to fire Mueller? Maybe. Did he know that the proceeding was pending at the time? Pending, heck – it was underway.

But was there a connection between the endeavor, if it qualifies as such, and the proceeding?

The affirmative argument would presume that the Mueller investigation would find evidence of collusion, which was unknown at the time (and which it ultimately did not).

In other words, as others have noted, how can you be guilty of obstructing justice when no crime was committed? Put another way, how can you be guilty of obstructing justice when justice was served – i.e., the outcome of the proceeding was a conclusion of no evidence of the crime in question (collusion)? Ah, but logical arguments are lost on the illogical.

Second, let’s consider intent vs. action. Did Trump succeed in efforts to keep people from talking to Mueller, or in getting Mueller removed? No, and no. As for his motives, let’s not forget that Trump is a businessman, not a lawyer or politician. And as a businessman, he’s used to being able to direct people not to talk to certain other people, or to fire whomever he wants.

(I spent 15 years as a CEO. On numerous occasions, I directed my staff not to talk to the media about certain matters. And when necessary, I fired people. It’s a part of business, and it’s understandable that when a businessperson enters politics and finds that he or she can’t always do that, it’s frustrating. But it’s only natural that they would try; that’s how things are done in the world they’ve always lived in.)

Back to intent. Is that a crime? I’m reminded of my youth, spent in Newton, Kansas. Newton has a “suburb,” if you will, called North Newton, where Bethel College is located. When I was in high school, North Newton had one cop (let’s call him Barney, so as not to name names).

Now, Bethel was a small college affiliated with the Mennonite faith, and North Newton had a population of about 1,100 back in those days. So needless to say, Barney didn’t have a lot to do.

This was back when streaking was popular. One night Barney came upon a male student wearing a trench coat, but bare-legged beneath it, and wearing running shoes. Barney picked the young man up and confirmed that he was wearing nothing beneath the trench coat, so he took him to the county lock-up in neighboring Newton (North Newton had no jail or police station of its own).

Barney led the young man into the sheriff’s office and demanded that he be arrested, since Barney had no authority to make an arrest in the county’s jurisdiction. The Sheriff asked Barney what the charge was, and Barney stammered, “Intent to streak.”

The laughter that ensued is similar to the laughter that should follow the Left’s ludicrous assertions that Trump should be found guilty of “intent to obstruct” – especially since, again, any such attempt would presume the commission of the crime of collusion, which didn’t happen.

One of the more interesting – and widely-discussed – aspects of the Mueller Report is the statement that the report did not exonerate Trump of the allegation of obstruction, and that if the investigation had found evidence that enabled Mueller to so state, he would have.

The Left, of course, has pounced on that, claiming an “Aha!” moment, and conflating the inability to exonerate with a presumption of guilt that flies in the face of Western jurisprudence.

However, it’s interesting for another reason, and one that no one is talking about except yours truly.

Follow carefully. Mueller was in the role of a prosecutor. Prosecutors are not in the business of exonerating people. They seek evidence, and on the basis thereof, they conclude whether they can bring a case, or whether it’s unwarranted.

So Mueller could not possibly have exonerated Trump, not because there was insufficient evidence to do so, but because doing so would be inconsistent with his role as a prosecutor.

And Mueller would never have stated that Trump was exonerated of the allegation of obstruction, because that’s not what prosecutors do.

So why did Mueller include that nugget in his report? You tell me. A swipe at Trump, who repeatedly criticized Mueller and his investigation? A bitter attempt to try Trump in the court of public opinion, having failed in his lengthy and expensive efforts to find him guilty of a violation of law?

I’ll tell you this: Bob Mueller is a smart guy who’s been around the block, and he did a thorough job. And his inclusion of that tidbit certainly wasn’t a rookie mistake. It was intentional. We just don’t know the intent. However, politics were likely involved.

Next, to the whole laughable dust-up over Attorney General William Barr’s summation of the Mueller Report. Barr issued a brief overview of the report when it was first delivered to him. Once the redacted report was released to lawmakers and the public, the Left’s collective hair caught fire over the fact that Barr’s summary did not include every detail contained in the full report.

Well, let’s see, the full report was over 400 pages (with little of that redacted), and Barr’s summary was delivered in a presser. He didn’t take the time to read the whole report.

Yet still, the Left accused him of being Trump’s lap dog, noting he’s “the Attorney General of the United States, not the Attorney General of the President of the United States.”

It’s to laugh.

If Barr were acting in Trump’s interest, he never would have released the report to begin with (he didn’t have to, under the law). Or, he’d have redacted all the parts that were embarrassing to Trump (and there were a number of those). But he didn’t. So he’s guilty only of not reading the entire report to the media after he released it.

Contrast Barr’s handling of this matter with former Attorney General Eric Holder, who publicly stated that he was President Obama’s “wing man.” Or Holder’s successor, Loretta Lynch, she of the infamous tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton when the investigation into Hillary’s deleted emails was in full swing.

I’d say William Barr is significantly more independent than his two immediate predecessors. Plus, he’s forgotten more about the law than every Democrat lawmaker combined will ever know. Had Barr been appointed by anyone but Donald Trump, his confirmation would have been unanimous, so well-qualified is he.

So what are we left with? A report two years and millions of taxpayers’ dollars in the making, which concluded that the Trump campaign did not collude with Russia, that Russian influence did not affect the outcome of the election, and that there is not enough evidence of obstruction of justice to make a case for it.

We are also left with a report that is, in some parts, unflattering to Donald Trump. Big deal – there’s nothing about Donald Trump in the report that the American people didn’t know, including his staunchest supporters. We all knew he was an egotistical, overbearing, autocratic guy. Nothing in the report is going to change anybody’s mind about the man: if they hated him before, they still hate him, because they’d hate him if the report had concluded that he was completely exonerated (even though it couldn’t) and that he’s a really terrific guy. And if they supported him before, they still support him, because they knew about his warts all along, and still believe he was the best candidate in the 2016 race.

So the Dems are going to move on, right?

Wrong. Dem lawmakers want Mueller to testify. Why? Ostensibly, because they want to hear his summary of his investigation.

News flash: he wrote that summary, all 400+ pages of it. Read it.

They also want to hear from everyone he talked to in his investigation: Manafort, Cohen, Stone, et al, even though several of those people have already testified before Congress.

Again, why? The summary of those interviews by the Mueller team is included in the report.

The Dems won the House back in the mid-terms on a platform of health care reform. Have you seen the bill that House Democrats penned to overhaul Obamacare? Neither have I, nor has anyone else, because it doesn’t exist. So why don’t the Dems move on to legislating, rather than investigating? The answer is simple:

Legislating is largely done behind closed doors. Then, when bills are debated, the debates are generally broadcast on C-Span, and the average American doesn’t watch C-Span, nor have the attention span to view the legislative process.

However, when the Judiciary Committees grill a Paul Manafort, a Michael Cohen, a Brett Kavanaugh, or a Robert Mueller, it’s high theater, broadcast on all the cable “news” outlets. It’s a public forum for people like Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, and Amy Klobuchar to make widely-televised campaign speeches in front of the American people, thinly disguised as investigative questions. It’s an opportunity to look tough in front of their base. An opportunity to show how anti-Trump they are to a constituency whose sole policy prescription is to see Donald Trump voted out of office, for the high crime of not being a Democrat.

Democrat lawmakers say they want answers. You think they’re telling the truth? Tell you what – when they do parade Mueller and others in front of their committees, take out a stopwatch and time their questions, and compare that to the time they allow their witnesses to answer them. You’ll find that the lawmakers talk far more than the witnesses do. They don’t want answers; they want airtime.

I could go on to discuss what should happen in terms of investigating what was behind the whole collusion myth, or why the Obama administration knowingly allowed Russian interference in our election process for two years and did nothing about it, but I’ve already subjected you to 2,000 words, so I’ll save that for another day. Suffice it to say that it appears the Teflon coating on the Clinton Machine has yet to wear off.