The Mueller Report — long, but a must read
Many citizens might find the
448-page Mueller Report overly challenging and perhaps too daunting to approach. But I must urge all readers of this newspaper and, indeed, all Americans to delve into it.
It may not be beach reading, but the writing is clear and jargon-free, and, as former New York Times Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse points out in her June 27 article in the New York Review of Books, “even riveting in its deadpan just-thefacts narrative.”
In volume 1, which runs 134 pages, we learn of the extensive Quisling-like collaboration of the Trump campaign with Russia, and although Mueller says that a criminal conspiracy case could not be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, he recounts at least
140 contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials or representatives in which the campaign openly welcomed the support of this hostile government in order to win the 2016 election. In some instances, the campaign provided Russian operatives with detailed material, including extensive polling data that certainly was utilized in Russia’s fake news campaign to support the Trump candidacy and to place his opponent, Hillary Clinton, in as negative a light as possible.
The 182-page volume 2 analyzes 38 separate incidents of potential obstructions of justice. And though it stops short of charging Trump with a crime — an action he was prevented from doing by Department of Justice policy — he did say rather pointedly, “If we had confidence that the president did not commit a crime, we would have said so.” The report did not say so, but in fact specifically said that Trump was not exonerated by the report.
What makes the report gripping to read are segments revealing Trump’s addled self-centered deviousness that bring to mind characters like Raskolnikov from “Crime and Punishment” whose neurotic monologues about being a Superman become unbearable to spend time with.
Like TVs Walter White, it’s easy to believe Trump will meet his downfall because he believes himself to be extraordinary when he’s anything but. But there are some truly juicy revelations in the report. We learn, for instance, of one example of obstruction of justice on June 19, 2017 when Trump told Cory Lewandowski, Trump’s former campaign manager, to instruct Attorney General Jeff Sessions to give a speech denouncing Mueller’s investigation. Lewandowski at the time was in no way associated with the White House or any part of the federal government and clearly not someone one would expect to issue instructions to the Attorney General. Trump told him to instruct Sessions to give a speech and to limit his probe to future election interference and not the 2016 election.
From the report, we hear Trump say, “Write this down: Trump then dictated what Sessions was to say in the speech: ‘I know that I recused myself from certain things having to do with specific areas. But our president… Is being treated very unfairly. He shouldn’t have a special prosecutor/counsel because he hasn’t done anything wrong. I was on the campaign with him for nine months and there were no Russians involved with him. I know it for a fact because I was there. He didn’t do anything wrong except he ran the greatest campaign in American history… Now a group of people want to subvert the Constitution of the United States. I am going to meet with the special prosecutor to explain this is very unfair and let the special prosecutor move forward with investigating election meddling for future elections so that nothing can happen in future elections…’” Trump added that if Sessions delivered that statement, he would be the most popular guy in the country. Lewandowski did not deliver the message.
There is considerably more like that — especially Trump’s
What makes the report gripping to read are segments revealing Trump’s addled self-centered deviousness that bring to mind characters like Raskolnikov from ‘Crime and Punishment.’
directives to White House counsel Donald McGahn, also seeking to have Mueller removed. Even though Trump keeps barking “no collusion, no collusion” over and over, he just said on national television that he would welcome opposition research in the 2020 campaign from Russia, China, Norway or presumably anywhere else he could get dirt on his opponents. He claims everybody does it, but as a former press secretary to a United States Senator and campaign operative in a gubernatorial race and two congressional campaigns, I can assure you they do not.
For one thing, it’s against the law. For another, very few politicians of my acquaintance — and I know quite a few — possess the gangster mentality of a Donald Trump.