Joe Henderson
I like to boil things to their essence. In that spirit, the seven-hour Robert Mueller hearing Wednesday before two U.S. House committees came down to a few simple points.
Mueller strongly believes the Russians meddled in our 2016 presidential election. He believes it is going today and will continue through the cycle and said every American should be concerned. He believes it benefitted the presidential aspirations of Donald Trump.
And Mueller flatly stated that despite the President’s oft-stated assertions to the contrary, his report into that meddling does not exonerate Trump.
That revelation came near the start of the long process with this exchange between Mueller and House Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.).
“The president has repeatedly claimed that your report found there was no obstruction, and that it completely and totally exonerated him,” Nadler said. “But that is not what your report said, is it?”
Mueller’s succinct answer: “Correct.”
That would seem to be a problem for the President, although he declared victory.
Yes, the Mueller hearing was, in a sense, living theatre playing out before a nationwide audience. With that, in my opinion, there was too much emphasis placed by both sides on Mueller’s performance.
The word “confused” appeared in hundreds of tweets about Mueller from both sides of the debate. NBC political editor Chuck Todd said the optics were “a disaster” for Democrats.
Maybe that’s so for the squawkers and analysts who are hip-deep in Washington and political minutiae.
But let’s not forget, the people who matter most in this whole affair – the voters – were working throughout Mueller’s testimony. They will probably filter this through the coverage from their TV news program, website, or newspaper of choice.
That means what they believed today, they likely will believe tomorrow.
There were a lot of bullet-point moments, though, such as this one:
U.S. Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) noted that Mueller had no more power to declare Trump exonerated than he would “to declare him Anderson Cooper.”
But, see above. Trump himself has said the report exonerates him.
So, what’s it gonna be?
Then, there was this blunder from U.S. Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo), who gave Democrats another huge talking point:
Buck: “Could you charge the president with a crime after he left office?”
Mueller: “Yes.”
Buck: “You could charge the President of the United States with obstruction of justice after he left office?”
Mueller: “Yes.”
Oops. Thank you for playing, the Honorable Mr. Buck.
Republicans, as expected, were confrontational and aggressive most of the afternoon, none more than Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida’s CD-1. He tried to hammer Mueller for not investigating the report compiled by Christopher Steele – the so-called Steele dossier.
Gaetz pressed said Mueller should have investigated because it involved Russian interference. Mueller didn’t take the bait. In the end, Gaetz didn’t get the screaming headline he seemed to want.
On the other hand, Florida’s CD-10 Rep. Val Demmings, a Democrat, scored. In response to her question, Mueller said he some of the witnesses in his investigation were “outright liars.”
She also got Mueller to say that Trump’s written responses to questions from Mueller’s office were not always truthful.
“I would say, generally,” he said.
As for the President’s oft-used description for the investigation, Mueller sharply responded to Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., “It is not a witch hunt.”
And when asked about then-candidate Trump’s praise of Wikileaks and its massive dump of Democratic emails during the campaign, Mueller answered, “Problematic is an understatement.”
So, what does everyone really want to know after the Mueller hearing and testimony? Will the President face impeachment?
I still believe that it is unlikely, although I’m equally sure the drumbeat for that will sound louder in some quarters. It’s probably a fool’s errand for Democrats, no matter how much they loathe Trump.
Besides, they did walk away from this with a lot of material they can in the 2020 campaign.
You can expect to see Mueller’s report and, yes, parts of his performance replayed ad nauseam next summer in TV ads. Is Jerry Nadler ready for his close-up?
“That’s not what your report said, is it?”
“Correct.”
That could be the victory they were looking after all.
4 comments
Bryan J Smith
July 24, 2019 at 8:03 pm
Just like Starr never exonerated the Clintons.
Just yet another prediction how all this was just like it was 20 years ago … lots of inditements, lots of confessions and convictions, nothing stuck, and there wasn’t enough to charge, even when someone is out-of-office.
At most, as Mueller said it best about POTUS praising Wikileaks, it ‘was unfortunate.’ That’s really all we got.
This wasn’t a court discovery where everyone was investigated, but only one party. That’s how Special Counsels work, and Mueller is an example to follow, professional, quiet, only coming out to correct Congressmen and women when they made statements that were untrue, often as the US Media speculated as fact, and it was repeated.
Mueller also wasn’t allowed to investigate why Podesta’s account was hacked before he became Clinton’s campaign manager. But FOIA requests have publicly documented. As the Czech BIS started releasing its intelligence publicly after the Georgian War last decade …
The Russians have been influencing for a long, long time. The US became their biggest target in 2007, spending massive amounts in the US Media of money to undermine relief efforts and renewed NATO interest in the Black Sea.
That’s why lawyers from both parties were quite heavily in the pockets of Moscow, influencing in Kiev, Prague, Warsaw and other cities. They hacked Podesta, Manaford and others, to find out what they were telling American authorities when they finally ‘cracked down’ on it once the Ukranian incident started.
No one talks about this, and how both parties and their lawyers were so selfish. Moscow paid very well. But for some reason, we only care about Trump.
Which is why Republicans immediately became irate, not just with Trump’s lack of caring, but how much the Democratic party was trying to paint this as a Trump-only issue.
Those of us remember 2012, Romney, the ‘wait until after the election’ mic gaffe by Obama, as European, Middle East and Far East allies of the US saw S-300VM, then S-400, roll ‘across the border,’ but Obama refused to sell the equivalent, ’90s era THAAD system. It used to be the US Media educated the American public.
Now it just publishes rhetoric.
The Mueller report contains endless redactions to protect other administrations and Congressional authorities as well. Several, on both sides of the isle, were involved with the Russians.
Until Americans take this seriously, and include before 2014 and the Ukraine issue, including how US politicians were involved in overthrows of leaders and the EU v. EEU debate (the EEU replaces Comecon, with Russia at the center), Americans will continue to look at this as a partisan issue.
When it’s a general Russian issue, as Romney couldn’t believe he wasn’t taken seriously regarding in 2012 (NOTE: I did *not* vote for Romney, he was just correct on this).
Pete
July 24, 2019 at 9:40 pm
Joe, I love ya, brother. But your take is clearly from a Democrat perspective…
Jimmy Conner
July 24, 2019 at 11:37 pm
Duh! Prosecutors don’t exonerate. However Joe, in America there is a presumption of INNOCENCE especially when there’s no pt enough evidence to bring charges.
gary
July 25, 2019 at 3:37 pm
No such this exonerate in our justice system silly Joe! Surely you know that. That term was concocted by the left to use as a battering ram for impeachment. After watching the Mueller fiasco, one can only conclude that Mueller never took part in the investigation. He was simply the mascot. The 12-13 Democrat Hillary supporting lawyers ran the show. Mueller was nothing but point of contact that was to add integrity to what was nothing but a WITCH HUNT!
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