Robert Mueller is often called an honorable man but he isn’t. He once violated separation of powers and refused to back up. Bureaucrats under his command illegally spied on thousands of Americans. He used dishonest perjury traps in his Russian collusion investigation to get President Donald Trump.
And now he has outdone himself.
In a goodbye statement as special prosecutor, he said what we already knew but said it in such a devious way as to energize the tar-and-feather crowd. He emphasized that he did not have the right to indict a sitting president and then made it sound as if that did not allow investigators to make the judgment they actually made on obstruction of justice. As the more than 400-page report said on this issue, the investigation did “not conclude that the president committed a crime.”
Even if he had the power to indict, then, Mueller could not indict. By his and his team’s reckoning, he did not have cause. After interviewing just about everyone who could possibly know anything and arresting people to get them to spill nonexistent beans, the evidence did not reveal an obstruction crime.
Yes, the report said the team could not exonerate the president, either. But that was not the investigators’ job and it is likely true in a vast number of case dismissals when it is impossible to erase all guilt possibilities. Proving innocence can be impossible and criminality was not in view, but it sounds as if Mueller was still longing for impeachment proceedings in Congress.
Concerning impeachment, the Constitution demands a high crime or misdemeanor. Everything President Donald Trump actually did was his constitutional right. As not a few scholars say, it’s also peculiar to call something obstruction of justice when the real concern was not hiding a crime but stopping an unwarranted intrusion. In the end, nothing was obstructed. For two years of havoc getting in the way of accomplishment, the show went on.
OK, look, I am not a lawyer, but here is a quote from Alan Dershowitz, a former Harvard law professor who is one of the most highly respected civil libertarians in the country.
“ He (Mueller) went beyond the conclusion of his report (in his statement) and gave a political gift to Democrats in Congress who are seeking to institute impeachment proceedings against President Trump. By implying that President Trump might have committed obstruction of justice, Mueller effectively invited Democrats to institute impeachment proceedings.” What Mueller did, Dershowitz added in an online article, was to abuse “his position of trust” for the sake of Democratic “advantage.”
It’s working. We had seven of the Democratic presidential candidates begging for impeachment and we now we have 10. Left-wing commentators are wearing rejuvenated grins and some House Democrats are giddy about the prospects of more disruption, flattening governance and cheating the American people.
I’ve never believed in Mueller because facts tell us how, as FBI director, he ignored congressional leaders and the attorney general in the aftermath of his constitutionally dubious raid of a congressman’s office. Either through incompetence or criminal intent he presided over the illegal collection of data on hundreds of thousands of innocent citizens after 9/11. What seemed to drive him more than justice as FBI director was a great and grand incarceration record.
He has said he will not testify before Congress, but I think he should, telling us why he did not do more to look into possibly fraudulent moves to get all this started, for instance, and why it was important to talk about an inability to exonerate Trump. Just think about this for another moment. Right now there is no evidence whatsoever that President Barack Obama had anything to do with the investigation into Trump. But can we exonerate him with absolute conviction?
Jay Ambrose is an op-ed columnist for Tribune News Service. Readers may email him at speaktojay@aol.com.
