The New York Times and other major media depicted Mueller’s testimony as being a loss for the Democrats. Nothing new was revealed, no existing facts were heightened or sensationalized. It was nothing more than a regurgitation of the Report. Certainly nothing happened that caused any Republicans in Congress to give second thoughts about whether to stand behind Trump.
However, when Mueller was asked in his morning appearance whether he didn’t indict Trump because of the standing Justice Department opinion that a sitting president cannot be indicted, he responded, “That is correct.” When a Republican representative followed up to clarify, he confirmed what he had just said.
But in his opening statement for his afternoon appearance, he backtracked and said that opinion kept them from even considering whether Trump had committed a crime. That revised statement was a disappointment for the Democrats.
But wait, something doesn’t make sense. Mueller did find that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to sustain a charge regarding collusion with the Russians. So while he couldn’t indict, he could exonerate. The fact that he didn’t do the same on the obstruction charge leads to the inescapable conclusion that he felt Trump committed obstruction, as he indicated in his morning testimony. But no one asked that question.
Since it now is clear that the Special Counsel felt he could not determine whether Trump had engaged in an obstruction of justice, but just laid out the facts, it is up to the House to determine whether he engaged in obstruction and thus engaged in an impeachable offense.
No comments:
Post a Comment