A Mueller Report anyone can read, even your congressional representative
by digby
Summary of the Mueller Report, for those too busy to read it all
An abridged version of the Mueller Report intended for those who don’t have the time to read the nearly 500-page full report. This version, which is a fourth of the length, focuses on the question of whether President Donald Trump obstructed justice in his efforts to impede and discredit the Special Counsel’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and whether the Trump Campaign colluded with the Russians to tip the election in Trump’s favor. The abridgment uses the exact words of the Mueller Report to tell the investigative story of Michael Flynn’s connections to the Russians, Trump’s firing of FBI director James Comey, Trump’s attempt to get Attorney General Jeff Sessions to unrecuse himself and then firing him when he refused, Trump’s effort to fire the Special Counsel and to get White House Counsel Don McGahn to publicly deny that such an effort was made, Trump’s attempt to prevent disclosure of the emails relating to the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Russians and senior officials of the Trump campaign, Michael Cohen’s exchanges during the 2016 campaign with Russians about building a Trump Tower in Moscow and Trump’s repeated statement during the campaign that he had no business dealings with the Russians, Trump’s response to Paul Manafort’s indictment and conviction, and more.
The abridged version includes an introduction by Thomas E. Patterson, who is the Bradlee Professor of Government & the Press at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. The introduction explains why it is important for Americans to read the Mueller Report and describes the rules that guided the abridgment of the full Mueller Report. The introduction does not offer a conclusion on the obstruction-of-justice issue but instead places that judgment in the hands of the reader.
I think it’s very, very important for people to understand the full scope of what Mueller found. I once thought that perhaps the Democrats would hold hearings that explore the report in depth in such a way that no one could be persuaded that Trump didn’t betray the country and abuse his power by covering it up. But that doesn’t seem to be happening so every citizen must take the responsibility themselves.This is one way for busy people to do it without having to invest a lot of time reading the long report. It’s worth it.