A view from the right
by digby
If there were any doubts about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s political intentions, his unprecedented press conference on Wednesday should put them all to rest. As he made abundantly clear during his doddering reading of a prepared statement that repeatedly contradicted itself, Mueller had no interest in the equal application of the rule of law. He gave the game, and his nakedly political intentions, away repeatedly throughout his statement.
“It is important that the office’s written work speak for itself,” Mueller said, referring to his office’s 448-page report. Mueller’s report was released to the public by Attorney General William Barr nearly six weeks ago. The entire report, minus limited redactions required by law, has been publicly available, pored through, and dissected. Its contents have been discussed ad nauseum in print and on television. The report has been speaking for itself since April 18, when it was released.
If it’s important for the work to speak for itself, then why did Mueller schedule a press conference in which he would speak for it weeks after it was released? The statement, given the venue in which it was provided, is self-refuting.
Let’s start with the Mueller team’s unique take on the nature of a prosecutor’s job. The standard American view of justice, affirmed and enforced by the U.S. Constitution, is that all are presumed innocent absent conviction by a jury of a specific charge of criminal wrongdoing. That is, the natural legal state of an individual in this country is innocence. It is not a state or a nature bestowed by cops or attorneys. Innocence is not granted by unelected bureaucrats or federal prosecutors.
At one point in his remarks, Mueller seemed to agree. Referring to indictments against various Russian individuals and institutions for allegedly hacking American servers during the 2016 election, Mueller said that the indictments “contain allegations and we are not commenting on the guilt or innocence of any specific defendant.”
“Every defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.”
Had he stopped there, he would have been correct. But then he crafted a brand new standard.“The order appointing the special counsel authorized us to investigate actions that could obstruct the investigation. We conducted that investigation and kept the office of the acting attorney general apprised of our work,” Mueller said. “After that investigation, if we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so.”
According to Mueller and his team, charged Russians are presumed innocent. An American president, however, is presumed guilty unless and until Mueller’s team determines he is innocent. Such a standard is an obscene abomination against the rule of law, one that would never be committed by independent attorneys who place a fidelity to their oaths and impartial enforcement of the law ahead of their political motivations.
The contradictions and double standards didn’t stop there, though.
“It would be unfair to potentially accuse somebody of a crime when there can be no court resolution of the actual charge,” Mueller said, after all but stating that Trump committed a crime for which Mueller never charged him. Just as Mueller’s own words and actions at the Wednesday press conference prove that he didn’t want his team’s report to speak for itself, the report itself proves that Mueller and his team don’t believe it’s unfair to accuse somebody of something a court cannot resolve.
If they actually believed that, then the 240-page volume II of their report on their obstruction investigation of the president would never have been authored. After all, according to Mueller’s own statement, such an operation would be patently unfair. And if it’s unfair to air dirty laundry against a target who was never charged, surely it’s doubly unfair to do so in writing and on camera during a press conference whose mere existence refutes the very claims of its host.
Apparently, he missed the part about how unlike every other citizen in this country it’s been determined that a sitting president can’t be indicted, putting him in a completely different category than any of the rest of us, creating a totally different legal framework.
Mueller rightly determined that because Trump couldn’t be indicted, any evidence they found against him could only be gathered and preserved for prosecution after the president is out of office or used by the congress as part of their constitutional obligation. It’s a unique situation in American law and comparing it to standard legal procedures is fatuous.
Personally, I think the OLC opinion is flawed and a president should be indictable and it should be put on hold until he’s out of office. The congress can then impeach (or not) and after the president is out of office one way or the other, he would then be treated like any private citizen would be treated. But as it stands, we have a very weird situation in which Donald Trump can’t be indicted despite committing obvious crimes and Republicans are now saying that means he shouldn’t have been investigated either. (I say Donald Trump because we know they would not have this view of any Democratic president.)
To top that off, this White House is defying congressional subpoenas, dangling pardons, refusing to provide documents and otherwise behaving as if executive power is absolute and the president is completely above the law. So far, he is.
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