Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller said so long America with an 8 minute press briefing today--no questions please.  Hey Robert, thanks for nothing!

Mueller said his report was all he has to say on the subject of collusion and obstruction and wouldn't be saying anything else.  All 448 pages, read 'em and weep.

How convenient.  No Mueller appearance before Congress?  No opportunity for Republicans to ask the serious and necessary questions about how this whole thing got started, why it continued as long as it did and about 30 hours more of significant inquiry about the phony Steele dossier, the Clinton campaigns involvement with Russia, the possible corruption in the deep state of the Obama administration, etc.?  Nope.

SO what did he say?  He said the Russians really tried to mess with us and we need to take their actions and their potential for more interference in our elections very seriously.  That makes sense but I think we knew that, didn't we?

Everybody says Mueller is such a straight shooter but it seems you have to read between the lines to make sense of some of what he said.  Once again he presented his non-traditional backwards approach to the details of obstruction saying, "As set forth in our report, after that investigation, if we had confidence that the President clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said that. We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the President did commit a crime."

Again, Thanks for NOTHING!

This is America Bob. We charge or we don't. We don't speculate about possibilities and leave a cloud of suspicion hanging.  WHY would he do that?

USA Today reports that "before leaving the podium, he (Mueller) offered a clearer signal to Congress that lawmakers have the power to make their own judgment about the president's conduct even if he couldn't bring criminal charges".

Mueller graciously reminded Jerry Nadler, Adam Schiff and the House Democrats about the political option/opportunity.  "The Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing," Mueller said, describing the department's rationale for why a president cannot be prosecuted. He did not directly identify that process, but he was referring to the daunting political exercise of impeachment."

Here's the crossroads for me in all this.  In testimony to congress, Attorney General Barr said he spoke to Mueller on a couple of occasions (backed up by Rod Rosenstein) who told him the reason that he,Mueller, did not charge Trump with obstruction was not based on the OLC (office of legal counsel) opinion that you can't hold a trial for a sitting president, so therefor there was no purpose in charging him. Barr was adamant about that.
But Mueller basically said the opposite in his statement and that position is outlined in the first part of Volume TWO of the Mueller report where Mueller admits to not taking a "traditional" approach to the investigation.
Attorney General William Barr, who consulted with other lawyers at the department, decided at the end of Mueller's investigation that no obstruction charges were warranted, even if they could be brought.
So as we used to say back in the day, Who's Zooming Who?
Is Barr lying and thus minimizing the impact of the OLC's opinion on Mueller decision not to charge, as a way to protect the President   -OR-  is Mueller goading Congress to act where he could not, with impeachment on the President's behaviors --the nature of which Mueller was unsure of which he could convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt  to convict?
If you can't get him in court maybe you can get in in Congress...at least in the House? Is that really where we are in this country?
Somethings gotta give.  One thing is certain.  Here we go again!

 

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