The following is my commentary on special counsel, Mueller’s, public nine minute statement before the cameras today on the Trump investigation. Why no indictment. Why no impeachment yet. Despite massive evidence of obstruction of justice and the investigation, which continues still almost daily.
“Today special counsel Mueller went before the cameras and in nine minutes essentially said his report was all he had to say and he wouldn’t go before Congress, even if subpoenaed, to say anything else.
Mueller summarized his recent report in the nine minutes. Here’s what he concluded were its main points:
First, there was insufficient evidence to conclude Trump colluded to a criminal extent. Insufficient evidence. Not no evidence. Insufficient. And much of that was destroyed by Trump (erased emails). Or Mueller couldn’t get it because the Trump administration wouldn’t release it. Or key witnesses refused to testify to the Muller commission, including Donald Trump Jr. who had direct conversations with the Russians but was prevented talking to Mueller by Trump from speaking. Which raises the question: why didn’t Mueller subpoena Trump Jr.? Or even Trump himself? After all, special prosecutor Starr subpoenaed and questioned Bill Clinton in his impeachment. Why were the Trumps let off the hook by Mueller?
In short, the first conclusion was that some kind of collusion between Trump and the Russians was likely, according to the Mueller Report, but not enough evidence was provided to prove the more demanding charge of criminal intent.
Second, in contrast, the Report concluded there was an abundance of evidence that Trump obstructed the investigation. In fact, multiple times and in various ways. Take a look at the summary of evidence on Trump’s obstruction of justice in vol. 2 of the Mueller Report. It’s overwhelming.
Nixon was impeached in 1974 in large part based on his obstruction of the Watergate investigation. And if obstruction is a criminal act, why then did Mueller not also indict Trump on that evidence, as Nixon had been?
In the Nixon case, impeachment was actually based on three findings: Nixon was found to have engaged in obstruction of the investigation of the “Watergate” burglary inquiry, of misuse of law enforcement and intelligence agencies for political purposes, and of refusal to comply with the House Judiciary Committee’s subpoenas.
The Mueller report substantiates without a doubt that Trump obstructed the investigation many times and in many ways. But History here is repeating itself, as they say. Trump’s recent order to have his Justice Dept. start investigating the origins of the Mueller investigation, using law enforcement and intelligence agencies, is an act for which Nixon was also impeached. It’s using government agencies to go after political adversaries. And then there’s Trump’s recent additional order in recent weeks, that no one in his executive branch should respond to Congressional subpoenas if called on to testify before the House (which includes Mueller, by the way, who technically works for Trump as a member of the Justice Dept. Maybe that’s why Mueller stood before the cameras and won’t stand before Congress). As in the case of Nixon, refusing to cooperate with Congress in an investigation is also an impeachable act.
So Trump is not only impeachable based on his actions and events that preceded the Mueller Report release. He’s impeachable based on his repeated follow up acts since the Report. In other words, the obstruction continues.
So why is Trump not being impeached? Do you hear that Nancy Pelosi? (Not that Nancy doesn’t already know, of course). Pelosi’s excuse is that impeachment might cause the Democrats to lose the House in 2020 and the presidency. She should tell that to the Republicans who, after their failed impeachment of Bill Clinton, actuallyl gained House seats in 2000 and won the election that year as well! So much for false historical analogies.
This leads to the third essential, and most important, point made by Mueller today in his brief appearance before the cameras: Mueller said he couldn’t indict Trump, based on the rules of the Justice Department no matter what were Trump’s criminal acts. What? Trump engages in criminal acts but is above the law simply based on a rule his own Justice Dept. created to protect presidents while in office?
Mueller apparently places his obligation to abide by a rule created by the bureaucracy above his obligation to recommend action due to obvious criminal activity! Maybe that’s the new modus operandi of the FBI, of which he is a former director.
Mueller was supposed to be the paragon of right and justice, according to the eastern elite establishment media that elevated him to a rank just short of secular saint during his investigation. He was the incorruptible, a straight shooter. So how does one explain Mueller’s decision to place bureaucratic rules above the prosecution of criminals then?
Is it because he’s always been a Republican and Republican pols always cover each other’s ass? Or maybe he just preferred to toss the hornet’s nest into the lap of Congress and retreat to the sidelines to personally avoid being engulfed by the firestorm that might result if he indicted Trump. Or maybe he just didn’t want to go ‘head to head’ with Justice Secretary, Barr, who happens to be an old buddy of Mueller. Their families have reportedly socialized together for years. Of course, I would not think of suggesting that had any effect on Mueller’s decisions in his report.
Regardless the his motive, before the cameras today Mueller made it clear he agrees with the Executive-Justice Dept. rule preventing him from indicting Trump for criminal obstruction of justice—examples of which abound in the report. That’s the real take-away from Mueller’s Report and his 9 minute historical contribution to the further demise of Democracy in America.
Just consider that carefully folks. It’s worth repeating. That interpretation, that rule, means a president can engage in any kind of criminal act. He could launch world war III on a whim. He could order the incarceration of protestors en masse. He could strangle his grandmother on the white house lawn, but nevertheless he can’t be indicted because it, the Justice Dept., issued a rule that said he can’t while in office!
You know what that is? That’s Tyranny. Which is the definition of someone in power who is ‘above the law’.
We now have a tyrant in the oval office and the Justice Dept., the highest government office responsible for upholding law and prosecuting criminals, simply says it’s not allowed. What bureaucrat assumed the authority to make that rule?
Barr and Mueller agree that the Justice Dept. rules preventing indictment of a sitting president for criminal activity is based on the US Constitution. Oh Yeah. So where does the Constitution say that? I couldn’t find it anywhere in Article II of the US Constitution on the Presidency. Nor in Article I on the legislative powers of Congress. Nowhere does it say a rule created by a department of the executive branch of government negates criminal law. Or can stop an investigation of the president relevant to impeachment proceedings.
What I did find is that the Constitution doesn’t even require a criminal act to justify impeachment. (Hear that Nancy?). Criminality certainly strengthens the case for impeachment. And we have now three clear cases of criminal activity by Trump that a former crook, Richard Nixon, was impeached on: obstruction of justice, using law enforcement and intelligence agencies to investigate his political opponents, and refusing to respond to Congressional subpoenas.
So here we are in 2019. A President is above the law. Bureaucratic rules absolve criminal activity. The president continues to move toward unilateral governing by the executive branch, thumbing his nose at the legislative. Trump repeatedly violates the US Constitution by arbitrarily diverting money appropriated by Congress for specific legislation to whatever he wants. He orders investigations of his opponents—i.e. McCarthyism write large. He orders employees of the Executive branch to refuse to cooperate with Congress, including subpoenas, ignoring Congress’s Constitutional right to investigate. He repeatedly invokes phony ‘national emergency’ declarations to take unilateral action, bypassing Congress. He has publicly declared he will pardon himself if convicted. And so it goes, as the US drifts into a bona fide Constitutional Crisis not seen since the 1850s.
What’s next? Could Trump refuse to leave the White House if defeated in 2020? Don’t think that’s outrageous. It’s more than just possible.
And what would the leaders of the Democratic party do in that case, when they can’t even show enough backbone to take up their Constitutional duty to confront a criminal in the White House, who almost daily abridges their Constitutional rights and marginalizes them as a governing body.”
Jack Rasmus
May 29, 2019
Dr. Jack Rasmus is author of the forthcoming book, ‘The Scourge of Neoliberalism: US Policy From Reagan to Trump’, Clarity Press, September 2019, and the recently published ‘Alexander Hamilton and the Origin of the Fed’, Lexington books, March 2019, and ‘Central Bankers at the End of Their Rope’, Clarity Press, August 2017. He blogs at jackrasmus.com, tweets at @drjackrasmus, and hosts the Alternative Visions show on the Progressive Radio Network (http:..alternativevisions.podbean.com).
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Dr. Jack Rasmus @drjackrasmus
Jack Rasmus 