Mueller's Comments: Some Personal Reactions

Robert Mueller's comments yesterday did not say anything that was not already said in his report. I thought everyone except Trump supporters[1] knew that, but that was mistaken. Regardless, those redundant comments seem to have made some difference. Or at least the media reacted that way.

The first lesson, months of exposure to the written word (the Mueller report) is far less impressive or persuasive than about 10 minutes of an author standing in front of a camera and simply repeating what he wrote and made crystal clear right from the get go. That reinforces a belief that Trump's 2016 win was heavily dependent on the massive amount of uncritical but entertaining free airtime the mainstream gave him during the election.

What exploded in the mainstream cable news world, but probably not including Fox, was a raging debate over whether to impeach or not to impeach. The not to impeach argument is, more or less, that impeaching (1) would cost democrats votes in the 2020 elections, and (2) would be futile because Senate republicans would not vote to convict Trump of almost any crime and certainly not obstruction of justice. The argument to impeach is, more or less, that the constitution requires impeachment proceedings when there is sufficient evidence and failure to impeach severely damages the constitutional order by (1) letting impeachable behavior go unpunished, and (2) setting the precedent that a sitting president really is above the law.

Lesson two is sobering and frightening: That this debate is even happening still (or again) months after the written report was released shows how fragile a constitutional democracy is and how ill-defined the rule of law is. Mueller's comments strongly implied that were it not for an idiotic, legally indefensible DoJ guideline (my assessment of the guideline, not Mueller's), the DoJ cannot indict a sitting president, Mueller would have indicted Trump for obstruction of justice.

The evidence of obstruction is about as clear as it can get, as pointed out in an earlier discussion here. The evidence included this:



The original report made that crystal clear. It just didn't lay the evidence out in a nice little chart. Despite the original unambiguous clarity, Mueller's comments seem to have made that very clear point even more clear. That leads to lesson three which is, see lesson one.

In his comments, Mueller asserted something to the effect that the rule of law must be vindicated. In the sense of constitutional law, that makes sense. The constitution says that if a DoJ guideline, dumb as it is, says a sitting president can't be indicted, then all that is left is impeachment. But by definition, impeachment is a political process, not a legal process like indictment. And given the bitterly partisan and tribal state of affairs in congress, there is very little or no chance that the rule of law will be vindicated. By now if not all along, Mueller understands this perfectly.

That leads to lesson four, a variant of lesson two, which is that the rule of law is not just tenuous, but it is also is amazingly subjective. Scholars have noted this subjectivity before and raised the question of whether the rule of law itself is so subjective or meaningless as to constitute an essentially contested concept, as discussed before.

Will the democrats start impeachment proceedings? Who knows? The political calculation might outweigh the constitutional imperative. Would the democrats lose votes in 2020 if they do impeach and the Senate then acquits Trump? Who knows? One thing that seems fairly certain, democrats aren't getting any Trump supporter votes no matter what they say or do, including saying they love Trump more than anything and support him. What votes are out there to be lost?

Footnote:
1. If Trump online supporters are basically like all Trump supporters, they were mostly or completely unaware of the evidence in Mueller's report showing (1) Trump's obstruction of justice, and (2) the seriousness of Russian interference in the 2016 elections. The first thing they heard was William Barr come out with his non-summary summary of the Mueller report and say no collusion, no obstruction and no Russian interference. The 2nd thing they heard was Trump Tweeting, TOTAL EXONERATION!, NO COLLUSION!! WITCH HUNT!!!!, REVENGE!!!!! That is another example of the awesome power of lesson one reinforced by some lies packed into emotion-provoking Tweets. Lies-based beliefs that support what a person wants to believe can be almost impossible to change. Facts and logic alone won't do the trick.