The New Wizard of Oz

Is there any there, there is the question the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees tried to decide using the testimony of the Special Counsel, Robert Mueller. The two year investigation into Russian involvement in the 2016 election and Trump’s possible obstruction of justice came to an end over two months ago with a report of over 400 pages issued. Extremely circumspect and cautious in answering questions from members of the Committees today, Mueller seemed reluctant to make definitive statements regarding Donald Trump’s obstruction of justice and did not speculate on how Trump’s conduct should be handled.

Though the Mueller’s investigative report mentions ten instances where Trump obstructed justice, Mueller did not come right out and say that. Constrained by the Department of Justice’s rule that a sitting president cannot be indicted, Mueller obfuscated when questioned about President Trump possibly going to jail after his term ends. And he refused to say whether impeachment would be the right answer.

The disparity between the Democrats and Republican committee members questioning Mueller was obvious from the beginning. While the Democrats tried to have Mueller confirm that Trump broke the law and would have gone to jail if he were not the sitting president, the Republicans tried to show that the investigators were biased against Trump and that their conclusions should be thrown out.

So was the investigation a waste of time and money? Did no data emerge from all the effort of the investigators? One must remember that like beauty, guilt is in the eye of the beholder. The Republicans wanted to clear Trump of any connection with the Russians and any evidence of obstruction of justice. The Democrats were trying to prove the opposite. Unfortunately, though Trump election personnel met with various Russians repeatedly and though the Russians were shown to have interfered in the 2016 election to favor Trump, the Mueller team did not substantiate a criminal conspiracy involving the Russians and Trump associates.

How there could have been no linkage between the two groups seems impossible to me, though Mueller insists he could not find any. There were all those instances of obstruction of justice by Trump, but it appears that he will pay no price for his actions. Aside from the meeting at the Trump tower between Don Jr, assorted others and the Russian lawyer to get dirt on Hillary, the Wikileaks dump of information from the DNC received from the Russians, and Trump’s meeting with the Russian ambassador after firing Comey, there were numerous other instances where the Russians and Trump team members’ paths crossed. Were all these coincidences? Not likely.

So who is the Wizard of Oz who shrunk in stature because of the Mueller investigation? Was it Trump or Mueller? Maybe both. The takeaway from Mueller’s testimony is that there was little there there. It’s unlikely that anyone’s mind was changed in either direction by today’s testimony. Resurrecting Democracy www.robertlevinebooks.com

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