#muellerreport #trump #election2020
Today, Robert Mueller finally testified in front of the US Congress. This is one of the only times I have ever heard him speak. The first time was when he held a press conference to talk about his non-appearance of this very appearance.
The testimony progressed both, as I had expected, and with a few surprises. First, the democrats and the republicans both played their game. The game of the democrats was to point out each one of the facts in the report Mueller provided to demonstrate how Trump should be impeached or at the very least, would otherwise have been indicted. The Republicans’ game was to point out various inaccuracies in the report as a way to taint it as biased, inaccurate and therefore inadmissible. The testimony began around 8:45am with the chairman of the committee launching the questioning. As I had expected, the Democrats were pleased to have Mueller present, while the Republicans appeared to despise him. Testimony progressed between Democrat and Republican representatives until about noon, at which point the number of Democrats outnumbered the Republicans and the remaining testimony belonged to them.
While the game was as obvious, as was the rotation between members of each party, I made the following observations.
- The Republican members of THIS committee were mostly white males and all were Caucasian. Democratic members, on the other hand, were vastly more diverse.
- Clinton [insert anything here] is a cancer. The Republicans love to bring her up, or her foundation, or email server, or campaign, etc, etc. The woman lost the presidency and won the wrath of the Republicans. I feel that even if she were dead, the Republicans would still manage to bring her up.
- Why did Mueller leave his prosecution open to interpretation? One of the Republican members made a good point that nothing in the OLC prevented Mueller from stating any one criminal act was an impeachable offense. So why didn’t Mueller say this in the report?
- The Republicans were demanding and angry. It reminded me of Democrats during AG Barr’s testimony.
- According to the Republicans, Mueller’s investigation was a waste of time and money and had very little to show. The same investigation, however, was a huge success and took very little time in the eyes of the Democrats.
- The narrative and story are more important than the facts. When convenient, to either party, they will choose either the narrative/story or the facts to make their point, even while claiming to be unbiased in their choice.
- Mr Mueller stumbled all over his own words. I do not claim that I would have done better, only that I expected someone with his level of experience and exposure to Washington politics, to have done better.
- In war and love… and politics, all is fair.
