It has been about 2 weeks since the Special Counsel Report by former FBI director, Robert Mueller, was released to the public. The report was made public, in redacted form, about 3 weeks after Attorney General William Barr had sent a summary of the report to congress.
The full report is close to 450 pages, hence when the AG (Attorney General) summarized it in 4 pages, there was considerable uproar and pressure for the eventual release the full report (in redacted form).
The AG maintained the report does not provide sufficient evidence to indict the President with obstruction of justice:
The Special Counsel’s decision to describe the facts of his obstruction investigation without reaching any legal conclusions leaves it to the Attorney General to determine whether the conduct described in the report constitutes a crime. Over the course of the investigation, the Special Counsel’s office engaged in discussions with certain Department officials regarding many of the legal and factual matters at issue in the Special Counsel’s obstruction investigation. After reviewing the Special Counsel’s final report on these issues; consulting with Department officials, including the Office of Legal Counsel; and applying the principles of federal prosecution that guide our charging decisions, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and I have concluded that the evidence developed during the Special Counsel’s investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense. Our determination was made without regard to, and is not based on, the constitutional considerations that surround the indictment and criminal prosecution of a sitting president.
Attorney General Letter to House and Senate Judiciary Committee – March 24, 2019
All the while, people that have read the redacted report have interpreted the Special Counsel’s conclusions differently, though the interpretations have fallen well within party-lines.
If there is one thing that Trump has done, and done very well, is to politicize and polarize every issue. As the President, he’s had every opportunity to choose alternatives which can help make his administration less opaque and more transparent. Instead, time after time, the President has chosen the route which will result in the best television.
Take AG William Barr as an example. In 2017, while Barr was a private citizen, the AG was Jeff Sessions, and the Special Counsel Investigation was underway, Barr was publicly critical of the investigation’s scope and validity. As a private citizen he’s free to do or say anything he wishes. The issue emerges if those beliefs could be seen as biased if you are the ultimate enforcer of the law.
Trump could have nominated just about anyone for AG, instead he choose someone whose decisions regarding the Special Counsel investigation would unmistakably result in controversy. Why?
I believe the answer is he knew this would bring the best entertainment. As an objective reader of the report, I cannot conclude anything other than no coordination was found. I agree, Trump and his campaign did not coordinate with the Russians during the 2016 presidential election. I can also read the footnotes, and between the lines, that the Special Counsel could not have reached any other conclusion on the President’s Obstruction of Justice actions.
I will take this one step further and say that I don’t believe Trump’s IQ is particularly high in the subject of international politics and conspiracies. Trump’s high IQ is in entertainment. Entertainment is about keeping people in suspense, aspiring, and sometimes, laughing. He is the best at all three.
Trump’s actions, may or may not, have directly, or indirectly, obstructed justice. That has never been Trump’s goal. His goal has always been entertainment. His actions have always had the intent of entertainment as their basis. This is the reason for his predictable turn-abouts (before the Special Counsel report was released, Robert Mueller was a good guy. Once the report was release, Robert Mueller was biased). He wants people to be entertained.
And if we all got off our high-horse we would see we are the problem. We are the ones that have allowed an entertainer in the White House. We are the ones that have, through our votes, TV ratings, blog posts, social media postings, etc, turned the job of President of the United States, into Entertainer of the United States.
