What Robert Mueller Leaves for Us: Over to You, Nancy

Robert Mueller did what he needed to do for his country: He discovered it had been compromised.

By whom, he can't exactly say. Ken Starr, in effect, took that right away from him more than twenty years ago, when, in his excessively religiously afflicted zeal, he found what he thought he needed to find: that Bill Clinton had had an affair with a White House intern and acted on that affair inside the Oval Office. Not only that, but he had lured Clinton into lying to a grand jury to try to do what people who cheat on their spouses must ultimately do: lie to someone about it.

This, stemming from what appeared to be a fraudulent land deal that Hillary Clinton was supposed to have engineered--but evidence of which was found to be wanting--and resulting from Starr's maneuvering his zeal through the Supreme Court to get him to open doors into Bill Clinton's checkered personal life, sent a warning to Congress that resonates this morning: that, given all kinds of room, a special counsel can find all kinds of conclusions that result in a witch hunt.

From there, of course, Bill Clinton's lie was thrown back into his face by Republican members of Congress, who impeached him and threw this obviously and pseudo-righteously ginned-up case to the Senate, which acquitted him far short of the two-thirds majority necessary to throw him out of office. But Starr's overreach caused Congress to act to limit any future special counsel's purview of any future investigations of any president suspected of wrongdoings sufficient to warrant potential impeachment hearings.

So Mueller said only what he could say: that

• first, given the limited scope he had been allowed, that his bevy of lawyers couldn't find sufficient evidence of a conspiracy between the 45 campaign and the Russians who had, clearly, penetrated our election process enough to have had influence over it--at least, enough evidence to charge the president, from what we've been able to uncover (though there's sure enough funny business going on to say that the Russians have been monkeying around in our machinery, and everybody should be very worried about that);
• second, that it's possible enough that 45 committed obstruction of justice toward the investigation that his office can't rule it out--which means that there's a decent chance that it might have happened (and has listed ten sound reasons to think so); and
• third, that even if it could conclude it, it's not the job of that office to actually do so. That is up to the Congress, that's the way the system's supposed to work, and he's sure not going to be the one to step over that line--the line being that he can't bring charges against someone if a court isn't supposed to be following up, because that constitutes a bill of attainder, specifically prohibited by the Constitution, as it should be against anyone, like it or not. Failure to restrain ourselves even against this ghastly individual, who knows no restraints, might cause a general, universal breakdown of ethical behavior that would slide us far more deeply into the kind of chaos that would, in fact, help the monster more than bring his behavior into anything close to the curb.

There really isn't a thing in there that's different than what's already been said. That, too, is what Mueller took a minute to say: If the Democrats ask me, I can't say anything beyond what the report has already done--create a passageway for them to look more closely at the obstruction charges, and take it from there. In fact, I won't say anything more, not because I don't have personal feelings about it, but that those would fuel political fires that have already been stoked to white-hot levels. I don't want to become known for that. I'd just as soon you did the investigations from here. Que' sera, sera.

Lots of analysts have already said as much. That Mueller went out of his way to actually stand up in front of everyone and say so, though, means that, though he might not mean to do so, he's giving Congressional Democrats his blessing, and he doesn't want anyone to be misled by that gesture.

The person now on the hot seat is Nancy Pelosi, whose rhetoric--clarifying her understanding of impeachable behavior on the one hand, yet advising against its implementation on the other--might now be nudged toward beginning at least an impeachment inquiry by far more than those presently doing so. As of 48 hours ago, fewer than 40 members of Congress actually favored opening that kind of inquiry. Within another 48, we'll know if that number is starting to rise, as well as a possible groundswell that may sweep all of us into a showdown that will put the Constitution into stark relief--and potential jeopardy.

Hang on. This is getting vital. Can we do this? Can we save the republic from ourselves?

Be well. I'll see you down the road.


Mister Mark