Summary

“My mind is made up; don’t confuse me with the facts.”

Do you know anyone whose mind was changed about the person or party they support as a result of the Mueller report?

After two years years of investigation by top-line professionals with all sorts of investigative resources at their command, don’t you suppose there should have been general agreement about the Mueller report result?  Not a chance. The investigation produced a 400 page report--and no changed minds.

Why?

That’s the subject of today’s 10-minute podcast.

Continuing

The answer to the following question is telling: Are you angry or relieved that the President of the United States was not found guilty of colluding with a foreign power to alter the results of a presidential election?

Some people are angry because they were convinced that Trump was guilty well before the report was released. Why? Because they simply wanted him gone? Because certain news sources had been telling them that for about two years?

Others, the people from day one who had decided that Trump was not guilty, are angry because they believe the whole agonizing, national process was a politically-inspired fishing expedition, with no other purpose than to damage the President.

The only relieved--non-angry--people are the ones who withheld judgment until the evidence in the report was released. And who among them would not be relieved to know that their President had not colluded with the Russians to better his election chances.

Here is my summary of the Mueller report. There was no collusion, and Mueller did not find enough evidence to charge obstruction. Mueller and his team investigated 10 incidents of possible obstruction, and found none to be worthy of further action on his part. Trump did urge some of his senior staff to take actions that could very well have been seen as obstructions, but each one refused. And Trump backed down each time. Discredit to Trump for trying. Credit to his staff for standing firm.

The report also revealed something long true about Trump that anyone who had been paying attention should have already known. Donald J. Trump repeatedly does things that are embarrassing and wrong to cover up other things that he has done that are embarrassing and wrong. But not criminal.

Trump and others are claiming full exoneration. That’s the truth and nothing but the truth, but not the whole truth. He was exonerated of collusion, but not of the obstruction. When faced with the “no exoneration” on collusion part of the report, the response is that obstruction on a non-crime, the report said there was no collusion, is a thin premise upon which to seek further action.

Democrats and much of the media are still insisting that Bob Mueller has laid out the case for Congress to take action on obstruction. Some are already calling for impeachment. One representative, Rashida Tlaib, D-MI, did not feel constrained to wait for the evidence in the report when she shouted, “We’re gonna impeach the motherfucker!” hours after being sworn into Congress last January 3rd.

To date, the Mueller investigation and the reaction to it has produced more heat than light. The Democrats seem determined to let nothing drop until they have proven what they want to prove. Or at least have provided enough cover to keep their voters and viewers happy. Trump and some of the Republicans appear to be ready to launch an investigation of their own into Hillary Clinton and what they believe to have been the nefarious political origins of the Mueller investigation. If that happens, do you think that anyone's mind will be changed as a result? Will we once again produce more stress, more division, and no changed minds or hearts?

There are two Key Points today: 1.