Down from the Mount

Robert Mueller holding a news conference is almost up there with Moses coming down from Mount Sinai. Like Moses, Mueller brought a hard message with him. Here is what it made me think about.

In a standard criminal case, the cops collect evidence of a crime and present it to the DA. If the DA decides the evidence is sufficient, the suspect is charged with the crime. The case has to be brought into the right court, and is TRIED (that’s where we get the word “trial” from). If the charge is not proven beyond a reasonable doubt, the defendant is acquitted (or exonerated) by the jury.

Mr. Mueller said that the evidence against President Trump in the Russia probe was insufficient for a charge of conspiracy. In the case of obstruction of justice in particular, Mueller said he and his team did not decide on a charge because it was not their business to do so, according to Department of Justice rules. Mueller insisted, however, that Trump had not been exonerated by the investigation. That would be up to Congress. So, the water is still muddy.

Under Mueller’s principle of fairness, it would have been wrong to even say Trump was chargeable, because the President does not have the ability to defend himself in the regular criminal justice system. If House Speaker Nancy Pelosi really feels that Trump may have committed an impeachable offense, as she put it recently, applying Mueller’s principle of fairness, she has simply added to the mud, and the case should now be pursued through the system that applies to a sitting President, namely, the impeachment process.

Opening an impeachment inquiry is not just a political chess move. Even on those terms, as a former Congressman, who is a Republican, observed in a TV interview, Democrats may suffer more damage by NOT moving toward impeachment than by doing so. If they want to retain their power in Congress, at some point they have to exercise it.

As with any court activity, the outcome of an impeachment proceeding isn’t certain. Even if the House makes a good case, the President may get a pass in the Senate, and then, he could claim full exoneration. But there is still another court, the supremest one of them all, in politics at least: the court of public opinion. As voters, we all have jury duty in 2020.