National Review Online
Wednesday, July 24, 2019
Robert Mueller’s much anticipated congressional testimony
wasn’t the end of the beginning as Democrats had hoped — the start of a new,
more serious phase in the fight to impeach Trump — but very likely the
beginning of the end.
Impeachment has struggled to get the support of
Democratic members of Congress, it doesn’t rate in public opinion polls, and
Robert Mueller did nothing to give it a jump-start with his testimony on
Wednesday.
He stayed within the four corners of the fact and
judgments already written down in his report. Rather than adding performative
sizzle, he often knew less about his work product than his interlocutors on the
right and on the left, and he regularly asked for questions to be repeated. He
didn’t even attempt to answer what is the precedent or authority for his
not-exonerated standard, even though Republicans were obviously going to press
him on it. If this had been a confirmation hearing, he would have flunked.
It’s just as well that Mueller didn’t perform the
function that Democrats hoped he would. He’s already violated, at minimum, the
spirit of the special-counsel regulations that were meant to closely tether
special counsels to standard Justice Department operating procedures rather
than empower them to serve up de facto impeachment referrals to Congress. This
is what Mueller’s office did anyway (with Justice Department officials hesitant
to exercise proper supervision lest they, too, be accused of obstruction of
justice). It’s even more inappropriate for a special counsel to go and talk
about the conduct of someone, in this case, the president of the United States,
who hasn’t been indicted or even accused of a crime.
Trump’s critics say that the only thing that stopped
Mueller from charging Trump was the Office of Legal Counsel guidance against
indicting a sitting president. They briefly got their hopes up when the special
counsel seemed to say as much, in an exchange with Representative Ted Lieu, but
Mueller had been unclear and revised and extended his remarks. As the report says,
he never reached a judgment on whether or not Trump has committed the crime of
obstruction.
Where does this leave us? If Democrats are going to
impeach Trump, they will now have to do so without the hope of Mueller’s making
their case for them — and with less hope then ever of rallying most of the
public. As for the Republicans, they will understandably be even more motivated
to learn more about the origins and the conduct of the investigation, given
that Mueller performed more like a poorly briefed figurehead for a staff-driven
operation rather than its leader.
House Judiciary Chair: Mueller's Report Shows Trump
Committed High Crimes, Misdemeanors
Of course, Mueller’s lackluster testimony doesn’t change
anything about Trump’s underlying conduct, which isn’t, in our view, criminal
or impeachable, though it often was untoward and dishonest. With an election
less than 18 months away, though, most people believe that the voters can
render a verdict on the president one way or the other without Jerry Nadler’s
attempting to do it for them. Robert Mueller’s testimony didn’t change that
calculus, nor should it.
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