If someone obstructed justice, then who?
Following the publication of the Mueller Report, partisans from both the Left and the Right were quick to apply their own spin. A faithful reader sent word how a Wyoming rancher might view Mr. Mueller’s loosely veiled insinuation that President Trump obstructed justice: "While we recognize that the subject did not actually steal any horses, he is obviously guilty of trying to resist being hanged for it."
Unfortunately for Robert Mueller and his good name, his actions over the last two and one-half years are subject to question. We leave it to readers to decide Mr. Mueller’s motivation for rendering his report the way he did and for the public statements, Mr. Mueller made since.
Actually, Mr. Mueller’s mission was simple. If he and his team of investigators could find evidence of collusion between members of the "Trump for President Campaign" and Russia, Mr. Mueller need only present that evidence to the Department of Justice (DOJ). End of mission.
It is not the role of the Special Counsel to make pronouncements as to the guilt or innocence of the subjects of his investigations. Should the DOJ determine that Mueller’s evidence warrants a criminal referral, it would then be up to a judge and jury to either convict the accused or find them innocent.
When, at the start of his investigations, Mr. Mueller loaded up his legal staff with Hillary Clinton donors, to include, briefly, the openly anti-Trump FBI agents, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, Mueller’s defenders reasoned: Look, if a pro-Hillary Clinton team does not find collusion evidence against Donald J. Trump, then logic will tell us there was no collusion evidence against Donald J. Trump to be found.
At the outset, Mr. Mueller had many friends and admirers in the legal profession. But now, post-report and post his subsequent remarks, that is no longer the case. Former Harvard Law professor and well-known liberal, Allan Dershowitz, said recently, "I have defended Mueller against the accusations that he is a partisan. I did not believe that he personally favored either the Democrats or the Republicans, or had a point of view on whether President Trump should be impeached. But I have now changed my mind. By putting his thumb, indeed his elbow, on the scale of justice in favor of impeachment based on obstruction of justice, Mueller has revealed his partisan bias...
"He also has distorted the critical role of a prosecutor in our justice system...No prosecutor should ever say or do anything for the purpose of helping one party or the other. I cannot imagine a plausible reason why Mueller went beyond his report and gratuitously suggested that President Trump might be guilty, except to help Democrats in Congress and to encourage impeachment talk and action. Shame on Mueller for abusing his position of trust and for allowing himself to be used for such partisan advantage,"concluded Professor Dershowitz.
But why did Mueller not investigate the clearly criminal origins of the charges that led to his appointment, along with the all-too-evident criminal wrong-doing by senior officials of the Obama DOJ, the FBI, and the Intelligence Community? If anyone is guilty of obstructing justice, perhaps it is Robert Mueller. You decide.
©2019. William Hamilton.
Nationally syndicated columnist, William Hamilton, is a laureate of the Oklahoma Military Hall of Fame, the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame, the Nebraska Aviation Hall of Fame, the Colorado Aviation Hall of Fame, and the Oklahoma University Army ROTC Wall of Fame. Dr. Hamilton is the author of The Wit and Wisdom of William Hamilton: the Sage of Sheepdog Hill, Pegasus Imprimis Press (2017). "Central View," can also be seen at: www.central-view.com.
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