{"id":1310917,"date":"2019-06-02T19:48:00","date_gmt":"2019-06-03T01:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/thiessen-column-mueller-should-not-have-held-a-press-conference\/"},"modified":"2019-06-03T07:34:23","modified_gmt":"2019-06-03T13:34:23","slug":"thiessen-column-mueller-should-not-have-held-a-press-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/thiessen-column-mueller-should-not-have-held-a-press-conference\/","title":{"rendered":"Thiessen column: Mueller should not have held a press conference"},"content":{"rendered":"
Marc A. Thiessen<\/strong>
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In his news conference Wednesday, special counsel Robert Mueller explained why he would not testify before Congress. \u201cAny testimony from this office would not go beyond our report,\u201d he said. \u201cIt contains our findings and analysis and the reasons for the decisions we made. We chose those words carefully, and the work speaks for itself. The report is my testimony.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is precisely why Mueller should not have held a news conference.<\/p>\n

President Trump\u2019s critics are now picking apart his statement, looking for discrepancies with the carefully chosen words in his report, and searching for hidden meaning and secret messages urging them to impeach the president. Like with a verbal Rorschach test, they are reading between the lines to hear what they want to hear.<\/p>\n

For example, in his report Mueller definitively declared his investigation \u201cdid not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government.\u201d But in his news conference, Mueller said that \u201cthere was insufficient evidence to charge a broader conspiracy.\u201d \u201cAha!\u201d the Trump-Russia collusion truthers cry, \u201cHe\u2019s saying there may have been a broader conspiracy, but he just found \u2018insufficient evidence\u2019 to bring charges.\u201d No, sorry, that is not what the report says. It says that \u201cThe investigation did not identify evidence that any U.S. persons knowingly or intentionally coordinated with [Russia\u2019s] interference operation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The same is true when it comes to obstruction of justice. In his report, Mueller carefully explains both sides of the argument and makes clear that \u201cthe evidence we obtained about the President\u2019s actions and intent presents difficult issues that would need to be resolved if we were making a traditional prosecutorial judgment.\u201d He presents exculpatory arguments on the president\u2019s behalf. For example, he notes that \u201cunlike cases in which a subject engages in obstruction of justice to cover up a crime, the evidence we obtained did not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference\u201d and \u201cthe absence of that evidence affects the analysis of the President\u2019s intent and requires consideration of other possible motives for his conduct.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moreover, Mueller also wrote that for the president to have obstructed justice, he must have acted \u201cwith a corrupt intention\u201d and \u201cthe term \u2018corruptly\u2019 sets a demanding standard. It requires a concrete showing that a person acted with an intent to obtain an improper advantage for himself or someone else, inconsistent with official duty and the rights of others.\u201d It\u2019s not an easy case. And since Justice Department rulings prohibit the prosecution of a sitting president, Mueller did not come to a conclusion one way or another. His report \u201cdoes not exonerate him\u201d but also \u201cdoes not conclude that the President committed a crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

All that nuance flew right over the head of House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., who suggested that the reason Trump escaped indictment was \u201cDepartment of Justice policy prevented the Special Counsel from bringing criminal charges against the President\u201d and so \u201cit falls to Congress to respond to the crimes, lies and other wrongdoing of President Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Attorney General William Barr has testified, under oath, that \u201cspecial counsel Mueller stated three times to us \u2026 in response to our questioning, that he emphatically was not saying, but for the [Office of Legal Counsel] opinion, he would\u2019ve found obstruction.\u201d Barr also stated in April that \u201cRod Rosenstein and I asked Robert Mueller when we met with him on March 5, whether he would have made obstruction a crime but for the OLC opinion. He made it clear several times that it was not his position.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mueller did not refute Barr\u2019s testimony in his news conference, or say that the OLC opinion was the only reason he did not find that Trump obstructed justice. Indeed, spokesmen for Barr and Mueller told The Washington Post that his and Barr\u2019s statements were not in conflict. Besides, the fact is the Mueller investigation was not obstructed. He was allowed to complete his work, with unprecedented cooperation from the Trump administration. And Mueller\u2019s report concluded that Trump was telling the truth all along: He did not conspire with Russia in its assault on our democracy.<\/p>\n

In his statement, Mueller noted that the Russians he indicted are \u201cpresumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.\u201d Apparently, for congressional Democrats, that presumption of innocence does not extend to Trump. All Mueller\u2019s news conference did is muddy the waters. Any congressional testimony would do so 10 times over. He should have heeded his own advice, left the building quietly, and, as he put it in his statement, let \u201cthe office\u2019s written work speak for itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Follow Marc A. Thiessen on Twitter, @marcthiessen. (c) 2019, The Washington Post Writers Group<\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marc A. ThiessenAAA In his news conference Wednesday, special counsel Robert Mueller explained why he would not testify before Congress. \u201cAny testimony from this office would not go beyond our report,\u201d he said. \u201cIt contains our findings and analysis and the reasons for the decisions we made. We chose those words carefully, and the work […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1310917","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-18 11:23:58","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1310917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1310917"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1310917\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1310932,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1310917\/revisions\/1310932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1310917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1310917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1310917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}