As everyone dives to dictionaries to see if vindication and exoneration are properly attached to the completion of the Mueller report, rest…
As everyone dives to dictionaries to see if “vindication” and “exoneration” are properly attached to the completion of the Mueller report, rest assured that like most things these days, the reactions will be filtered through the lens of opinion about President Donald Trump.
The president and his supporters are justified in identifying what we have learned about the report as a confirmation of their assertions of the last two years — that this probe would find no evidence of collusion with Russia, a charge so empty that the entire investigation was ill-conceived.
But it is also true that the report is not an exoneration on the issue of obstruction of justice, a charge that can be so broad as to contain a wide range of words and actions.
As such, the Mueller report is not willing to declare that no obstruction happened, only that its efforts did not uncover evidence of it. Such are the technicalities of law and logic.
But in the day-to-day world, the bottom line is that this specific cloud that darkened over the head of the Trump administration is now largely dissipated. Breathless media coverage will no longer be able to warn us of indictment-worthy bombshells that could go off at any moment.
