Even if it is never released, the public already knows enough.
People lie to hide the truth. They lie to hide crimes. And while everyone is dying for a peek at Robert Mueller’s bombshell report to see if he says any crimes were committed by the Trump campaign in 2016, the truth is actually already out there, hidden in plain sight.
Mr. Mueller’s report may never go public, but we don’t need a peek at the recommendations he delivered on Friday to Attorney General William Barr to credibly assess that something unethical and likely illegal went on in 2016. The repeated lies told by Trump campaign staff members — lies about their connections to Russian figures — already spin a grand tale of conspiracy and deceit. And it’s a tale so suspect and sordid that President Trump and his associates felt the need to lie to hide it from law enforcement.
This is not conjecture; some of Mr. Trump’s people are already in jail, having been convicted in federal court for lying to investigators about their connections to and interactions with Russians during the 2016 campaign. Others have pleaded guilty to similar crimes, which — it bears repeating — is what one does when presented with overwhelming evidence of one’s guilt. Still others await trial. Many more have been indicted.
There’s the top Trump campaign official Paul Manafort, who is serving time for lying about his history of lobbying for Russian interests and sharing Trump campaign polling data with a Russian intelligence asset during the campaign.
And there’s the close Trump associate Roger Stone, recently indicted on charges of lying about communications he had with Wikileaks before it released damaging information about Hillary Clinton that law enforcement believes was stolen by Russian hackers.
The former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen is headed to jail after admitting that he lied to Congress about a business deal Mr.
