The report shows a pattern of behavior outside the norms of the Oval Office, even if Barr concludes there was no obstruction of justice.
The Trump presidency long has been an exercise in normalizing extraordinary behavior, with President Trump repeatedly stretching the limits of what is considered appropriate conduct by the nation’s chief executive. The report from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III puts into high relief the degree to which President Trump has violated the norms.
The principal focus of the special counsel’s investigation was on questions of criminality. But there is more than the issue of what rises to the level of criminal conspiracy or criminal obstruction when judging a president and his administration. These are questions that go to the heart of what is acceptable or normal or advisable in a democracy. On that basis, the Mueller report provides a damning portrait of the president and those around him for actions taken during the 2016 campaign and while in office.
The 448-page document is replete with evidence, of repeated lying by public officials and others (some of whom have been charged for that conduct), of the president urging not to tell the truth, of the president seeking to shut down the investigation, of a Trump campaign hoping to benefit politically from Russian hacking and leaks of information damaging to its opponent, of a White House in chaos and operating under abnormal rules.
It shows a White House where officials sometimes — but not always — resisted the president’s more nefarious orders and concludes that Trump was not able to influence the investigation as much as he wished because advisers declined to carry out some of those orders. It also suggests, despite his many claims to the contrary, that the president felt vulnerable to an investigation. When informed just months after taking office that a special counsel was to be appointed, Trump exclaimed that it would mean “the end of my presidency.”
[Mueller report lays out obstruction evidence against the president]
The legal findings in the report are important and significant. Mueller’s team found no criminal conspiracy on the part of Trump campaign associates in Russian efforts to sabotage the 2016 election. Attorney General William P. Barr concluded, based on his reading of the report, that there was insufficient evidence to charge the president with obstruction. The president, in tweets and public statements Thursday morning, embraced the findings as full exoneration. “Game Over,” said one tweet triumphantly.
Still, the investigation should be looked at in its broadest outlines, as one that was examining basic questions about political campaigns, political operatives, presidential candidates and presidents, along with the overriding issue of foreign interference in America’s democracy and the president’s reaction to it.
