Here’s How Trump Beat Mueller

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Trump did not tweet, rant, shout, or finger point Special Counsel Robert Mueller the instant he delivered his report to Attorney General William Barr. Trump, in fact, said nothing. He didn’t have to. He won. He won with his three-year relentless and ruthless ramming into the public and media lexicon the words and the notion, “no collusion,” “witch hunt,” and “hoax,” about the Mueller investigation.

He won when his fervid base supporters shouted, screamed, and stomped ‘lock her up.” The “her” being Hillary Clinton. He won when he fired Attorney General William Sessions whose only real sin in Trump’s eye was his recusal from the investigation. He won when his acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker made clear that he would be the sole arbiter of what was released or not in the Mueller Report. He won when his permanent Attorney General Barr pretty much with only a slight guarded refinement hewed to the same line. He won when he dithered, dodged, and finally scuttled any notion that he’d do a face-to-face interview with Mueller’s team.

He won when two decades earlier during the probe by then Special Counsel Kenneth Starr into the Clinton-Lewinsky-Whitewater scandals the Justice Department did not specify that a Special Counsel’s finding had to be released to the public. With full knowledge of this, he won when he craftily and pithily said “let the public see the report. He didn’t mean it, but he could say it, because again he knew that he and Barr would make the final call on what the public and Congress could see.

He had several powerful weapons to further secure his win. One is executive privilege. This gives him the right to label anything in the report that he and Barr consider a danger to compromise secrets, investigations, or classified material as a grave security danger if made public. And since virtually the entire focus and purpose of the Mueller investigation was to get to the bottom of what Trump did or didn’t do with Russian bots in the 2016 presidential election, that inevitably meant that the pair could claim that release of any information pertaining to this could jeopardize a secret source of intelligence about Russian government activities.

In theory there are limits to this. Courts ruled against Clinton, Bush Jr. and Obama in several instances when they tried to invoke executive privilege to shield documents from public and congressional perusal. And most famously, Nixon lost his battle to scuttle any release of the tapes that caught him in red handed lies about his role in the Watergate crimes.

However, the courts at the same time did not challenge the right of presidents to invoke executive privilege if they could make the case that release of documents would imperil national security or impede ongoing investigations—criminal or otherwise.

Another weapon in Trump’s hide the report arsenal is to argue that release of some material could compromise other criminal investigations and possible prosecutions. Then there’s the grand jury shield. Mueller did rely on grand juries in several cases. Rules bar any public disclosure of grand jury documents and proceedings to the public. While the courts could rule that this information be released to Congress, the chance of that are slim to none. And any such ruling would almost quickly be appealed.

In fact, almost certainly any of the piles of maneuvers that House Democrats will use to try and pry the full report and much more out of the White House, will be appealed. This would ignite a long winded, and long drawn out court battles.

Trump even won with the House’s unanimous vote for the full pubic release of the Mueller report. It was non-binding. Thus, it is pure symbolism. It has absolutely no legal weigh in compelling Barr to make public the full report.

Trump’s scored his biggest win, though, not in the pages of the report, or what it says or doesn’t say, or whether it can be released or not. This big win came with his cynical, crass, but masterful political ploy of selling the pitch to millions of his loyalists and the GOP that the entire Russia probe was nothing more than a massive out to get him vindictive move by Democrats sour over their White House loss to him. He sold this line so well that Democratic leaders have now back pedaled fast from any talk of impeachment. Trump didn’t need to tweet or take a victory lap after Mueller finished his job. He had already won the race to defeat Mueller before the race even started.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is the author of The Russia Probe: What Did Trump Know, And When Did He Know It? (Middle Passage Press) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07L46G65XHe is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on Radio One. He is the host of the weekly Hutchinson Report on KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles and the Pacifica Network.

3 thoughts on “Here’s How Trump Beat Mueller”

  1. I’m sick to my stomach on what your saying ,, he’ll get away with breaking the law
    due to him blackmailing congress shoving in the Supreme Court justice
    it make me wanna holler
    racist sob

  2. That’s your opinion and it’s not a Bad Opinion, time will tell on one question. Will Congress get the Full UNREDACTED MUELLER REPORT, you not a Chance, I yes more that a chance, otherwise, I’ll be generous

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