Horowitz: Mueller Speaks

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Tuesday, June 04, 2019

Rob Horowitz, GoLocalWorcester MINDSETTER™

Emerging from more than 2 years of disciplined---if perhaps sometimes ill-advised-silence-- Special Counsel Bob Mueller finally spoke this past Wednesday morning. To a packed room of television cameras and reporters, he briefly summarized the main conclusions of his 448-page report. The Special Counsel did so on his last day of work at the Justice Department as he has now returned to private life.

While measured and careful as always, Mueller’s words still packed a big punch, leaving no doubt to anyone who watched live or listened to the sound-bites that dominated the news that the repeated mantra of President Trump that the report concluded, “No Collusion No Obstruction”  is a blatant falsehood. Similarly, Mueller’s words were a direct refutation of the subtler, but still misleading attempts of Attorney General William Barr to downplay all the presidential misdeeds detailed in the report.

The former FBI Director and lifelong Republican pointedly refused to clear the president of the charge of obstruction of justice, saying, “If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so.”   In these remarks Mueller echoed the report, which spells out 10 instances of potential obstruction of justice, and he asserted that because of the Justice Department policy that a president cannot be indicted while in office, he thought it would be unfair to accuse the president of committing a crime.  The remedies referred to by Mueller, both in his remarks and in the report, are action by Congress or indictment once the president leaves office.

Mueller also echoed the report in saying that “our conclusion (was) that there was insufficient evidence to charge a broader conspiracy.”  Contrary to the president and attorney general’s claims that the report finds no collusion, the report itself notes that it did not address the broader and legally meaningless term of “collusion” and Mueller made no mention of “collusion” in his remarks. In fact, the report details countless incidents of the Trump campaign having contact with various Russians and plainly states that it knew about and welcomed Russian government activities on its behalf.

Bob Mueller devoted the largest portion of his remarks to detailing the sweeping and systematic Russian interference in the 2016 election--activities intended to harm Hillary Clinton and help Donald Trump.  In order to emphasize the importance of the United States finally proactively addressing this problem to prevent its reoccurrence in future elections, Mueller returned to Russian meddling in the conclusion of his remarks: “I will close by reiterating the central allegation of our indictments, that there were multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our election. And that allegation deserves the attention of every American.

While Mueller strongly prefers that his remarks be his final public utterance on this matter, arguing that the report should speak for itself, the strong impact of this limited public appearance ensures that House Committee Chairs Cummings, Nadler and Schiff will re-double their efforts to get him to testify. And given that most Americans have not and will not read the report, his testimony which will certainly be televised in its entirety and followed up by saturation-level news coverage, would be an important moment of public education.

Separate and apart from the question of President Trump’s misconduct, hearing more from Bob Mueller just might help mobilize public opinion so that we can finally get the comprehensive proactive action we need to protect our democracy against future foreign interference before the 2020 election.  That should be reason enough for this true American patriot to reconsider his understandable reluctance and voluntarily appear in front of the relevant committees.

Right now, America needs more of Bob Mueller’s measured and honest voice.

 

Rob Horowitz is a strategic and communications consultant who provides general consulting, public relations, direct mail services and polling for national and state issue organizations, various non-profits and elected officials and candidates. He is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island

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