Mueller Report: End or Beginning?

An analysis by the distinguished retired Judge John H. Wilson

There is a line in the Grateful Dead’s song, “Terrapin Station,” that applies to the release of the Report of Special Counsel Robert Mueller – “I can’t figure out, if it’s the end or beginning.” Robert Mueller may have packed up his tent, but the Congressional circus has only just started.

A. The Mueller Report on Russian Collusion.

It is well known that one of the major findings of the Report is that “the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.” This flies in the face of statements made by the Democratic Congressional leadership before the release of the report – notably people like Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA), who stated in December of 2017 “The Russians offered help, the campaign accepted help, the Russians gave help, and the president made full use of that help, and that is pretty damning,” and Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), who said in November of 2018, “The evidence is pretty clear that there was collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.”

To date, this writer is unaware of a single Democrat who has admitted to being wrong, or making an incorrect statement, regarding whether or not President Trump colluded with any Russians who attempted to interfere in the 2016 election. In fact, when former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani demanded that CNN commentator Chris Cuomo apologize for “torturing (Trump) for two years with (allegations) of collusion,” Cuomo stated “not a chance.”

Regardless of any Democrat’s refusal to admit they were wrong, the fact remains – the Special Counsel, after two years of intensive investigation, could not find any evidence that President Trump, or anyone on his campaign staff, is a traitor.

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B. The Mueller Report – Obstruction of Justice.

Instead, as I predicted just before the release of the Report, in my appearance on the Financial Survival Network with Kerry Lutz in April, Congressional Democrats now pin their hopes of ending the Trump Presidency on the second finding of the Mueller Report – “if we had confidence…that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

The Mueller Report makes this conclusion at page 8 of Volume II of the report – yet, one page earlier, the Report states as follows: “unlike cases in which a subject engages in obstruction of justice to cover up a crime, the evidence we obtained did not establish that the President was involved in any underlying crime related to Russian election interference.”

C. Legal Standards for an Obstruction of Justice Charge.

Obstruction of Justice under 18 USC Chapter 73 can take many forms, from Resistance to an Extradition Agent (Section 1502) to obstruction of the examination of a financial institution (Section 1517. The three sections the Special Counsel believed could apply to President Trump’s conduct are 1503 (Influencing an officer or juror), 1505 (obstruction of proceedings before departments, agencies and committees), and two subsections of 1512 (tampering with a witness, victim or informant). In support of the application of these statutes to the President’s conduct, the Mueller Report details a series of unsuccessful attempts by President Trump to convince various members of his Administration to either remove the Special Counsel, or in the case of former US Attorney Robert Sessions, to “unrecuse” himself from supervision of the Special Counsel.

The Report concludes tomorrow

Photo: Pixabay

Quick Analysis

Putin’s Saber Rattling

Earlier this week, President Biden reversed his 2022 decision, authorizing the provision of antipersonnel land mines to the Ukrainian government. It follows an earlier Administration authorization to allow the use of an advanced American missile system capable of striking as deep as 100 miles inside Russian territory. The US election season may be ending, but both Russia and the West show no indication of stepping down the conflict. Russian propaganda continues to swell as the Kremlin increases its threats to use nuclear weapons against the West. Last week Andrey Sushentsov, program director of the pro-Kremlin think tank Valdai Discussion Club (VDC), published an article on growing nuclear tensions in the region. Official Russian language in the last few years has been threatening. Since the US election, rhetoric like that in the Sushentsov article, has approached the level of nuclear blackmail. The VDC article’s main theme centers on Russia’s intent to directly confront the West militarily if the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) becomes involved in Russia’s conflict with Ukraine. “On the one hand, these threats are intended to frighten the West, but on the other, Russian propagandists themselves are starting to believe in the inevitability of escalation,” according to Ksenia Kirillova of the Jamestown Foundation. On November 11, Sushentsov wrote that “The conflict will reach a completely new level, with unpredictable consequences for Europe and the entire world.” Kirillova points out that Putin’s distorted image of the world is divorced from reality and is causing the Kremlin to issue demands that are impossible to fulfill. Financial and other Russian resources needed to support Putin’s war are growing scarcer at the same time. This week the Kremlin announced a reduction of payments to its soldiers. Recently North Korea acknowledged it was sending soldiers to fight in Ukraine as Putin is running out of bodies to use as cannon fire. The war is not going well for Russia. One question floating around the Washington intelligence community is whether Putin will act out of desperation before President-elect Trump assumes office. In recent months the Russian propaganda machine is spewing out materials from fairly reputable analytical platforms inside the country. Kirillova says that “Kremlin ‘experts’ do not conceal that such threats are only intended to break the West psychologically, as they themselves are not prepared for full-scale nuclear war.” Despite Russia’s lack of preparation for an all-out war with the West, the expanding nuclear rhetoric carries with it an increase in the threat of a full-scale war in multiple theaters of operation. In June 2023 a founder of the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Sergey Karaganov, called for “delivering a pre-emptive strike of retaliation” on Poland to force the West to surrender. In the previous month, Dmitry Suslov, a direct of research programs at the policy center proposed organizing “a demonstration nuclear explosion” aimed at intimidating the West. In September, President Putin announced a reappraisal of Russian nuclear doctrine after speaking earlier in the year at the plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum and jokingly calling Suslov a “scary person.” Pavel Baev, writing in the European Daily Monitor, says “Putin intends his announcement to mark an escalation of nuclear brinkmanship and influence the proceedings of future Ukrainian peace efforts.” Putin is expanding the list of environmental conditions that are acceptable for using a nuclear weapon and incorporating it into Russian military doctrine. Baev adds that “The ups and downs of Russian brinkmanship are disconnected from the kinetic battles of the war, correlating instead with Ukrainian peace offensives, such as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s first peace summit in Bürgenstock, Switzerland.” Despite the increase in vitriolic language, in a You Tube video published a week before the US presidential election, Karaganov openly assured the West the primary goal of the escalation is to break the American spirit and that of the West, not outright nuclear war. By Election Day in the US, with political prognosticators predicting a win for former president Trump, Karaganov changed his tune and called for an increased role in nuclear deterrence. Kirillova points out that Western concessions to Russia are unlikely to reduce the risk of nuclear escalation. The distorted reality inside the Kremlin continues to push that President-elect Trump is an adherent of “world government,” that Ukraine will create a nuclear weapon, and Russia must prepare for a nuclear conflagration to achieve its ambitions for a new world order. President-elect Trump has indicated he will not agree to concessions that destabilize Europe, the Middle East or other regions. Going forward a strong US foreign policy may be the most stabilizing course the West can count on to restrain Putin and his intent to rebuild the Russian empire. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept. Illustration: Pixabay

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