Government

House Subpoenas Full Mueller Report Instead Of Doing Something Useful

The Dems are delaying because they don't actually want to deal with Impeachment.

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Jerry Nadler (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

You know what, Attorney Dogsbody William Barr said one truthful thing about the Mueller report: it was, more or less, lightly redacted. I mean, it’s hard to know how material the redactions were without X-ray vision. But the principle conclusions, that Trump obstructed justice and should be held accountable by somebody — but there wasn’t enough evidence to charge him with criminal conspiracy to defraud the electoral process — are fairly plain on the face of the report, despite the redactions. Maybe there’s some more stuff about Wikileaks and Julian Assange. Maybe some more money stuff. But nothing that is going to move the needle.

That needle is impeachment. The House Judiciary Committee decided to subpoena the “full,” unredacted Mueller report today. And it just seems like a massive delaying tactic. Mueller, for all his faults, gave them more than enough information to start impeachment proceedings. But Democrats in House leadership don’t want to start impeachment proceedings. So they’re throwing up this subpoena request in an attempt to appear like they’re doing something, instead of actually doing something.

We can debate whether impeachment is a wise political strategy. There probably aren’t enough Republican votes in the Senate to convict Trump and remove him from office. I am constantly told, almost always by white people, that white voters in Wisconsin don’t want impeachment, and that white voters in Wisconsin are the only ones who freaking matter. The specter of Bill Clinton getting stronger as Republicans failed to remove him from office hangs over every Democratic political calculation.

We shouldn’t be debating the legal case for impeachment. Impeachment is the ONLY Constitutional recourse to hold a president accountable for crimes or misdeeds. Impeachment shouldn’t be thought of as a “tactic” — it’s a responsibility.

But it’s clearly a responsibility that Democrats do not want. The Mueller report is a damn charging document on obstruction of justice, without the charges. Democrats are trying to ignore that, because Republicans are willing to ignore that.

Well, not all Democrats.

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Democrats were hoping that Mueller was going to “save” them by either indicting the President or exonerating him. Mueller was hoping the Democrats would take the roll as “prosecutor” so he could keep his hands clean and adhere to his precious rulebook. Everybody is looking at each other wondering whose responsibility it was to catch the thief, while the thief is getting away.

Oh, also, Russia is hacking and influencing our elections and nobody is doing a damned thing to stop it.

House Democrats Subpoena Full Mueller Report, and the Underlying Evidence [New York Times]

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Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and a contributor at The Nation. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at [email protected]. He will resist.

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