Section II page 2:
"Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him."
So the is not report for or against obstruction. And the Mueller Report is not evidence of obstruction, but rather a report on what the Special Council found during its investigation.
Getting bored with this conversation as those who are intent with impeaching the sitting president are going to feel that way no matter the evidence or lack there of.
"Yawn"
As has been previously stated, Mueller could not make a conclusion that Trump committed a crime because he lacked the legal authority under DOJ policy and the controlling OLC memo (on indicting a sitting President) to indict Trump and because of that he did not feel it would be fair to accuse Trump of a crime as he would not be subject to a criminal trial to determine his guilt or innocence.
Additionally, Mueller believed that accusing Trump of a crime could preempt "constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct." I.E. impeachment.
Quoting directly from Mueller's report:
First, a traditional prosecution or declination decision entails a binary determination to
initiate or decline a prosecution, but
we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial
judgment. The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has issued an opinion finding that "the indictment
or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the
executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions" in violation of "the
constitutional separation of powers." Given the role of the Special Counsel as an attorney in the
Department of Justice and the framework of the Special Counsel regulations, see 28 U.S.C. § 515;
28 C.F.R. § 600.7(a),
this Office accepted OLC's legal conclusion for the purpose of exercising
prosecutorial jurisdiction. And apart from OLC's constitutional view, we recognized that a federal
criminal accusation against a sitting President would place burdens on the President's capacity to
govern and potentially preempt constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct
Third, we considered whether to evaluate the conduct we investigated under the Justice
Manual standards governing prosecution and declination decisions, but
we determined not to apply an approach that could potentially result in a judgment that the President committed crimes. The threshold step under the Justice Manual standards is to assess whether a person's conduct
"constitutes a federal offense." U.S. Dep't of Justice, Justice Manual§ 9-27.220 (2018) (Justice
Manual).
Fairness concerns counseled against potentially reaching that judgment when no charges can be brought. The ordinary means for an individual to respond to an accusation is through a
speedy and public trial, with all the procedural protections that surround a criminal case. An
individual who believes he was wrongly accused can use that process to seek to clear his name. In
contrast,
a prosecutor's judgment that crimes were committed, but that no charges will be brought,
affords no such adversarial opportunity for public name-clearing before an impartial adjudicator.
Mueller COULD have cleared Trump if he believed the evidence showed that Trump did NOT obstruct justice. On the other hand, Mueller could NOT have charged Trump no matter how damning the evidence because he was legally bound by DOJ policy and the OLC memo. Similarly, he also could NOT conclude that Trump committed a crime, no matter how damning the evidence, because he did not believe it would be fair to make a criminal accusation when Trump would not be subject to a trial (the adversarial opportunity Mueller is referring to).
Mueller goes on to state:
"Consistent with our jurisdiction to investigate federal obstruction crimes,
we gathered evidence that is relevant to the elements of those crimes and analyzed them within an elements framework-while refraining from reaching ultimate conclusions about whether crimes were committed, for the reasons explained above."
The bottom line is that Mueller could've chosen to exonerate Trump if he believed the evidence established that Trump did not obstruct justice. However, he could not indict or charge Trump, nor accuse him of a crime, no matter how damning the evidence was as proof of obstruction.
Ask yourself, why did Mueller not exonerate Trump even though he unquestionably bent over backwards to be fair to him? And why did Mueller mention Constitutional remedies to Trump's behavior on several occasions - - specifically after pointing out he couldn't legally or ethically charge, indict, or accuse Trump of a crime? Why did Mueller go to great lengths in his report to rebut all the various legal and Constitutional arguments that Trump's legal team made that Trump's conduct was legal and proper? As I pointed out yesterday, the Founders never even intended for impeachment to require an actual criminal accusation - - behavior that taints the office of the Presidency, undermines the pursuit of justice, and intentionally misleading the public are all actions that more than qualify for impeachment.
This shouldn't be a partisan affair but sadly it has absolutely been one. And the Democrats' handling of the impeachment question via poll-testing and politics is almost as much of a dereliction of duty as the GOP's actions during Trump's rise and Presidency. Both parties are disgusting and a black mark on the history of our great nation.
