No collusion, plenty of corruption: Trump is not in the clear [View all]

[nitpicker]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/24/mueller-report-trump-collusion-corruption-congress-democrats

No collusion, plenty of corruption: Trump is not in the clear

Richard Wolffe

Sun 24 Mar 2019 21.50 GMT Last modified on Mon 25 Mar 2019 09.38 GMT

Suspend your disbelief for a second.

Assume that the Trump administration – which lies so easily and so often on matters big and small – can tell the truth about the Mueller investigation. Forget the cover-up about separating families at the border and jailing children. Pretend it has fully embraced the death toll of more than 3,000 Americans in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. Imagine Trump’s inauguration crowds really were exceptionally large.

Let’s just give the new attorney general, Bill Barr, the benefit of the doubt, based on his service in the George HW Bush administration if nothing else.

Let’s also assume his four-page summary of the special counsel’s investigation is the very best case he can make on behalf of the man who just hired him.

That case would sink any other leader in any other western country. Any previous president of the United States would need to start lawyering up for impeachment.
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According once again to Trump’s own attorney general, making his best possible case for his boss, Mueller declined not to make “a traditional prosecutorial judgment” about whether Trump committed a crime. So Barr made it for him. Strip away all the legal throat-clearing, and he decides the case is “not sufficient”.
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Case not proven” on two counts sounds like the end of a long Democratic dream.

It’s actually a blessing.

For starters, Mueller’s considerations were narrowly drawn and judged but the issues he has surfaced – and the investigations he has spawned – are far broader.

In particular, US and state attorneys in New York are peeling away the layers of the stinking onion that is the Trump family business. Those layers include hush money to a porn star, fraudulent statements to lenders and insurers about real estate, a sham family foundation and corruption involving foreign donations to an inaugural committee.
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Both Congress and the southern district of New York have a very long way to go. They might just find out why Trump was so determined – even if he didn’t commit a crime, in the view of his own attorney general – to stop the Russian investigation. Especially if the investigation Trump feared was far more about his business than his election.
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