Collision of Power by Martin Baron

Author:Martin Baron
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Flatiron Books

* * *

Many television and newspaper commentators had speculated endlessly—and expectantly—that Mueller’s prosecutors would find criminal “collusion.” They had gotten out way over their skis. The law doesn’t address “collusion,” and criminal “conspiracy” is tightly defined in federal law. The sharp criticism pundits received when Mueller’s conclusions became public was predictable and often warranted. But in their news reporting on the Russia investigation, The Washington Post and The New York Times—both of which led in breaking major stories—had unearthed the central facts: unprecedented Russian intervention to benefit Trump through computer hacking and manipulation of social media; numerous contacts between Russians offering help and Trump campaign officials expressing interest and encouragement; repeated efforts by Trump to quash any federal investigation; and chronic lying by Trump aides and Trump himself. The Mueller Report—and an especially damning 2020 report by the Senate Intelligence Committee led by members of Trump’s own Republican Party—confirmed all of that.

Trump and his allies accused the FBI, the special counsel, and the press of pursuing investigations out of political animosity. The Mueller Report itself, however, put the lie to insinuations about the special counsel’s own motives. With its exceptional caution, strict interpretation of the law, and scrupulous attention to fairness, it was miles from a hit job. And any fair reading of the Mueller Report shows there was ample justification for the press and government agencies to investigate. It would have been negligent not to.

The Post’s investigation of Trump and Russia was in the cause of clean elections and honest government. Mueller said the same about his own probe. “Russia’s actions were a threat to America’s democracy,” Mueller wrote in an unusual July 2020 op-ed for The Washington Post. “Russian efforts to interfere in our political system, and the essential question of whether those efforts involved the Trump campaign, required investigation.”

The Mueller team delivered thirty-seven indictments, seven guilty pleas, and fourteen criminal referrals to the Justice Department for a variety of offenses. On the question of obstruction of justice, more than a thousand former federal prosecutors who served under both Republican and Democratic presidents signed a letter declaring that, if there weren’t a Justice Department policy against indicting a sitting president, Trump would have faced multiple felony charges. This was a direct rebuke to Barr’s own pronouncement.

The Russia investigation also brought into sharp relief the Trump team’s endemic mendacity. When embarrassing evidence was discovered, aides defaulted to deceit. One after another, they lied under oath, rightfully earning themselves convictions and prison time: Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime lawyer, for making false statements to Congress, among other offenses; Michael Flynn, the onetime Trump national security advisor who admitted to lying to the FBI about his discussions with the Russian ambassador and in his federal filings about lobbying on behalf of the Turkish government throughout the 2016 presidential campaign; Trump confidant Roger Stone, seen as a campaign conduit to WikiLeaks, who was found guilty on seven counts, five for lying to Congress; George Papadopoulos, the nominal Trump foreign policy adviser who pleaded

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.