HORIST: Yes, the Mueller Report vindicates Trump … but not the press.

When a prosecutor investigates a case, they have prosecutorial discretion – but only to bring charges or not.  We saw that in the controversial case of Jussie Smollett in Chicago where charges were dropped in the face of seemingly incontrovertible evidence.

In both criminal collusion and obstruction of justice, Special Council Robert Mueller determined that there was zero evidence that President Trump or any member of his campaign had conspired in the criminal activities of the Russians – and that was after 23 months of investigation by a team containing investigators hostile to President Trump and the expenditure of more than $25 million of taxpayer money.

In the case of obstruction of justice, Mueller determined that there was – in his judgment – evidence of Trump pushing back at what the President considered a bogus investigation — BUT that it did not rise to an indictable criminal offense.  There is no rational reason why Mueller would not have said so if he had the goods on Trump.

Oh yeah.  There is that issue that you cannot indict a sitting President.  That is true, BUT that would not have prevented Mueller from saying that Trump had broken the law and would have been indicted except for the Justice Department rule.  He also could have produced a sealed indictment that would be effective once Trump left office.  He could have also challenged the DOJ rule by proposing an indictment – even if it was subsequently quashed by Mueller’s boss, the Attorney General. The fact that he did none of these things strongly suggests that the evidence – those ten examples on Mueller’s list — did not rise to criminality regarding obstruction.

Democrats are now pursuing an un-American theory that even if there was insufficient evidence to meet the standards of criminality, Trump still committed the crimes of criminal collusion and obstruction of Justice.  I say un-American because it flies in the face of our legal theory that a person is innocent until PROVEN guilty.  In this case, there were not even charges brought.  Therefore, under our system of law, Trump is innocent of all charges … vindicated … exonerated (despite what Muller claimed in the report).

Mueller seems to think that he can file no charges and still suggest the person is guilty.  That is not the job of the Special Prosecutor.  He was commissioned to call legal balls and strikes.  Imagine if a baseball umpire said, “It could have been a ball and it could have been a strike” – leaving it to the partisans of both teams to make the decision.  Essentially, that is what Mueller did.

In his Report, Mueller suggested that further investigation might establish criminality.  Then why did he not continue to investigate until a decision could be determined?  He would have liked to question Trump in person, but, Mueller says, that would have taken a lot more time.  By his own estimation, Mueller closed the case prematurely – but he closed it and made two final determinations.  Trump and Co. were not guilty of criminal collusion and there was insufficient evidence to press charges.  As Trump tweeted, “Game Over.”

Democrats and the corrupt propaganda press are now taking the case into the court-of-public-opinion where there is no presumption of innocence, no rule-of-law, no standards of evidence, no rules against hearsay.  It is a kangaroo court where public passion and political skullduggery hold sway.

It is openly conceded that congressional investigations and impeachment are political operations where the politicians and the propagandists disregard laws, rules, and justice.  While the Constitution permits impeachment and removal from office for “high CRIMES and misdemeanors,” there is no reasonable definition of those terms.  A President can be impeached for ANY reason that produced the required vote in the House.  A history of parking tickets could be enough as long as it convinced the required number of House members to vote to impeach.

There are two factors that tend to prevent such an extreme situation.  Lack of bipartisan support and public reaction.  Americans tend not to like having politicians kick out elected officials they voted into office.

This is where the news media plays a dangerous roll if they abandon the standards and ethics of journalism.  Today, we have a very rabid left-wing media that propagates partisan narratives – and too often false narratives — rather than presenting the facts in a fair and balanced manner.

No matter how much the anti-Trump media tries to reclaim its reputation, Mueller has exposed it as purveyors of propaganda.  Outlets like MSNBC, CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post and others have been proffering totally false speculation that Trump was guilty … a traitor … an asset of Russia.  The Mueller Report has put the lie to thousands of hours and thousands of column inches of mendacious reporting by anchors, panelists (impaneled specifically to support the false narrative), reporters, columnists, editorialists, producers and op-ed writers.

And yet, they persist in claiming the accuracy of their reports – but this time with even less credibility.

So, there ‘tis.