Mueller’s punt keeps looking worse
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Robert Mueller’s report makes the stirring claim that “a fundamental principle of our government” is that no person, not even the president, “is above the law.”
But the special counsel’s ultimate legacy may well be the exact opposite — because of his controversial decision not to say whether Trump committed criminal obstruction of justice.
“We concluded that we would not reach a determination, one way or the other, about whether the president committed a crime,” Mueller said in his statement Wednesday, reiterating his report’s explanation.
It was the punt heard around the world. It may have been the crucial turning point in the saga of the special counsel probe, and perhaps the decision most likely to have ramifications for future presidents. It effectively “removes the president from the scope of generally applicable criminal laws,” Cornell law professor Jens David Ohlin recently told my colleague Sean Illing.
Essentially, Mueller has laid out a model that federal prosecutors can investigate the sitting president for crimes, but that they should not make any conclusion about whether he committed a crime. In a sense, this does seem to place the president above the law.
To be clear — this was Mueller’s own choice. Yes, he did conclude that existing department policy prevented him from indicting a sitting president. But before the special counsel wrapped up his work, it was widely believed that he might still issue a judgment on whether Trump committed a crime.
He did not do so, and this “took some constitutional scholars and Justice Department veterans by surprise,” the Washington Post’s Rosalind Helderman wrote Wednesday. Helderman quotes J. Michael Luttig, a former appellate judge and former Justice Department official, saying: “The fact that a president cannot be prosecuted does not foreclose a finding by a special counsel of whether a president committed a crime.”
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Robert Mueller tried to pull a Comey by punting the investigation into the political arena and the court of public opinion. What's the point of an independent investigation or appointing a Special Prosecutor if neither are allowed to determined whether or not a President has committed a crime?
In the end, Mueller has confirmed that all of this has been political by only delivering what the politics demanded. Justice, it seems, has taken a holiday.