Mueller report is indictment of Trump on contempt for the law

You are a misogynist if you would gladly give your daughter’s hand in marriage to US President Donald J Trump. You are a hypocrite if you are Christian and voted for – and support – Mr Trump. You are even a bigger idiot if you would want any of your children to see Trump as a role model, or mimic any of his language, or conduct. You are sick and need to be committed to a mental asylum if you plan to vote for Trump in 2022. Trump is a cancer on America. He’s got no redeeming qualities – none. Save for those who enslaved Africans, he’s the most decrepit person who has ever ascended to the White House.

I’ve been watching Trump’s miserable presidency since 2017. On any given day, bizarre objects issue from his mouth, which is usually open. It’s there on TV for all the world to see. Even small children in far-away places think the American President is either crazy, or a complete moron. He’s actually both. In Europe, Trump is either an adjective or noun that’s too filthy to print. No modern American President has been so ridiculed, or exposed America to so much parody, contempt, and caricature. He’s debased the world’s richest and most powerful nation into something below a laughing stock. In the process, he’s turned his supporters and most Republicans into poodles and lickspittles. He’s an ogre.

I write with confidence and certainty about Trump because I’ve closely watched him. Not only that – I’ve now read the whole Mueller Report. It’s a doozy. Special Counsel Robert Mueller is a gold standard of the American legal system. He’s without question the most trusted law enforcement officer of his generation. So when Mr Mueller speaks – which he usually doesn’t – everyone listens. Even the disdainful Trump. Mueller didn’t actually speak. But he “spoke” through his report. The 448-page partially redacted document is a searing account of how a corrupt and morally bankrupt New Yorker called Donald J Trump corroded America as a candidate and has cannibalised it from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. He’s a total car wreck.

The Mueller Report has two parts. The first part addresses the question of whether Trump, or his campaign, conspired with Russia to defraud the United States in the 2016 election. Mueller establishes Russian “active measures” to wreck American democracy through the use of cyber tools.  He calls Russian interference in the US election “sweeping and systematic.”  There’s no doubt about “cooperation” though not “coordination” or so-called “collusion” between the Trump campaign and Russians. That’s why Mueller didn’t establish a criminal conspiracy between the two. But he proved numerous bad acts between Trump’s campaign and Russians and indicted many Russians and secured criminal convictions against several of Trump’s senior aides with lying about contacts with Russians. 

What’s stunning about this part of the report is Trump’s efforts together with his aides to cover up improper contacts with Russia, America’s most hostile foreign adversary. Trump’s slavish devotion to Russia’s Vladmir Putin is especially shocking. Equally shocking is Trump’s daily – hourly – twitter rants against the investigation of Russian interference in the American election. He became Russia’s and Putin’s number one defender. He disbelieved and disparaged American law enforcement and intelligence services, and instead placed his trust in Mr Putin and Russia’s spooks. My belief is that Putin has something damning on Trump, although I don’t know what it is. I am sure it will all come out one day.

Part two of the Mueller Report on obstruction of justice is the most disturbing and paints a picture of a presidency off the rails and a President consumed by pathological lying, paranoia, mendacity, and amorality. This part of the report finds there’s enough evidence to suggest that Trump obstructed justice but Mueller concludes that since he can’t indict a sitting President (it’s not US law but Department Justice guidelines) then he would not make a charging recommendation. Instead, he writes that it’s up to Congress to decide what to do with the evidence he’s uncovered on obstruction. Democrats control the House and must decide whether to impeach Trump knowing Republicans in the Senate wouldn’t convict him.

The Mueller Report is a damning indictment of Trump. The evidence given against him by his loyal aides to Mueller – on the pain of perjury – unveils the demons in him. He’s a “little” insecure man possessed by the evil within him. He abrogates every norm of the presidency and shows contempt for the law at every turn. If the Mueller Report was written about President Barack Obama, he would’ve been impeached and convicted – and removed from office – in a New York minute.

- The writer is SUNY Distinguished Professor at SUNY Buffalo Law School and Chair of KHRC. @makaumutua