LETTER TO SCMP (published on 8th Nov):
Democrats are driven mad by Mueller.
First, he was their saviour. "Saint Mueller" - Trump slayer. They lighted votary candles for their man.
Then, he wasn't. He didn't deliver Trump in a tumbril. They'd been cheated. So they suffer the bitterness of the jilted. They lash out: Mueller has "let Trump off the hook", they cry.
Example: George Payne conducts a truly bizarre thought experiment. ("Mueller report lets Trump off the hook", Letters, 5 May). He imagines that Trump people were buying drugs at that Trump Tower meeting. "If they had done that, it would have been illegal". Well, of course it would have been illegal. And if I had robbed a bank it would be illegal. And if you, Mr Payne, or I, had done that, it would be illegal. But we didn't do that, you didn't do that, Trump people didn't do that. None of us did that. It's a nonsense supposition.
What Trump's people did do, was try to get some "opposition research", which is perfectly legal and which all political parties do. (Steele dossier, anyone?)
Are we expected to believe that Mueller and his team — solid Trump-haters all — somehow missed any legal way to indict the man?
The simple fact is that 1800 interviews with 500 witnesses by a team of 20 lawyers and an army of investigators, mostly Trump-haters, found no legal grounds to indict Trump.
End of.
"Not sitting Trump down in person to demand the truth" is irrelevant. The accused is rarely put in the witness box and Trump was well advised not to put himself at risk of a prosecutor given to springing sleazy perjury traps (vide General Flynn).
So Payne's points are pointless.
The Mueller team found no indictable collusion or obstruction of justice. Not Guilty on both counts.
Let's accept that, and Move On.
Pf
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The Mueller Report: or how Trump was let off the hook
