by Josh Marshall explains it very well here. Mueller definitely did not write that he did not find proof without reasonable doubt that the President is a criminal. I want to explain it in a way which is not so good, in fact bad, basically malicious, too petty to be evil. Mueller clearly wrote that he accepted DOJ policy that he could not ask a grand jury to indict Trump *while Trump is President* He added that he would not write that he would have sought an indictment except for that policy, because it would be unfair to accuse Trump yet not have a trial where Trump could present a defence, confront accusers and subpoena witnesses. This means he clearly wrote that no matter how strong the evidence, a priori he had decided neither to seek an indictment nor
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Josh Marshall explains it very well here. Mueller definitely did not write that he did not find proof without reasonable doubt that the President is a criminal.
I want to explain it in a way which is not so good, in fact bad, basically malicious, too petty to be evil.
Mueller clearly wrote that he accepted DOJ policy that he could not ask a grand jury to indict Trump *while Trump is President*
He added that he would not write that he would have sought an indictment except for that policy, because it would be unfair to accuse Trump yet not have a trial where Trump could present a defence, confront accusers and subpoena witnesses.
This means he clearly wrote that no matter how strong the evidence, a priori he had decided neither to seek an indictment nor to write that he would have done so except for the policy of not indicting serving presidents.
But Mueller didn’t stop there. He wrote that he wouldn’t write that Trump is clearly guilty of obstruction of justice. Then he noted that there are things he could, in principle, write which happen to be inconsistent with the assertion that Trump is clearly guilty. Finally he noted that he can’t honestly write any of them.
So he wrote to this effect “I won’t say that there is proof beyond reasonable doubt that the President is a criminal. I won’t say anything which contradicts the assertion (which I won’t make) that there is proof beyond doubt that the President is a crminal, because all such statements are false. All statements which contradict the assertion that there is proof beyond reasonable doubt that the President is a criminal are inconsistent with the available evidence. I stress again that I have not written that there is proof beyond reasonable doubt that the President is a criminal. Wink Wink. Nudge.”
Trump better hope that a majority of people can’t handle simple logic. I think he does hope that. I think he is right to hope that. But Mueller really made it very clear that he believes he has found proof beyond reasonable doubt that the President is a criminal and also he isn’t going to write that he found proof beyond reasonable doubt that the President is a criminal.
I’m not a prosecutor and I can write that the Mueller report clearly contains proof beyond reasonable doubt that the President is a criminal.
But Mueller didn’t (quite) write that.