Trump – Partially Exonerated [EDITORIAL]

After the release of Attorney General Bill Barr’s four-page summary of the Mueller investigation, many people, including our editorial board, are debating on whether or not Trump should be exonerated.

On the grounds of what Mueller was investigating, whether Russia interfered with the 2016 presidential election or not, Mueller ultimately decided there was never any collusion between the Russian government and the Trump campaign. So in this issue, yes Trump is exonerated.

However, when it comes to obstruction of justice, Mueller in his report states, “While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” For this reason, many people believe he is not fully exonerated – just partially – and just for the time being.

What makes this situation even more confusing, is that Barr says he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein examined the obstruction evidence in the report and they find that Trump’s conduct was not criminal after all.

With Mueller, Barr and Rosenstein all being Republicans and the three head people in this investigation and decision making process, this report could be considered bias. Think back to when Attorney General Jeff Sessions stepped away from the Russia inquiry and Trump appointed Rod Rosenstein as Deputy Attorney General.

Rosenstein believed it was in the public interest for a special counsel independent from the normal chain of command, to lead the investigation; which ended up being lead by Mueller. He had hoped this would mean no interference from any sector of the government, including the White House..

Once Sessions was fired, Trump nominated yet another Republican for Attorney General, Bill Barr. Now that the report was handed over to Barr, he keeps beating around the bush as to what and how much of the report he can release to the public. He’s prolonging the release, but for what reason?

Though Barr and Rosenstein said their decision was not influenced by the fact that a sitting president can’t be indicted, we are simply taking their word for it – we may never know if this is the truth.

For the time being, this is very good news for Trump. But it may be short lived. Congress is now demanding that the full 400-page report be released to them as well as the public. Democrats on key committees have voiced their subpoena powers and will use them if necessary to obtain the report.

After all this time and effort that was put into the investigation, and after not finding enough evidence, our board believes there should be another hand in the basket.

There are still other on-going investigations involving Trump with his foundation and inaugural committee. Barr confirms that Mueller referred several matters to other offices for further action. Some of those handoffs have been reported – like the investigation into Paul Manafort’s lobbying associates, according to Vox.

Simply because Trump himself may not have been the one carrying out certain actions, he may still have had the power to do so while keeping himself clean in the courts eyes.

Trump tweets that the witch hunt is over and that he’s thrilled; as anyone would be if they thought they were being unfairly investigated and it finally came to an end. A witch hunt is when a group of people make wild and monumental accusations against an individual and continue to harass them solely based on their beliefs or views. In this case, political views.

If you consider the Mueller investigation a witch hunt, like Trump did, then he’s right, it’s over. But Trump beware, there may be a few more witch hunts to come if the Mueller report is released.