Trump Only Half Exonerated from Barr’s Partisan Summary of the Mueller Report [EDITORIAL]

Attorney General Barr’s summary of the finished Mueller report certainly seems to help the president get out of some hot water. The investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election has hung over Trump’s head and rained on his parade for over two whole years. It’s pretty understandable he would express some relief at the thought of it finally being over. But is it really over?  

The president tweeted that Barr’s summary of the report was a “full exoneration” for him, even though the summary quotes a section of the report that literally states this isn’t the case.  

The investigation conducted by Robert Mueller looked into two big questions. Did Donald Trump or anyone in the Trump 2016 campaign conspire with the Russian government to win the election? And also, did the president obstruct justice at any point during the investigation?

Barr’s summary made the first point very clear; there was not enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt (the standard we hold ourselves to in this nation to find someone guilty) that there was any kind of collusion. So, he’s totally exonerated, right? Well, no, not really.  

The second question, the one about obstruction of justice, is still left wide open. Barr’s summary quotes a section of Mueller’s report that essentially said he wasn’t going to accuse the president of obstruction, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he didn’t do it. He left the decision on whether the president should be investigated further or indicted up to the AG or congress. With this recommendation, AG Barr took the matters into his own hands and declared the Justice Department wouldn’t go forward with any obstruction charges against the president.  

Some Democrats called foul when they heard this and demanded to view the full report to decide for themselves on the obstruction matter. And they have a pretty good reason to be skeptical of Barr’s decision. He’s a political appointee picked by the Trump administration with a clear prior history of disliking Mueller’s investigation and not believing the president obstructed justice with his actions. The Mueller report is hundreds of pages long. It’s pretty hard to believe that Barr could accurately explain the results of the entire two-year investigation in a four-page, double-spaced summary report.  

The whole point of Mueller’s investigation was to have a trusted and unbiased arbiter find the facts and make a final conclusion we could all respect. When Mueller punted his obstruction decision, he opened the door for partisan politics to once again engulf the debate about Trumps alleged criminality.  

Democrats can say Barr made a biased decision to protect the president from obstruction. And they have reason to argue this too, since Barr is on record saying how he disliked the investigation and that he didn’t think the president could be charged with obstruction of justice.  

Barr’s argument for why the Justice Department won’t pursue charges is that there was no crime for Trump to obstruct. Mueller exonerated Trump and his campaign from any Russian meddling charges. So, therefore Barr doesn’t see how Trump’s actions could be seen as obstruction when he didn’t actually have anything to hide. And most lawyers would agree it’s pretty difficult to convict someone on obstruction charges when they never actually committed the crime they were supposedly obstructing justice from discovering.  

Now, this argument makes sense, at least until you realize Trump and his circle are under investigation for a whole smorgasbord of crimes besides the Russian investigation. To say that Trump has been completely exonerated because he wasn’t charged with one of the many crimes he’s being investigated for is completely Ludicrous. His obstruction-like actions could very well have been to protect himself from one of the other crimes he might be guilty for.  

One such crime is payment he gave to the porn actress Stormy Daniels to keep an alleged affair they had together under the radar while in the midst of the brutal 2016 presidential campaign. There are also investigations into tax schemes and shady business dealings.

It’d be more accurate to say Trump is half-exonerated. The cloud of the Russia investigation may finally be over for the president. But the fallout will remain for a long, long time.