Mueller’s Timeline and Why its Good News:
If the leaks we have heard recently are true, Mueller is considering presenting his findings in a series of reports, the first being about Trump’s conduct in office (obstruction) to come out in July or August.
If Mueller is the boy scout we all know he is, he will do this by-the-book and will present his report(s) confidentially to Rob Rosenstein, not to the public or Congress. Its also unlikely that they will leak out, since history shows us Mueller runs a tight ship.
But if you think this timeline through, there is a lot of good news in it for our side.
Once Rosenstein receives the FIRST Mueller report in July/August, it will be up to him what to do with it. Here are his options as I see them. 1. He could release all or some of it to the public (unlikely). 2. He could immediately provide it to Congress. 3. Or he could just sit on it and await Mueller’s subsequent reports.
1. If he releases the FIRST report to the public showing Trump has obstructed justice let’s say in August/September it would cause quite a stir right before the November mid-terms, giving Democrats a political gift and putting Republicans on the hot seat. This is of course unlikely since Rosenstein seems to be an apolitical straight shooter (+ Republican) who would not put out incomplete investigatory findings just before an election. He will not repeat Comey’s mistake in October 2016.
2. If he dumps the FIRST report onto Paul Ryan’s desk in August/September for Congress to deal with, there won’t be enough time for Congress to do anything before the November mid-terms. In fact, in all likelihood, Ryan would gladly just keep the report under wraps using the excuse that he is waiting for the entire investigation to be completed, which would be after the November mid-terms.
3. Lastly, if Rosenstein simply holds onto the FIRST report for now, awaiting the other Mueller reports before he takes action, we will be in the same political position in November as we are in now. Which isn’t bad.
The good news in this possible timeline is that the findings in Mueller’s first and subsequent reports will not be dealt with by the 2018 Congress, but by the 2019 Congress after the mid-terms. That means the voters will get to decide on the Congress they want to deal with whatever comes out of Mueller’s reports.
Do they want a Republican Congress that will in all likelihood just dismiss any of the charges outlined in Mueller’s reports regardless of what they are and move on, or do they want a Democratic Congress who will uphold the rule-of-law and seriously consider the charges outlined in Mueller’s reports in terms of their worthiness for drafting articles of impeachment.
This is the choice the voters will have to make, and Democrats should not be afraid of making voters keenly aware of this important choice. This mid-term will be one of the most, if not the most important mid-term in the history of this Country. As Democrats, we need to make voters understand that we won’t just trump up (pardon the pun) charges of impeachment out of some politically motivated revenge agenda. But that we will carefully exam the facts presented to us by Mueller, and determine if there are any charges stemming from Mueller’s reports which rise to the level of “High Crimes and Misdemeanors” worthy of Articles of Impeachment.
This mid-term is, by no means of exaggeration, a choice between preserving our democracy and the rule-of-law, or starting down the road of one-party autocratic rule and Dictatorship. We should ALL work like hell to get Democrats elected this Fall as if our democracy depends on it, because it does.