The release of the Mueller report has turned very quickly into the hiding of the Mueller report by Trump’s Attorney General William Barr. Barr released a four-page letter, dashed off without any real information about what is in Mueller’s report, with a hazy promise that he still needed to go through the report. On Tuesday, reports came out that the Trump administration would be allowed to look at the report and redact anything it felt needed to be hidden before it was sent on to Congress. University of Southern California law professor Orin Kerr pointed out that the Trump administration’s handling of this special investigation is a touch … hypocritical.
Someone who knows a lot about the Starr report, and the unfair fallout that can be directed against young women when powerful men’s power is at stake, Monica Lewinsky, stepped out to boost Mr. Kerr’s tweet.
I think this response goes a long way.
Lewinsky and Kerr are highlighting two distinctions between the Clinton and the Trump investigations. Former independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s use of public money to turn an investigation into President Clinton’s real estate investments into an investigation of Clinton’s extramarital dirtbaggery is unparalleled. Republicans reveled in releasing all of the gritty details of Clinton’s affair with his intern at the time, Monica Lewinsky. Regardless of your feelings about Clinton and his repeated failures to protect the women in his life from public shame and ridicule because of his behavior, the fact remains that conservatives only interested in stifling a more liberal agenda were eager to sacrifice Ms. Lewinsky in the name of winning political points.
Robert Mueller’s investigation has shown no sign of veering as far off the path of looking into Trump’s campaign and the people involved in it.
You should watch John Oliver’s recent interview with Ms. Lewinsky about her experience in the public eye and where she lives with it now.