Yeah, Mueller is a strictly by-the-book guy. We've heard that from the time he was appointed special counsel.
But there's something that seems to be not right about this:
Mueller and his team have been frustrated by what they perceive as a lack of public understanding about this point — that Justice Department policy and fairness prohibit the special counsel from reaching a decision, even secretly, on whether the president committed a crime.
“That was the Justice Department policy, and those were the principles under which we operated,” Mueller said. “From them we concluded that we would not reach a determination — one way or the other — about whether the president committed a crime. That is the office’s final position, and we will not comment on any other conclusions or hypotheticals about the president.”
Having adopted that stance, Mueller and his team also concluded it would be improper for him to say that the president would be charged with obstruction if it were not for the Justice Department policy, because saying that would also amount to a criminal accusation against Trump, according to people involved in the discussion.
Mueller’s team came to believe that making any sort of impeachment referral to Congress also would fall under the category of accusing the president of a crime, according to people familiar with their discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
He's a war hero, a patriot, a Marine, blah blah blah.
He gathered the evidence that strongly suggests Trump is a criminal installed in office by a hostile foreign power, and that Trump did everything in his power to make sure none of what he did came to light, including by threatening and offering inducements to lie to witnesses called before the special prosecutor's grand jury.
You'd think Mueller would want to do everything in his power to bring down such a dangerous figure, and not be held back by prim niceties.
Yet there he is, handling the situation with the softest of kid gloves, talking about the findings of his investigation in a roundabout and legalistic way that ensures the average person has no idea of the implications of what he's saying.
He says he and his investigators have to hold themselves to such a standard of incredible fairness that they can't reach a decision, even secretly, about whether Trump committed crimes. They can't even say whether he would have been charged if it weren't for the Justice Department policy that a sitting president can't be charged, even though hundreds of former federal prosecutors signed a public letter saying just that. And he can't even do more than vaguely hint — without actually coming out and saying it — that Congress should take up impeachment proceedings against the dangerous criminal in the White House.
Doesn't that strike anyone else as a little...bizarre?
I can't help contemplating the fact that Mueller is a life-long Republican, and I can't help wondering just how much that plays into his extreme display of rectitude toward his Republican president.