While Robert Mueller did not reach a conclusion on obstruction of justice, he did perhaps leave Democrats the crumb they were hoping to find.
Regarding the obstruction, Mueller stated his team gathered evidence “when memories were fresh and documentary materials were available.”
However, he also stated he was doing so keeping in mind a sitting president is immune from indictment due to the “burdens” of the office, but the President “does not have immunity after he leaves office.”
It Gets Real Tricky
Mueller in no way recommended Trump be prosecuted after he leaves office.
However, the ambiguous wording by Mueller is giving Democrats exactly what they need to press this issue further and make it a problem for Trump heading into the next election.
Barr, on the other hand, after reading the report and discussing the obstruction issues with the White House, did let Trump off the hook.
The Attorney General stated, “The evidence developed during the Special Counsel’s investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.”
Rather than make a decision, as he should have done, Mueller kicked the can down the street to both Barr and Congress.
Another statement in the report Democrats are latching on to is “We concluded that Congress has authority to prohibit a President’s corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice.”
Investigations Still Under Way
While the obstruction and collusion cases were wrapped up by Mueller, there are still more than a dozen referral cases being investigated.
Whether or not they have anything to do with Trump is not yet known because all of those outstanding referrals were heavily redacted.
Two of the 14 referral cases were unredacted, though.
Those cases involved Michael Cohen and Gregory Craig.
The unknown cases could be related to Trump’s business practices and most certainly include cases for possible campaign finance violations (these are related to Cohen and the hush payments made during the election to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal for alleged affairs).
This is something that is not going to go away anytime soon.
Democrats will hope to use these investigations against Trump during the election and beyond.
In normal circumstances, these investigations would probably fall by the wayside if Trump were to lose in the election, but Democrats have a real axe to grind and they will pursue these investigations until every rock and pebble is overturned.
Things should become much clearer in coming weeks if Mueller testifies in front of Congress as well as an unredacted version of the report coming out.
Until one of both of these happens, though, we are all very much going to be in the dark as to how these investigations are going to pan out for Trump.
Source: CNN
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