I’ve tried and failed for months now to understand how it is that Mueller’s team found nothing that called for indictment of anyone in the Trump circle regarding the relationship between the Trump campaign and the Putin regime.
The Mueller Report contains this statement (emphasis added):
“Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts,” the report states, “the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
I don’t get it. Haven’t we seen all sorts of evidence of coordination?
- More than 100 contacts between Trump people and the Russians;
- All the lying — some under oath — about those contacts;
- Trump’s public call for Russians to meddle; etc.
Does the law about “conspiracy” really require some sort of explicit, virtually contractual agreement to work together?
That shouldn’t be necessary, it seems to me. Coordination does not require words to be real and effectual.
In a previous era of my life, I was a point guard. One of my favorite parts of the game was the fast break. Two (or three) basketball players on a fast break sprinting down the court do not need to communicate with each other in words to develop a plan between them to end up with the ball through the hoop. Wordlessly, and depending on where the defenders position themselves and the choices they make, the fast-breakers can coordinate their motions to get one of them free with the ball at the basket.
The Trump campaign encouraged, welcomed, conspicuously utilized the Russian-stolen material to aid the campaign. Are these not means of joining forces, reaching a tacit mutual understanding sufficient to constitute an agreement to work together — coordinating in a criminal conspiracy?
Was Mueller’s decision not to lay out a case for conspiracy, as he did for obstruction of justice, really mandated by the requirements of the law? Or was Mueller being unnecessarily timid?
The betrayal of the nation to a foreign adversary would register more deeply with the average citizen than something like “obstruction of justice.” Has Mueller served the nation rightly in his handling of the “conspiracy/collusion” questions treated in Volume One of his Report?
I’d really appreciate being enlightened by any readers out there who might understand the legal and other issues involved.
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