For two years, former special counsel Robert Mueller oversaw a completely professional investigation into Russian interference during the 2016 election. His team of prosecutors ran a leak-free shop, Mueller refused to speak publicly during his tenure in order to ensure impartiality, and on Wednesday, as he announced his resignation, he thoughtfully reiterated the report's key findings. The sad truth is the White House probably loves Mueller for it.
In an era of Trump smash-mouth media warfare, Mueller's professionalism and deep-seated sense of duty could end up helping Donald Trump as he oversees a wildly dishonest campaign to pronounce his "exoneration." Moving forward, with the Russia probe now officially shut down, the Mueller report’s ramifications will be fought out in public and largely via the media, where a light touch will likely take a back seat to calculated bluster. That’s good news for Republicans and bad news for Democrats. Subtlety and nuance (the New York Times described Mueller’s Wednesday comments as “dry, lawyerly, scripted”) don't represent a winning formula during the Trump era. But that's where Mueller appears most comfortable operating.
"Deciphering Mueller’s comments requires some reading between the lines of a man who has eschewed the public spotlight throughout his career and especially in his current role," noted Garrett Graff at Wired on Wednesday. Added Ken White at The Atlantic: "Mueller is a man out of time. This is the age of alternatively factual tweets and sound bites; he’s a by-the-book throwback who expects Americans to read and absorb carefully worded 400-page reports. His high standards sometimes manifest as touching naïveté."
Mueller's rare public appearance appeared to be designed to reinforce the key points of his report. But why did Mueller feel he had to clarify the findings just six weeks after he submitted them to the Department of Justice? Probably because the White House and its political and media allies have done such a thorough job at completely falsifying the report's conclusions since late March, which speaks to the huge messaging war that now surrounds the issue.
Mueller on Wednesday made several key points about the investigation and what he considered to be the key takeaways, specifically regarding possible obstruction of justice by Trump. "If we had confidence that the president did not commit a crime we would have said so," he said, in a clear attempt to wipe away the "exonerated" narrative the White House has been pushing. Mueller also stressed that because Department of Justice guidelines insist a sitting president cannot be indicted, his team never contemplated such a move, a point that completely undercuts the claim Attorney General William Barr previously made, when he suggested Mueller just didn't have sufficient evidence of a crime to charge Trump. Mueller also made a passing reference to impeachment, but without using the "I" word: "The opinion says that the Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing. "
The grim media reality is that in a messaging duel between a quiet, honorable professional like Mueller who strives to be fair, versus a loud propaganda machine that feeds off lies like the Trump White House, the loud liars often enjoy the upper hand.
"The [Mueller] report is not speaking for itself, but instead being distorted by craven political operatives," warned former FBI agent and CNN analyst Josh Campbell. "Public confidence in the Justice Department is on the line. Time for a congressional subpoena" in order to make Mueller testify at length, he concluded.
If this were the 1980s or maybe the 1990s, and a respected prosecutor like Mueller had made the same nuanced public statement that he did Wednesday regarding an investigation into the president, it's likely his words would carry more weight, because at the time there were some Republican politicians willing to respect prosecutors and evidence. But today, there are almost none left in Congress. And today, there's a huge, well-built conservative media infrastructure designed to do nothing but protect Trump from the real world—and from indictments.
Compare Mueller's approach to the starring role Ken Starr played during the Republicans' Moby Dick-like pursuit of Bill Clinton in the 1990s, where independent counsel Starr so obviously worked alongside partisan Republicans and he saw his job as delivering the political goods in their attempt to drive the Democrat from office. I'm certainly not suggesting that Mueller should behave as dishonestly as Starr did. I'm just pointing out the different approaches Starr and Mueller took, and how both help Republicans.
Confession: Back in December I suggested that once the Mueller report was released and the details of the Trump administration's criminal behavior were revealed, the White House and Fox News would not be able to spin away the damning evidence. But I was wrong. I was wrong because, as so often happens, I failed to envision just how radically and lawlessly Republicans were willing to behave. I was wrong because I did not foresee the attorney general of the United States signing on to aid and abet a widespread cover-up of the Mueller report. I was wrong because I (foolishly) didn't think the Beltway press would let itself be led around by the nose by the Trump team and erroneously report for days that the Mueller report had "exonerated" Trump.
And just look where we are today. In late March, when Mueller finished up his report, did anyone think that come June the country still would not have heard from him via testimony before Congress? To me, that's completely unthinkable. But it's been normalized and there's now serious doubt that Mueller will ever testify in public. In other words, Trump and the White House keep imposing their will onto this story, and getting away with it.
The nation needs key players like Mueller to come forward and speak up louder and more clearly. This is not a time for subtlety and nuance.
Eric Boehlert is a veteran progressive writer and media analyst, formerly with Media Matters and Salon. He is the author of Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush and Bloggers on the Bus. You can follow him on Twitter @EricBoehlert.
This post was written and reported through our Daily Kos freelance program.