When Special Counsel Robert Mueller announced March 22 he completed his final report on Russian meddling and alleged Trump collusion, Democrats thought they had the goods needed to impeach the president. When Atty. Gen. William Barr summarized the results in his four-page summary, essentially giving the bottom line, exonerating Trump of collusion and obstruction of justice, Democrats went wild. Democrats hoped they could ride the Mueller investigation to the 2020 election giving them a distinct advantage over Trump. Now gaining access to the underlying facts of the Mueller reports becomes Democrats’ last-ditch attempt to rebut the report, continuing to find evidence of Russian collusion and obstruction of justice. Calling Barr’s bottom line “insufficient,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) refused to give up using the Muller report to impeach the president.
Democrats plan to file for injunctive relief in federal court, demanding that Barr turn over the entire un-redacted Mueller Report, so that Democrat lawmakers can cherry-pick the findings to accuse Trump of high-crimes-and-misdemeanors. House Judiciary Chairman Jerold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) don’t accept Barr’s bottom line, nor do they accept the Justice Department guidelines for redacting parts of the report to comply with privacy and intel-gathering methods and strategies, used by the FBI and grand jury. Nadler and Schiff have now turned to getting all the underlying evidence collected by Mueller to move the goalposts on Trump’s culpability on Russian collusion and alleged obstruction of justice. When you think of Democrats’ pure political motives, you’d think a federal judge would laugh in their face.
Democrats, like Republicans, know the rules of evidence and criminal procedure govern the privacy of witnesses not charged in federal crimes. When Democrats say they wants to see all underlying evidence, the House Intel and Judiciary Committees are really saying they want to supercede the Special Counsel’s job to collect evidence, apply it to appropriate federal statutes and decide whether or not a crime was committed. Schiff and Nadler don’t care about federal rules, they care about throwing as much mud on Trump before the 2020 election. If they can cherry-pick from the Mueller Report or underlying evidence, they can build an ethical or moral case against Trump for Russian collusion and obstruction of justice. Schiff and Nadler don’t care about whether of not Trump violated criminal statutes, they care about building their case for impeachment based on their own interpretation of evidence.
Nadler and Schiff point to the June 9, 2016 Trump Tower meeting as proof of Russian collusion, they cite the presence of Russian lawyer Natalia Vesselnitskya, someone they insist worked for the Kremlin. Both the Kremlin and Vesselnitskya deny any connection to the Russian government, despite Schiff and Nadler insisting she was working for the Kremlin. Schiff and Nadler insist Donald Trump Jr. engaged in collusion because some random Russian woman promised “dirt” on Hillary. Meanwhile Schiff and Nadler see nothing wrong with former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton seeking all the dirt possible on Trump, contracting with former MI6 agent Christopher Steele for his Kremlin contacts. Nadler told Barr in a letter he shouldn’t waste his time working on a redacted report, instead turning over the whole report with all its underlying evidence to Congress.
Nadler argues that the Mueller Report is a public document, deserving full-and-total public disclosure. Nadler knows that the Special Counsel law isn’t supposed to give aid-and-comfort to political parties looking to exploit the report purely for political purposes. “It’s a public document, it has to be turned over,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.). “But as the week goes on, it just seems like the smell of whitewash and a cover-up is getting thicker and thicker.” Raskin had the utmost confidence and respect for Robert Mueller up until the point he exonerated Trump. Raskin knows it’s insulting for him to suggest the Special Counsel has deliberately distorted the findings for political purposes. Raskin knows it’s the Democrats that can’t accept the Mueller report because it gives Trump a leg-up heading into the 2020 elections. Suddenly the Democrats trust Mueller as far as they can throw him.
` Democrats demand to Barr they want the un-redacted version of the Mueller report, clearly against federal criminal rules governing the Special Counsel law. Democrats want to toss the rules of federal criminal procedure to the wind, demanding underlying evidence to cherry-pick the results to make Trump look bad. “I intend to fight,” said Nadler, rejecting the Special Counsel and Justice of Department protocol. “The entire unfiltered report as well as evidence underlying that report must be made available to the Congress and to the American people,” said Nadler. “I intend to fight for that transparency.” Nadler knows that federal criminal rules govern what can be released and what must be safeguarded. What a federal judge must tell Nadler and Schiff is they can’t let politics supersede federal criminal procedure. Nadler and Schiff want to cherry-pick the Mueller report to impeach Trump.
