I accept fully Donald Trump’s assertion that special counsel Robert Mueller has found “no collusion” between the president’s campaign and Russian government officials who hacked into our electoral system in 2016.
So let’s put that one away. It’s gone. Done. Finished . . . more than likely.
However, we do not yet know squat about the other Big One: obstruction of justice.
U.S. Attorney General William Barr is going to release some version of Mueller’s findings to the public, perhaps in just a few days. The AG has told us already that Mueller has found no credible evidence that the president obstructed justice, but did not “exonerate” him.
Barr has Mueller’s full report locked away somewhere in the Robert F. Kennedy Justice Building. He’s gone through it, or is going through it. He said he will release as much of it as allowed by law. I hope it’s much more than he intends to hide from us.
Somewhere in those nearly 400 pages will be information that will tell us how Mueller reached his conclusion. There also might be information that tells us that Donald Trump is an immoral, corrupt, lying individual who is unfit for the presidency . . . but that he didn’t commit any crimes, that he did not conspire to obstruct justice.
We need to see all that we are allowed to see. I am alarmed at the AG’s growing list of topics he intends to redact.
None of us needs to see classified information. Nor do we need to see direct grand jury testimony. The rest of it ought to be fair game.
Americans need to know whether the president is as corrupt and venal as many millions of us already believe him to be.