{"id":36226,"date":"2019-03-24T21:12:01","date_gmt":"2019-03-24T21:12:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=36226"},"modified":"2019-03-24T21:12:01","modified_gmt":"2019-03-24T21:12:01","slug":"no-collusion-no-obstruction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=36226","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;No collusion, no obstruction&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/collusion.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-36227\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/collusion-300x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/collusion-300x150.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/collusion-768x384.jpg 768w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/collusion.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I said I would accept whatever conclusion that special counsel Robert Mueller III reached regarding whether Donald Trump &#8220;colluded&#8221; with Russians who attacked our election in2016.<\/p>\n<p>He has delivered his verdict: There is no evidence of collusion, no evidence of obstruction of justice.<\/p>\n<p>I accept his findings. I do so not because I am <em>happy<\/em> about what the special counsel has determined. I accept it because I believe implicitly in Mueller&#8217;s thoroughness, his integrity, his professionalism.<\/p>\n<p>Do I believe this is the end of the line for those who still question the president&#8217;s motivation? Does this mean there&#8217;s nothing to questions about whether Trump is profiting from dealings with foreign leaders and governments? Uh, no on both counts.<\/p>\n<p>But . . . Mueller&#8217;s findings, which he delivered to Attorney General William Barr this past Friday, have cleared the president of criminal behavior as it regards collusion or obstruction of justice.<\/p>\n<p>On that score, I welcome the news that the president of the United States did not work in tandem with a hostile foreign power to influence the outcome of a presidential election.<\/p>\n<p>However, my acceptance of Mueller&#8217;s findings notwithstanding, I want to challenge the assertion that Trump made that the authorities need to look at &#8220;the other side.&#8221; He means Democrats and their 2016 presidential nominee, Hillary Rodham Clinton.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. President, they have looked carefully at Clinton, at Democrats and others on their side of the aisle. The FBI drew the same type of conclusion that Mueller has just delivered: no criminality.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s more investigating to be done, by Congress and by federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York.<\/p>\n<p>Mueller&#8217;s work is done. Good. He&#8217;s earned some time off.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll just add that although he says there was &#8220;no collusion&#8221; or &#8220;no obstruction,&#8221; Mueller has not &#8212; contrary to what the president has said via Twitter &#8212; provided &#8220;total exoneration.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>More to come.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I said I would accept whatever conclusion that special counsel Robert Mueller III reached regarding whether Donald Trump &#8220;colluded&#8221; with Russians who attacked our election in2016. He has delivered his verdict: There is no evidence of collusion, no evidence of obstruction of justice. I accept his findings. I do so not because I am happy &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=36226\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&#8216;No collusion, no obstruction&#8217;<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[74,7131,1424,7146,3983,7093,8203],"class_list":["post-36226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","tag-2016-election","tag-collusion","tag-donald-trump","tag-obstruction-of-justice","tag-robert-mueller","tag-russia-probe","tag-william-barr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36226"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36228,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36226\/revisions\/36228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}