The Mueller Report is Still an Indictment

As Trump brays "no collusion" and "full exoneration" and Vichy Republicans attack Democrats who seek to have the full Mueller report released, former Republican Michael Gerson provides at though exercise that even four years ago would have led to demands for a president to resign or have set the stage for impeachment.  That Trump loyalist still support the man underscores just how much Trump has debased our government and American society as a whole. It is critical that the full Mueller report be released so tat Americans can see for themselves (i) the full litany of Russian efforts to elect Trump - something the report confirms - (ii) all of the sleazy and corrupt activities of Trump minions and (iii) Trump efforts to obstruct the investigation.  While the report may not have found sufficient evidence to lock down criminal indictments against Trump, I suspect it contains much that decent, moral Americans would find troubling.  While perhaps not a criminal indictment, it is nonetheless an indictment of Trump and Trumpism.  Here are column excerpts:

A thought experiment. Suppose that on March 24 — the day Attorney General William Barr publicly summarized the Mueller report — all of the results of the special counsel's probe that have dribbled out over the last two years had been revealed at once.

Americans would have discovered that a hostile foreign power had engaged in major intelligence operations designed to elect Donald Trump -- something consistently denied by the president himself.

In this hypothetical, Robert Mueller would have simultaneously announced the indictment of 34 Russians and Americans — a network of espionage and corruption including hackers, Russian military officers and high-level operatives of the 2016 Trump campaign.

Suppose the report had revealed that 14 Trump campaign officials had been in contact with Russian nationals, including the president's son, who had met with Russian operatives in an attempt to gain information harmful to Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Suppose it had been revealed that several Trump advisers and operatives had lied to the FBI and Congress in an attempt to conceal the extent of these contacts, and also that some of Trump's closest advisers — including his campaign chairman — were guilty of conspiracy and fraud.

Suppose it had been revealed that Trump himself, while a Republican candidate, had continued to pursue a multimillion-dollar business deal to place a Trump Tower in Moscow. And that there was serious though not conclusive evidence that Trump obstructed justice during the Mueller investigation.

[A] story of corruption, criminality and cover-up. The story of a presidential election that should have an asterisk explaining that the outcome may have been substantially influenced by a foreign power. This has led to an unusual circumstance. Trump supporters are doing a victory dance over the fact that he isn't a Russian agent, just a Russian stooge. And Trump's supporters are spiking the ball following an investigation that did not clear the president of obstruction charges. So it is still a legal judgment call whether or not the president is a crook. The report itself may be a catalog of horrible judgment, unethical behavior and noncriminal corruption. It may put Trump Inc. in a very bad light. If and when it comes out in full. In the meantime, the Trump administration is defendant, judge and jury.

The full report, however, may require revised judgments from some of Trump's critics as well. Perhaps the president is not a foreign agent or a criminal mastermind. Perhaps he is a weak leader who surrounds himself with clowns and criminals. Perhaps his lack of character attracts and enables other corrupt men. Perhaps he is more pathetic than dictatorial, more fool than knave. Perhaps behind the compulsive, simplistic, narcissistic exterior there is a compulsive, simplistic, narcissistic interior. Perhaps he has moved beyond good and evil, enforcing only one code: loyalty to his person. Integrity and competence be damned.

All this may not be criminal. But it mocks our country in a different way.