The Mueller Report, Part I

When the Mueller Report first came out, the haters were in total denial. After lying to the American people for over two years, they refused to believe that Mueller found no "collusion." They insisted that Mueller, despite his exhaustive investigation conducted by an entire team of Clinton-supporting lawyers, missed it. Their loyal minions, duped by Trump haters and blinded by their hate, still believe everything they're told.

It brings to mind Aesop's fable "The Boy Who Cried Wolf," except in the story, the townspeople were smart enough to figure out they were being duped and they quit believing the boy.

It's a safe bet that the vast majority of people have never read the Mueller Report.

What did you watch?

Trump haters watched MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC or read from the Huffington Post or Daily Kos and were told that Mueller found no evidence that Trump colluded with Russia, BUT – he didn't find any evidence that he didn't either ... nah, nah, ne, nah, nah!

So, there might still be evidence out there. Then they go on to insist that Trump is guilty of obstruction of justice because he wanted U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions to un-recuse himself, or he wanted Mueller replaced or because he went on Trumpian Twitter tirades about Mueller, Cohen, Sessions and others involved in the investigation.

If you watched Fox News, One America News or read the Daily Caller or Breitbart, you were told that Trump has been totally cleared, there was no collusion, no obstruction ... end of story, move on, there's nothing more to see here.

Unlike the majority of Americans, I wanted to read it for myself and make up my own mind.

The big picture

The Mueller Report is divided into two volumes. Volume I details the investigation into whether Trump, or anyone associated with him, engaged in any coordination with Russia to affect the 2016 Presidential Election. "Collusion" is the term the haters created for it. At this point, even the haters are accepting that if Mueller didn't find any evidence of "collusion," then it probably didn't happen.

So, I decided not to waste time reading all of Volume I and merely skimmed it.

Volume II details the investigation into whether some of Trump's actions, words or wishes during the ongoing investigation amounted to obstruction of justice under federal law. I read Volume II in its entirety.

Not counting the table of contents, Volume II is 182 pages long. Very little is redacted. Most folks might find it rather boring, but I've spent my entire adult life doing investigations and writing and reading reports, so I found much of it very interesting, if not downright fascinating.

Sausage-making

The glimpse into the political sausage-making at the highest levels of American government is eye- opening, disappointing, downright frightening and sometimes sad.

While Mueller found no coordination between Trump, or anyone associated with Trump, and the Russians, he did conclude that the Russian intelligence, posing as American persons, engaged in activities to sway voters.

The majority, but not all, of those activities were against Hillary Clinton. I find that curious since our own intelligence experts believe it is probable that the Russians, Chinese and Iranians are all likely to possess some, or all, of those 33,000 emails that Hillary deleted in order to keep them from being viewed by investigators looking into whether or not she illegally transferred classified information through her personal, unsecured server.

Why curious? It defies logic that if the Russians possessed those 33,000 deleted emails that they would want Trump to win. It stands to reason that there is something in those emails that Hillary did not want revealed.

Anyone in possession of those emails would have perfect leverage and blackmail material UNLESS they also reveal information or intentions that were unsavory, or scary, to the Russians. That might be why they decided to take their chances with Trump. This is speculation, I know.

Fake 'people'

One of the things I found eye-opening and frightening while reading the report is the references to private messages sent between entities like Wikileaks (Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is no fan of Hillary), DC Leaks and Guccifer 2.0.

Guccifer 2.0 and DC Leaks were false personas representing themselves as U.S. persons but they were actually created by Russian intelligence agencies. The information in the book suggests that they were operating independently and without knowledge of each other, which would be a display of impressive secrecy and compartmentalization by Russian intelligence.

Guccifer 2.0 and DC Leaks were eventually shut down when it was discovered that they were Russian Intel fronts. But until then, why was the government monitoring and saving their private messages? It begs the question as to who all is being monitored and who decides who is monitored?

Remember, this was going on during the Obama-Biden administration. I wonder if anti-Trump organizations were also being spied upon.

Next month, I'll try to provide an objective opinion – fighting my admitted bias – of what I found in Mueller's report. Make sure you come on back.

Author's Note: It would be stupid to assume that the views expressed in this column are necessarily held by the Morrisons Cove Herald, its employees, owners or advertisers.

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Editor's Note: I am compelled to let it be known that I did read the entire Mueller report. I did skim over a few parts which were excruciatingly detailed accounts of certain things said by certain people, used by the report authors to document evidence.

But I read it. And with all due respect to Mr. Bush (whom I do respect), I can tell Herald readers for certain that you should take the word of no other person about the Mueller report. I have yet to read any account that I consider to be honest, complete, based entirely on the text and not tainted by political views.

Free versions of the report are available online. Just search for "Text of Mueller report."

If you're unable to find it, contact the Herald at [email protected] and request a copy. We will gladly provide you with a PDF version.

Read it yourself. Decide for yourself. Don't let others tell you what to think.

Thank you for reading.