fagWe rightly celebrate those who, in this moment of peril to American democracy, have stepped forward to show courage and integrity in the current struggle against a lawless President. (Most recently the four prosecutors who withdrew in protest from the Roger Stone case, and before them the witnesses — like Marie Yovanovich, William Taylor, and Alexander Vindman — who defied the President’s blockade and testified truthfully to Congress.)
But unfortunately, just as the outcome of this war between the President and the rule of law has culminated in Trump's unprecedented success in placing himself “above the law,” the bigger story is the cowardice of important players in this drama that made that disastrous victory possible.
That story consists of both of the main battles from which Donald Trump managed to emerge with the powers of his presidency still in his criminal and corrupt hands:
1) Something that looks like cowardice enabled Trump to survive the Mueller investigation; and
2) What is almost certainly cowardice enabled Trump to survive the impeachment process.
The Mystery of Mueller’s Shrinking from the Battle
Two things I really don’t understand about how Mueller played his role: First, why did this reputed American hero so completely wimp out when the nation needed his heroism so desperately? (Why did he shirk his clear duty to step up and defend the system to which he’d devoted his life?) And second, why has Mueller’s bizarrely disappointing performance not been more widely noted and explored?
I cannot prove it, but I strongly believe that had Mueller played his role differently, Trump could have been defeated right then and there. But whether or not I’m right about that, there should be no doubt that Mueller chose to minimize rather than maximize his impact.
For one thing, it seems that Mueller unnecessarily punted on the issue of “conspiracy.”
People who know more about the law than I have said that there was sufficient evidence to bring charges of criminality in how Trump coordinated with the Russians to corrupt the 2016 election and get illegal help from a foreign source. But even while the Report presents evidence of coordination, Mueller demurred on asserting any impeachable offense.
(As a former point guard, whose favorite part of the game was running the fast break — where no words are spoken but the players work together to achieve a common goal — I reject the idea that some explicit agreement is necessary to establish a conspiracy.)
I don’t understand why so many legal experts seemed to buy Mueller’s conclusion that there was nothing chargeable here.
But this is the least obvious of Mueller’s abdications.
From the Report to his Testimony, it seemed he didn’t want his voice to be heard. Why? Why wasn’t Mueller eager to do everything he could to make sure the American people understood what — at this dangerous moment -- they needed to understand?
It was widely noted that Mueller’s report was written in a way that pretty well covered over Trump’s criminality such that only legal eagles expert in reading cases could discern unambiguously that Trump had committed “multiple felonies” of obstruction of justice. Why didn’t he speak more clearly?
Why would Mueller make his document so much less impactful than those of his predecessors (Jaworski in the case of Nixon; Starr in the case of Clinton)? Clearly, the range of “appropriate” conduct for someone in his position allowed for a much bolder, clearer, more powerfully impactful way of playing his role. “By the book” didn’t require him to play his cards so weakly.
Why didn’t he say, so the people could hear, that he was providing, as legal experts described it, a “roadmap to impeachment?
Why did Mueller make not the most of his opportunity, but much more like the least?
Why would Mueller not raise a louder alarm when William Barr misrepresented his findings, misleading a substantial portion of the American public and, thereby, successfully blunted the impact of the Report? Why didn’t he hold a press conference and see to it that Barr’s cover-up did not succeed in obscuring the truth?
When it came to the issue of congressional testimony, after the Report was released, why was Mueller — rather than welcoming the opportunity to educate the hundreds of millions of Americans who weren’t going to read his 400-page Report — reluctant to testify publicly, requiring Congress to practically drag him before the cameras and microphones?
And when he did testify, why was Mueller so deliberately unhelpful, practically requiring congressional questioners to drag monosyllabic answers out of him?
It really is a mystery to me— I’m completely baffled. All those people who knew him, who worked with him, had said what a paragon he was: an American hero, from Vietnam to a sterling career in law enforcement, the very best in competence and integrity.
Yet here he was, with an opportunity to play a role of truly historic significance, and he steps up to the plate and deliberately doesn’t hit the ball. I can think of hardly anyone who has had an opportunity of that magnitude to play the hero — FDR as America’s wartime leader one perhaps comparable that comes to mind — and yet Mueller showed no interest in seizing that opportunity.
Why?
I’m calling it cowardice, but even if that’s what it was, it doesn’t really solve the mystery. What would intimidate a man with his record, a man in his 70s playing out the last and far and away most important role in his illustrious career, when the need of the nation was so urgent for the hero he might have been?
(And there is, again, that question: why did Mueller’s failure to meet the needs of the moment not get more attention from all those people who for two years looked to him to protect and defend the rule of law from this lawless President?)
But with Mueller abdicating as he did, Trump — aided by his corrupt Attorney General and his corrupt Republican Party — survived what should have been a fatal blow to his Presidency.
(First Trump beat the Mueller report. Then he beat the rap in the impeachment trial. At least in the second, it wasn’t the forces of the “rule of law” who failed us— though I still think it would have been more effective if the Articles of Impeachment had included other elements, like the Mueller Report, to show the pattern of lawlessness. The American people might have seen the danger more fully, which matters. But of course the outcome in the Senate would have been the same— because the same cowardly Republicans would have seen to that.)
Trump’s Wielding of the Broken Republican Combo
The other display of cowardice – the craven conduct of the Republicans during the impeachment process -- has been so much more commented on that I’ll be quite brief in describing it here.
Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown declared in a New York Timesop/ed that it is fear that has driven the Republicans in the Senate to vote to acquit Trump. There are two things worth noting here about Trump’s ability to intimidate those Republican office-holders:
First, Trump’s gained the power to defeat the rule of law through the way he’s combined his relationship with two parts of the Republican world.
The foundation of the weapon Trump wielded against the impeachment lies in how Trump has – somehow!? – cemented so strong a hold over the Republican base. He has focused on developing a cult of personality in that base that enables him to wield their allegiance to him as a weapon against any elected Republican who crosses him. By threatening to turn their own voters against those Republicans, Trump can plausibly threaten to drive Republican Senators from office. Hence the Republican fear that gave Trump his victory.
But even though that threat is presumably real, the more stunning story here is the astonishing extent that Trump’s threat — the threat of losing the positions to which they’ve been elected -- has sufficed to make Republican office-holders his servants.
Here’s where the cowardice comes in.
There are 250 (197 + 53) Republicans in Congress. A thought experiment: if there were 250 Americans serving in the military, how many of them do you think would have the courage to die for the country, if the situation called for it? A good handful at least, wouldn’t you think?
But with the Republicans in Congress, the required sacrifice was way short of giving up their lives for the country. Just – perhaps – their seats in Congress.
To protect and defend the Constitution, as they’d taken an oath to do, these Republicans didn’t have to suffer life-long wounds. Their required sacrifice was so much more modest— only the willingness to retire to a private life where they’d be able to make a good living, enjoy status in their communities, be able to live in the bosom of their families. In other words to live the kind of lives that the most fortunate of Americans live.
Despite such minimal sacrifice, it seems that only two Republicans — out of the 250 -- were willing to do what these nation-endangering circumstances required: Justin Amash in the House, and Mitt Romney in the Senate.
Cowardice, surely. But more than cowardice.
Had the Republican Party not become so morally bankrupt, had these Republicans not been selling their souls bit by bit over the course of years, I doubt that these Republicans would have displayed such a complete lack of moral courage. So fully drained of integrity by what has been required of Republicans for years, there was nothing left in them — not nearly enough of principle, or integrity, or commitment to basic values — to inspire them to overcome purely selfish motives and act with any real courage.