Mueller Report Executive Summary

So, with that out of the way, what does the Mueller Report say?  I have not yet read it myself, only the executive summary.  Or rather, the two executive summaries, one of possible collusion and one of possible obstruction.  And I must say, the most striking thing about the two reports is that they don't say a lot that hasn't already been reported in public sources.  Journalists have been doing a good job.

The report begins by describing the Russian Troll Farm. On this the Mueller indictment really is the main public source of information, although there has been some journalistic reporting (including in the Russian press!) on the Troll Farm.  Next, the Executive Summary sets forth the hack-and-leak information.  Again, Mueller's indictment on the subject has revealed a great deal the public did not know before, but the Executive Summary says nothing that was not known even as the campaign was ongoing.

The list of contacts between Russian and the Trump campaign does not reveal any that were not previously known, if only through Mueller indictments.  It mentions:

• Negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow
• Papadopoulos' meetings with Russian cut-outs offering damaging information on Hillary Clinton and unsuccessful attempts to set up a meeting with the Russians and the campaign.  This looks like one of the most damaging contacts, but also the only one that appears to have been expressly rejected.
• The Trump Tower meeting, which went nowhere.
• Carter Page's visit to Moscow to deliver a graduation address (no mention of any secret meetings).
• Paul Manafort's meetings with Konstantin Kilimnick "who the FBI assesses to have ties to Russian Intelligence."  They discussed a "Ukrainian Peace Plan" that would allow Russia control of eastern Ukraine, and discussed Trump's strategy for winning in the Midwest.  Manafort had shared polling data with Kilimnick months before the meeting and continued to share such data "for some period of time after their August meeting."
• A meeting after the election between Kirill Dmitriev and Erik Prince and an unnamed friend of Jared Kushner in the Seychelles, also including a Ukrainian plan.
• Michael Flynn's calls to persuade the Russians not to retaliate for sanctions.

Of all of these, the Manafort meeting sounds by far the most alarming.  It looks like either smoking gun collusion or document theft, depending on whether Manfort's actions were authorized or unauthorized.  

The report did not find grounds to charge any campaign member with either being an unregistered Russian agent or campaign finance violations.  (Accepting foreign assistance in a campaign is illegal).  The report also mentions that Jeff Sessions' meetings with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak (the meetings that forced Sessions to recuse) were innocent exchanges of greetings.  That does not surprise me.  If the Russians were engaged in a criminal conspiracy with the Trump campaign, it seems most unlikely that so public and closely surveilled a figure as the Russian Ambassador would take part.  Besides, Sessions was never amount the members of the Trump campaign who had sinister ties to Russia.  

Part I ends by saying that there are deleted messages and witnesses who invoked the Fifth Amendment, so there may be more information out there that could change their minds.  I think this refers specifically to Manafort and is transfer of campaign data.

As for Part II, most of the obstruction took place in plain sight or has been reported to the press, so the Executive Summary adds very little that we did not already know.  It certainly shows Trump behaving very badly, being more concerned about stopping the investigation or making clear that he was not a target than in whether Russia had meddled.  Both Flynn and Comey were fired in a vain attempt to stop the investigation.  Trump made repeated attempts to have Sessions fired for recusing, to fire the Special Counsel, or to have Sessions give assurances that the investigation was "very unfair" to the President, who had done nothing wrong, and that investigation should be limited to future Russian meddling.  Trump also tried to persuade Flynn, Manafort, Cohen and Stone not to testify against him.  

Probably the most shocking new ground broken here was that Trump called the appointment of Special Counsel, "the end of his presidency."  So the obvious question is why. Why was he so alarmed and why did he go to such lengths to stop the investigation if there really was no "there" there?  

I think the answer can only be that Trump has no concept of a neutral investigation, of one whose purpose is to find out what actually happened.  To his mindset, the only purpose of an investigation can be to ruin the target.  Hence his conviction that the investigation of Hillary Clinton was rigged because it did not end in an indictment.  It explains why he is now arguing that the fact that this investigation did not end in indictments proves that it should never have been launched.  And it gives us some idea what to expect when he calls for an investigation of the investigators.

This is an alarming view of our President, to put it mildly.  It may not be grounds for an impeachment, but it is more than grounds for a primary challenge.