The Mueller report is in and so is Trump, until further notice. So far all we know is a brief summary of Mueller’s summary by Attorney General Barr who got his job by criticizing the Mueller investigation. That should set minds at ease.
Thus, we do not know exactly what Mueller found, but Barr does quote one tantalizing and perplexing sentence from Mueller. “While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,”
That leaves the country in legal limbo, but naturally was taken by Trump and his worshipers as a reason to claim victory. No Collusion. No Obstruction. No Indictment. Home Free. But to not be charged with a crime does not make you innocent.
It will be up to a Justice Department overseen by Barr to decide whether to bring cases against Trump and family, and to the House to decide whether to impeach, if they can get their hands on the Mueller report. But even if he were impeached, he will never be convicted by the Mitch McConnell Senate.
The Democratic House will investigate endlessly or try to. Trump will block every attempt to discover the facts. And Trump’s party clearly doesn’t care what crimes he has committed. Getting and keeping power is all that matters, by any means fair or foul.
From the beginning some of us have felt that the only likely accounting to which Trump would ever be subjected was going to come not from moralists, patriots or partisans, but from accountants. His peril is not from shattering norms of behavior, trashing the Constitutional checks and balances, undermining democracy or giving aid and comfort to our enemies. Duty, honor, country? Fuhgeddaboudit.
If Trump gets his comeuppance, it will be because he, like his grandfather and father before him, along with his sons and daughter and son-in-law are running a criminal enterprise. If justice comes from anywhere, it will come, as in the case of Al Capone, from the bookkeepers and the tax man and the forensic accountants uncovering the corruption behind the fool’s gold façade.
The odds don’t favor a successful prosecution or a satisfactory sentence. As we have seen ad nauseum, minor street crimes earn petty thieves or drug dealers, particularly if they belong to a minority, lengthy sentences without the possibility of clemency or parole.
Meanwhile crooked bankers, brokers, hackers, traders, real estate tycoons, money launderers, CEOs, movie producers, millionaire pedophiles, serial molesters get a slap on the wrist or a minimum sentence in a country club lock-up where they can polish their tennis game.
Most often they avoid even indictment or beat the rap at trial or plead down to an apology and fine. Why? Because blood wasn’t spilled and the victimized were an amorphous mass of faceless people instead of a single, photogenic or heart-rending victim.
That and money. Great wads of money to buy silence, to buy attorneys in battalions who can drag out discovery, file endless motions, put off trials for years, appeal for another decade if convicted. For such creatures a familiar legal truism was created – justice delayed is justice denied. Trump intends to deny it to his victims in this case – the American people and the electoral system that he and his Russian friends corrupted.
The only silver lining to all these clouds is Trump’s own inability to hold his tongue. He may continue to indict himself. He may even start building the Trump Moscow Tower with Putin as a partner. And he may continue to hire such incompetent legal representation that justice may be done by accident or default. But the smart money, as always, is on the power of money to get its way. As Martin Amis famously said – money cushions the fall.