An Ordinary Day?

Mueller Hearing:  Reviews of yesterday’s hearings range from bad to catastrophic mostly because they focused on former Special Counsel Mueller’s congressional performance rather than the substance of what he revealed, or at least revealed to those who weren’t already aware that Trump’s team had more than 100 questionable meetings with Russians and that Trump had obstructed justice more than ten times.  It became clear fairly early into the morning session in front of the House Judiciary Committee, which focused on obstruction leaving collusion to the afternoon session in front of the House Intelligence Committee, that Mueller is no longer the Mueller of old.  During his prepared opening remarks Mueller made it clear that he would be sticking to the restrictive guidelines provided to him by the Justice Department and as a result he would not address anything not already included in his report, disappointing but not surprising and since most of the public, some of Congress and FBI Director Wray haven’t read the report, there was more than enough ground to cover. In response to Judiciary Chair Nadler’s questions Mueller said that, despite his endless claims, Trump had not been exonerated of committing obstruction and that the report didn’t rule that there had been no Trump team/Russian collusion but only that their wasn’t evidence to prove criminal conspiracy.  The problem was that Mueller’s delivery was halting at best, monotonic, and frequently limited to yes/no answers.  As the morning wore on It became evident that he was having difficulty hearing, forming his sentences, reading from the text of the report and even remembering some of its content. He became more animated and focused during the afternoon session when the subject moved from obstruction to Russian election interference and the various questionable activities of the Trump team but still a major takeaway from the day is that age has caught up with Mueller, that he may be even be suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer’s or some other ailment and though it would be unfair to say that he’s completely lost it, he clearly doesn’t have all of his faculties, or at the very least those he used to have.  That probably explains Mueller’s insistence on having Aaron Zebley, his deputy who reportedly directed most of the investigation and may well have been the chief author of the report, by his side.  It also explains why both Trump, who spent the day tweet slamming the Democrats, Mueller and the hearing, and Attorney General Barr were so against Zebley’s presence, it’s hard to believe that Barr, who has known Mueller for a long time wasn’t fully aware of his decline, particularly since last night the NY Times reported that Mueller’s decline had been a subject of discussion among the members of his team for some time.  The Republican members of the committees probably had been brought up to speed on Mueller’s limitations before hand  which likely explains why they made it clear that they only wanted to hear from Mueller even though Zebley was sworn in at the beginning of the afternoon session to facilitate his participation.  Mueller’s personal situation aside, the hearings covered a lot of ground. Among other things, the damning extent of  Trump’s various obstructive actions were detailed, that he could still be indicted after he leaves office, assuming he ever does, was pointed out and the extent of the Russians efforts to interfere in the election process, weighing in on behalf of Trump was made clear.  Mueller also revealed that he had given up on getting Trump to testify because of White House pushback, that he was concerned that forcing the issue would take too much time and that he had gotten much incriminating information anyway from others’ testimony.  Additionally, in response to a question he confirmed what we that the written answers that Trump provided were deceptive at best.  For a brief moment, after Mueller stumbled through an answer to a question asked by Democratic Congressman Ted Lieu, Mueller appeared to have said that Trump should be indicted, but he walked that back later in the second session after one alarmed Republican asked him if the generally noncommittal Mueller really meant to be so emphatic on that point.  As to the Republicans, with a few exceptions, they harped on the origins of the report, going after the Steele Dossier and Fusion GPS, the firm that had retained Steele, subjects that they knew Mueller had been directed not to discuss.  They also went after the make-up of Mueller’s team, taking a page from the Trump playbook and calling them all out as Democratic hacks something that woke Mueller from his fugue enough for him to push back hard.  Additionally a few of them, most notably  Devon Nunes, went with a conspiracy theory pushed by Fox pundit/Trump advisor Sean Hannity that Joseph Mifsud, the Maltese Professor whose communication with George Papadopolous about Hillary Clinton’s emails led to the opening of the Russia investigation, was a Western and/or US agent detailed to derail Trump’s candidacy and not a Russian agent as believed by the FBI.  In response to some final questions from Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff who overall did a better job than Judiciary Chair Nadler, Mueller reiterated his concerns about continued foreign interference in the US electoral process, the same concern that was expressed by FBI Director Wray earlier in the week.  After the hearings, Democratic Senator Warner tried to introduce election security legislation.  As usual Senate Majority Leader McConnell put the kibosh on his efforts, an indication that Republicans don’t mind interference as long as it helps them as well as reflective of McConnell’s concern that with a few members of his party, most specifically Trump, already accepting help in the run up to 2020, he doesn’t want any laws on the books that could get them into any more legal trouble. For her part, Speaker Pelosi tried to appear upbeat about the day, saying that Mueller’s testimony was just part of the Pelosi process and that Democrats will continue to hold hearings and do oversight.  Democrats are pressing their case to get former White House Counsel Don McGahn, who testified to Mueller about Trump’s efforts to fire Mueller,  to appear in front of Congress.  And though the NAACP unanimously voted to call for Trump’s impeachment, it is unlikely to happen any time soon, if at all.          

Other News:  Puerto Rico’s Governor has resigned.  Accused pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, whose future testimony probably concerns lots of very important people, was found in a fetal position in his jail cell with marks around his neck; he either tried to commit suicide, tried to make it look like he tried to commit suicide or was the victim of an attack. Bernie Madoff, remember him, has applied to Trump for clemency. The North Koreans launched two more missiles.  The Chinese have been cooperating in war games with Russia.  So just another ordinary day?