Some Reflections

 San Francisco, CA  July 25 and October 5, 2019

SOME REFLECTIONS THE DAY AFTER

AND THEN SOME LATER

Major takeaways from the Robert Mueller, Special Counsel for the United States Department of Justice, overseeing the investigation into allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and related matters, Congressional testimony on July 24th, 2019:

• Following the Department of Justice instructions, there were no investigations related to indictment.
• The investigation did not find the president innocent of Obstruction of Justice.
• Accepting aid from a foreign power to gain an advantage in an election is not only unethical, but it is also a crime.
• Even though a sitting president cannot be indicted, after leaving office an individual who was previously president can be indicted. 
• The Russians did interfere in the 2016 presidential elections and they continue their attempts to influence our political process. This should be a major concern do all Americans, so stated special counsel Mueller in his testimony. (Note that following shortly this Congressional testimony, majority leader Mitch McConnell did not even allow to bring to vote in the Senate a bill proposed to address the Russian interference problem.)

Also noteworthy:

Following the testimony, the authors of news items posted on the web appear to have heard two different versions of the same event. Some, mostly Fox and others aligning on the right, indicate that in their opinion the testimony was a major failure for the Democrats, it exonerated the President and nothing new was said. Yet others tend to align themselves more with the Democrats and the left, emphasizing the takeaway elements I listed above. While political persuasion may have dominated some of this perception split, a media component may have had a significant role too.

According to a news analysis I saw on the Internet, the Mueller testimony had certainly similarities to the Nixon-Kennedy debates that took place prior to the 1960 presidential elections. In both cases what people heard depended on the media through which they received the message. Back in 1960, some listened to the debate on the radio, while others watched it on television. Those who listened to the radio felt for sure that Nixon won. They heard Dick Nixon's clear voice that had none of the strong regional accent that so strongly characterized Jack Kennedy's way of speaking. Those watching television were convinced that Kennedy was the doubtless winner. They saw the youthful relaxed Kennedy standing against a sweaty Nixon exhibiting a nervous body language.  In the aftermath of the Mueller Congressional testimony, there also appear to be two camps of perception. Those who watched the entire 5-hour testimony appear to have focused on Mueller‘s style that lacked charisma, and on his unwillingness to answer questions close to 200 times. Those who watched only the highlights presented on some TV news channels after the debates were over, or read articles published on the web, tend to consider the testimony a major historical event and credit the Democrats with significant gains.

And then some notes two-and-a-half months later:

And then in September, about two-and-a-half months after the Mueller testimony, we find out that the day after that testimony (the very same day I wrote the above “takeaways”) Trump was engaged in trying to pressure a newly elected president of Ukraine to start an investigation against Joe Biden, Trump’s front running Democrat opponent in the forthcoming 2020 elections. This now triggered an impeachment inquiry in the Democratic Party-controlled House and an impeachment is highly likely to follow. Will the Republican Party-controlled Senate then find him guilty? Not likely. Though Trump’s strange behavior gets more bizarre daily (House of Representatives member Adam Schiff should be tried for treason, Chine should investigate Joe Biden, Mitt Romney should be impeached, etc...), his base (close to half the country) still has not abandoned him. But nothing is for sure, things evolve slowly and then happen faster than expected.