Stephen Kotkin
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criminal nature. Mueller also refrained from imputing corrupt mo-
tives to the president, even though Trump reneged on multiple prom-
ises to testify in person and then suered improbably severe amnesia
when replying to written questions. Arguably, this fair-mindedness
renders the picture oÊ Trump’s behavior all the more damning.
The Mueller report models the civic virtues that could enable
American leaders to renew the country. The tools they would need are
readily at hand, in the form o the country’s formidable democratic
institutions and sound underlying mores o moderation, fairness, and
common sense. That will not happen, o course, certainly not in the
near term. For now, politics trumps technocracy. Mueller acted as a
restrained professional awash in a foam o partisan blather. But as it
turned out, he is not a master tactician. (By contrast, Barr managed to
publish almost the entire report—the sections on Trump’s squalid be-
havior are the least redacted—without incurring the wrath o the
president, who instead blamed Mueller for the embarrassing revela-
tions.) The public version o the report oers no victory for either the
pro-Trump camp or the anti-Trump one, nor—what is genuinely dis-
appointing—any possible reconciliation o the two. It has served
mostly to intensify the deadlock.
Perhaps the circumstances permitted nothing more. From the get-go,
Mueller was tasked with a criminal prosecution that could not be pros-
ecuted. Predictably, any decision not to charge Trump was going to be
taken by the majority o Republicans as an exoneration, even though the
report literally says that it “does not exonerate him.” No less predictably,
Mueller’s explicit refusal to absolve Trump was going to be taken by the
majority o Democrats as a de facto indictment. Mueller did something
more, as well. He addressed Congress, a step the special-counsel regula-
tions do not discuss. The report contains 21 pages on the president’s
executive authority, the separation o powers, and the Constitution, as
well as pointed advice: “The conclusion that Congress may apply the
obstruction laws to the president’s corrupt exercise o the powers o of-
Ãce accords with our constitutional system o checks and balances and
the principle that no person is above the law.” Some Democrats and
Trump critics have seized on this as an “impeachment referral.”
However the current stando plays out between a stonewalling
White House and an overzealous Democratic-controlled House o
Representatives, Trump’s tax returns and many o the other impor-
tant documents and testimony that Congress is seeking will eventu-