On May 17, 2017, Robert S. Mueller III was appointed by then acting Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein to serve as special counsel to investigate Russian collusion during the 2016 campaign. Two years, over 2,000 subpoenas, and thirty million dollars later, no such collusion was found. Following the release of the underwhelming Mueller Report a number of fundamental questions still remain. How could such an investigation have been triggered when there was no evidence of collusion to begin with? Why did Robert Mueller promptly hired partisan Democrats to run his investigation?
This past week Mueller staged what could only be described as a bizarre press event, but it was one where he openly revealed his derision for basic basic due process and rules of prosecutorial conduct, the rule of law, and not least of all, his clear partisan desire to damage and disqualify a duly-elected US President.
California Congressman Devin Nunes said Mueller’s stage show was meant to “light the fuse for impeachment.”
“Any testimony from this office would not go beyond our report,” he said. “It contains our findings and analysis and the reasons for the decisions we made. We chose those words carefully, and the work speaks for itself. The report is my testimony.”
While most pundits and opponents on both sides of the political divide obsessed over whether or not he would be testifying before Congress, a depressingly few commentators picked up of the real underlying breakdown which was on full display.
Co-founder of The Federalist, Sean Davis, writes:
If there were any doubts about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s political intentions, his unprecedented press conference on Wednesday should put them all to rest. As he made abundantly clear during his doddering reading of a prepared statement that repeatedly contradicted itself, Mueller had no interest in the equal application of the rule of law. He gave the game, and his nakedly political intentions, away repeatedly throughout his statement.
“It is important that the office’s written work speak for itself,” Mueller said, referring to his office’s 448-page report. Mueller’s report was released to the public by Attorney General William Barr nearly six weeks ago. The entire report, minus limited redactions required by law, has been publicly available, pored through, and dissected. Its contents have been discussed ad nauseum in print and on television. The report has been speaking for itself since April 18, when it was released.
If it’s important for the work to speak for itself, then why did Mueller schedule a press conference in which he would speak for it weeks after it was released? The statement, given the venue in which it was provided, is self-refuting.
Let’s start with the Mueller team’s unique take on the nature of a prosecutor’s job. The standard American view of justice, affirmed and enforced by the U.S. Constitution, is that all are presumed innocent absent conviction by a jury of a specific charge of criminal wrongdoing. That is, the natural legal state of an individual in this country is innocence. It is not a state or a nature bestowed by cops or attorneys. Innocence is not granted by unelected bureaucrats or federal prosecutors.
At one point in his remarks, Mueller seemed to agree. Referring to indictments against various Russian individuals and institutions for allegedly hacking American servers during the 2016 election, Mueller said that the indictments “contain allegations and we are not commenting on the guilt or innocence of any specific defendant.”
“Every defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.”
Had he stopped there, he would have been correct. But then he crafted a brand new standard.
“The order appointing the special counsel authorized us to investigate actions that could obstruct the investigation. We conducted that investigation and kept the office of the acting attorney general apprised of our work,” Mueller said. “After that investigation, if we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so.”
According to Mueller and his team, charged Russians are presumed innocent. An American president, however, is presumed guilty unless and until Mueller’s team determines he is innocent. Such a standard is an obscene abomination against the rule of law, one that would never be committed by independent attorneys who place a fidelity to their oaths and impartial enforcement of the law ahead of their political motivations.
Read the rest of Sean Davis’s editorial at The Federalist
According to the author Davis, multiple federal agents and prosecutors reached out to his publication following Mueller’s unusual press conference and voiced their disapproval to the former FBI director’s reckless application of due process and justice.
He first notes: “The prosecutor in a criminal case shall … refrain from making extrajudicial comments that have a substantial likelihood of heightening public condemnation of the accused,” states Rule 3.8(f) of the American Bar Association’s rules of professional conduct.
Other federal officials and prosecutors weighed in:
“I’d have been crucified under this rule for a ‘not innocent’ comment about an uncharged party,” a former federal prosecutor told The Federalist. “I literally cannot fathom holding a press conference to say that an uncharged person was not innocent.”
“I wish these former FBI directors would learn their lessons: keep your mouths shut unless you’re referring a case for prosecution,” Jeff Danik, a retired FBI supervisor, said during a phone interview with The Federalist on Wednesday.
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