What if they conducted a Special Counsel investigation and all you got was a lousy T-shirt?
That pretty much sums up the opinion of legal expert Paul Rosenzweig in The Atlantic magazine on January 30. In an opinion piece sure to depress many liberals as well as much of the mainstream media, Rosenzweig confirms what seems to be common sense to the layman that it is silly to have an obstruction of justice charge when there is no underlying crime in There's No Way Mueller Will Indict Trump:
Mueller will not indict Trump for obstruction of justice or for any other crime. Period. Full stop. End of story. Speculations to the contrary are just fantasy.
He won’t do it for the good and sufficient reason that the Department of Justice has a long-standing legal opinion that sitting presidents may not be indicted. First issued in 1973 during the Nixon era, the policy was reaffirmed in 2000, during the Clinton era. These rules bind all Department of Justice employees, and Mueller, in the end, is a Department of Justice employee.
Could someone check to see if tears are already welling up in Anderson Cooper's eyes? It could turn into a flood if he finds out this story was published in The Atlantic. Perhaps they are preparing their readers for the no-indictment tragedy ahead after months of high hopes for the final exit of President Donald Trump. Rosenzweig surely knows this is not what you write if you wish to be interviewed on CNN.
Couldn't Mueller go rogue just this one time? Pretty please!
And if he were to choose not to follow the rules, that, in turn, would be a reasonable justification for firing him. So … the special counsel will not indict the president....
But what of the substance of the obstruction charge? Are pundits right that the case against Trump is becoming stronger—even if as a legal matter the president may not be charged?
Again, color me skeptical.
Color liberals (and MSM) depressed. After all their screaming a year ago about Trump-Russia collusion, it might have faded away due to utter lack of evidence but can't they still get President Trump on an obstruction charge?
Collateral cases, like those involving obstruction and perjury, are ones that involve derivative offenses, not the principal charges under investigation. Proving them often turns on proof of intent. You have to show that the defendant acted with the purpose of obstructing an investigation. That means these cases tend to rise or fall on the strength of the case proving the underlying crime. It matters very much to juries and the public that we know exactly what it is that a defendant is covering up. If we don’t think it matters that much (as many in America seem to have concluded when confronted with President Clinton’s sexual conduct) or that it hasn’t been proven, then the cover up is often forgiven.
So maybe there's hope for a different indictment, since Rosenzweig notes "Several of the special counsel’s prosecutorial hires specialize in money-laundering cases—an odd specialty for an election fraud/computer-hacking case." But, again, it's not happening!
Mueller will not indict the president, even for money laundering. The resolution of the current American crisis is going to be political, not criminal. The future lies with Congress and, ultimately, the electorate, not with prosecutors and the courts.
