The Mueller Report

In Robert Mueller's short statement this morning, he more or less pleaded, "Uh, have you read my report?" I recently have, and I can state that it is both refreshing and depressing to actually read the report about which so much as been said (mostly by people who haven't read it). Like Fates and Furies, like Furious Hours, it contains two distinct halves. In the first, various Russians and Trump campaign operatives meet, and fail to meet, to discuss, or not discuss, Russian cooperation with Trump, all while the Russian military, known or unknown to the above, is actively working toward Trump's election. The upshot, prosecutorially, is legitimately muddled, and likely only the 30th or 40th worst thing done in his name. In the second half, the president himself takes center stage, and the clear crimes are committed: repeated, and public, obstruction of justice, which the special counsel clearly thinks (though he often explains this through a thicket of legalese) should be prosecuted, but only by Congress, leaving the ball in Congress's court, bouncing somewhere around the back fence, waiting to be picked up... —Tom New Book of the Week