For The Good Of The Country: What Next?
By: William Spivey
Tags: Republican Party, Impeachment, Mueller Investigation, Donald Trump, Democracy

The Republicans have settled on a single refrain, “For the good of the Country,” drop all investigations into Donald Trump, his family, and his administration. Stop the “Presidential harassment” as Trump called it. The Country is tired of all the investigations and we should simply let the rest of them go; “For the good of the Country.”

While Trump had what seems like a good day. It’s way too soon to declare him innocent of anything, based on William Barr’s summary of Robert Mueller’s report, which no one outside of the Special Counsel’s office and Barr has seen. Barr’s summary said there wasn’t conclusive proof that Trump participated in a coordinated effort to conspire with Russia. He also indicated that he and Rod Rosenstein decided there was no Obstruction of Justice. This was not the finding of the Special Counsel who declined to make that prosecutorial decision, only providing both sides of the argument for obstruction, arguments we haven’t seen.

Almost lost in the announcement was the mention of undisclosed information “of relevance in other matters.” If I were Don Jr, Erik Prince, Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, and several others. I wouldn’t sleep easy yet. We have no idea how many other cases have been spun off to various US Attorneys in districts including the SDNY.

The bottom line is, we don’t know what we don’t know. It will take longer than we hoped for, but the likelihood is we’ll still find out. Although the Republicans, including every member of the House of Representatives, just voted to make public the entire Mueller Report. They’ll now leap on the bandwagon to keep the actual report secret, lest any inconvenient facts get out, all for the good of the Country mind you. What’s important to remember is that Mueller’s mandate was narrow and generally limited to Russian efforts to influence the election and American participation. Even though the report has been issued, there are other trials related to conspiracy with Russia including that of Roger Stone.

Though Mueller chose not to indict members of the President’s family that lied to Congress or the FBI. Those same people are under investigation by SDNY and the State of New York for activities of The Trump Foundation, Trump Inauguration, and Trump Organization. Their celebration is deserved, as they’ve had very few good days in the last year. But all those investigations are in full swing and Congress (the House anyway) is just getting warmed up and ready to issue it’s first subpoenas to the White House.

The Mueller Report specifically didn’t exonerate Trump of obstruction. There is a reason that Rick Gates hasn’t been sentenced yet because he’s still cooperating in “several investigations.” Michael Cohen is still talking to the SDNY. Michael Flynn just finished up any meaningful cooperation within the last two weeks. Barr’s summary of the Mueller report may seem a temporary setback, but the long arm of the law hasn’t stopped reaching for Donald Trump and some of his family. Have yourself a good tweet storm Donald, but save some of your energy. You’ll be needing it because people are still coming for you, for the good of the Country.