It's not the end-it's the beginning

So where do we stand? Robert Mueller’s report to the Attorney General—well, a version of that report—was submitted weeks ago. That’s about the only reality everyone can agree on. What you think was in that report—or where you think we are as a nation where laws and a constitution still mean something—likely depends on where you’re getting your news.

To hear our President talk about it—sorry, tweet about it; he hasn’t given a proper press conference where he stands in front of journalists and takes their questions for more than a few minutes in more than 800 days—Mueller’s report is a “total and complete exoneration.” He cooperated with it entirely, he tells us again and again.

Thirty seconds after tweeting things like this, of course—because our President has the temperament of a febrile child—he generally claims that the same report that completely exonerates him was a total fraud, a witch hunt; that nobody has been treated as unfairly as he has in the history of our country; that the parts of the FBI and the Justice Department that were involved in this investigation and report are corrupt and only investigated him because they hated him; and that it was Hillary Clinton who colluded with Russia, not him.

Attorney General William Barr didn’t really disagree. After holding on to the report for weeks, he issued a four-page book report that, we now know, was a lie. Let’s be clear about this: The Attorney General of the United States—read that job title closely; he’s the country’s attorney, our attorney, not the President’s private attorney; he’s supposed to defend the constitution and our laws, not defend the President—the Attorney General lied to the American people about the conclusions of Mueller’s report.

What’s that, you say? Let’s just read the report and make up our own minds?

I have. And I did. All 448 pages.

Here’s what it shows: It shows the President of the United States and an assortment of cabinet members, senior advisors, his press secretary, and his family, lying to the FBI, lying to Mueller’s investigators, lying to Congress, and lying to the American people. Repeatedly. Seventy-seven times, to be exact.

This is not a matter of opinion. This is not the FAKE NEWS TRUMP-HATING LIBERAL MEDIA. This is a matter of fact.

What did they lie about? For starters: They lied about the existence of Trump Tower Moscow. They lied about why FBI James Comey was fired. They lied about how many other Russians they met with, both during the campaign and while Trump was president, about where those meetings were, about who was there, and about what was discussed in these meetings. They lied about Trump wanting to fire Mueller. They lied about Trump dangling pardons out to various associates if they took one for the team. They lied about hush-money payments to an assortment of women who Trump had been seeing on the side—including the porn star he had a fling with while his wife was home with their newborn son.

The Mueller report is a riveting and extensively detailed account of various people’s testimony, under oath, of a President and an administration that seems to operate more like a criminal enterprise than as the leader of the greatest nation on the face of the earth.

Why, then, has the Trump fan club, led by the rah-rah-sis-boom-bah cheerleaders at Fox News, been trying so hard to push this “total exoneration” ruse on everyone? It’s pretty much the same tactic as what Republican Senator George Aiken advised about Vietnam in 1966: Declare victory and go home, no matter the reality on the ground.

They’ve had some help with pulling this off—mainly from the Attorney General’s book report. We now know—thanks to the release of an angry letter that Mueller himself wrote to the Attorney General (the existence of which we only learned of this past Tuesday night)—that the Attorney General of the United States didn’t tell the truth in his book report. With apologies to Mark Twain, the difference between Mueller’s actual report and Attorney General Barr’s summary of it is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.

Mueller’s report shows not only a litany of lies under oath—it shows, in excruciating detail, 10 instances in which Trump or his staff tried to obstruct justice.

Why, then, hasn’t the President been charged with anything? This is key: Because Mueller followed Justice Department precedent (which is not, to be clear, established law), which contends that the President of the United States cannot actually be charged with a crime. Read that again: The President of the United States can’t be charged with a crime, according to a somewhat vague precedent at the Justice Department. In his report, Mueller spells this out explicitly: Since the President couldn’t be charged with a crime, Mueller thought it also unfair that evidence of that crime, or words stating that the President likely committed this crime or should be tried for this crime, would be unfair to the President. Why? Because he wouldn’t have the opportunity to defend himself in court, as people charged with crimes do.

What did Mueller do instead? He noted—incredibly specifically—that his lengthy and detailed investigation did not clear the President of obstruction charges.

Read between the lines of that—something that Attorney General Barr refused to do. Both in his four-page book report and in his testimony in front of Congress on Wednesday, Barr has shown himself to be Trump’s new favorite water-carrier: Someone willing to throw his entire 42-year career out the window to spend the end of his career lying for Donald Trump. What’s in it for him? It’s worth noting that, just as he was awaiting confirmation in his role, one of his son-in-laws took a plum job in the White House counsel’s office (another son-in-law was already ensconced in the Justice Department).

This is what’s known as a constitutional crisis. What’s that? It’s when the system of checks and balances and oversight designed by our Founding Fathers and enshrined in our Constitution are no longer working: The Attorney General starts defending the President instead of the Constitution; the President of the United States starts instructing people lawfully subpoenaed by Congress to defy those subpoenas and refused to testify to Congress; the President of the United States has his team of lawyers—he’s hired at least 17 just for the White House, never mind those he employs personally—try to prevent his tax returns from being turned over (as a result of another lawful subpoena). All the while claiming he’s got nothing to hide, and that he’s the “most transparent” president in our history.

One problem with all of this: The 16 or more other major investigations by state, local and federal prosecutors still looking into other parts of his alleged illegal scams and schemes, from a massive international money-laundering investigation (Trump and his children are, of course, suing the banks involved to prevent them from cooperating) to tax fraud and campaign-finance violations, among many others.

In other words: This one’s just getting started. The rest of us, meanwhile, are tired of it: Tired of the lying, tired of the cover-ups, tired of the constant whining and the distractions and the day-in, day-out cry-baby routine of the man who’s supposed to be running our country. This isn’t governance: It’s a petulant man-child using the Constitution of the United States as a diaper—and a servile Republican party cooing in his ear and holding their nose.

We deserve better.Corey Seymour is a proud NRHS graduate who went on to study political science, economics and literature at UND and Georgetown University. A former writer and editor on the National Affairs Desk at “Rolling Stone” and at many other magazines, he now works as a senior editor at “Vogue” in New York. Write him at [email protected].