(MENAFN- Gulf Times) In a nation of laws, no one should be above them. Not even the president. Especially not the president of the United States. But for the time being, he is.
That's unacceptable. According to US Justice Department doctrine, which Special Counsel Robert Mueller III was duty-bound to obey, a president cannot be indicted while in office. The pretext is that it would be too disruptive to the government to put a sitting president on trial.
But such carte blanche immunity is disruptive to something even more fundamental: America's constitutional democracy.
Nowhere in the Constitution does it say a president is immune to prosecution.
Considering the facts in the light most favourable to President Trump, Mueller's 448-page report portrays a candidate eager for a hostile government's help in getting elected and a president who was so frantic to conceal that fact from the American people that he did as many as 10 things that could be construed as obstruction of justice.
The president's culpability would be more pronounced had eight subordinates not willfully disregarded some of his orders.
Trump went at the cover-up harder than even Richard Nixon did after Watergate. A distinction is that Nixon knew an underlying crime the burglary had been committed by people close to him. But that's not much of a difference.
Russia's hacking of Democratic computers, a fact already well-known to the entire intelligence community, was a crime for which Mueller indicted 13 Russians and 3 Russian companies. The question of whether Trump or his campaign conspired with them was made more difficult to answer by the president's persistent efforts to call off and disparage the investigation.
And, as the Mueller report explicitly observed, there doesn't have to be an underlying crime for criminal obstruction to occur. If the motive were merely to prevent embarrassment, or to keep investigators from learning whether there was an underlying crime, that's enough.
Trump must have feared something when he bewailed the appointment of the special counsel as 'the end of my presidency.
Any other politician might be contemplating resignation because of the exposure of his willingness to let Russia help elect him and his indifference to the conflicts of interest created by his secret negotiations to build a hotel in Moscow. The Mueller report documented at least 140 contacts had by Trump, his family, and associates with Russian nationals and WikiLeaks.
Although Mueller cleared Trump of conspiracy in the hacking, by no means did he absolve him of conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Here's what Mueller said about that:
'If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment. The evidence we obtained about the president's actions and intent presents difficult issues that prevent us from conclusively determining that no criminal conduct occurred.
Even without the redacted portions which the appropriate committees in Congress should persist in obtaining the report serves as a bill of particulars for impeachment should the House of Representatives decide to do that. In effect, Mueller said so. The report's vivid and abundant details mean the House Democratic leadership must rethink sloughing off that responsibility. Tribune News Service
MENAFN2504201900670000ID1098441026
Legal Disclaimer:
MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.