The Atlantic

No One Wants to Talk About Mueller’s Most Definitive Conclusion

The special counsel chose his opening and closing remarks with care—and they weren’t about obstruction of justice.
Source: Jim Bourg / Reuters

Having apparently not bothered to read Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report—after all, it was 448 pages, often in repetitive legalese—large sections of the political and journalistic establishment seemed shocked to learn yesterday that Mueller had pointedly not cleared President Donald Trump of the charge of obstruction of justice, and that he felt that only Congress (and not the Justice Department) could appropriately decide whether the president was involved in wrongdoing.

Poring over Mueller’s remarks for telling disclosures is mostly a fool’s errand, since they closely tracked—nearly word for word—what was in the report, which, Mueller noted, “speaks for

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