What Robert Mueller Got Right and What Robert Mueller or Somebody Got Wrong: A Report from the Gateway to Hell

What Robert Mueller Got Right and What Robert Mueller Got Wrong: A Report from the Entrance to Hell

 — Lon Clay Hill

"If you live outside the law, you must be honest."
— Bob Dylan

"As a human being born in the United States of America, I owe fealty to the Constitution of the United States to the extent that I am not compelled to hear a voice of conscience that is outside and beyond the norms and normal give-and-take of my/our existence. Today that outside voice or sound that I hear most clearly is the combined voice of children in cages on the Mexican-American border and the spoiled and willful child entrapped in the soul of one Donald J. Trump."
— The author

Contents:
I. Context
II. What Robert Mueller got right!
III. What Robert Mueller got wrong!? [Or…!?]
IV. This is not exactly without relevant precedents ("There is never an entirely new thing under the Heavens…)

I. Context

The fact that there are children in cages near the United Sates-Mexican border — cages paid for by US taxpayers — is not a problem for the United States of America and its citizens. Rather, it is an infamous inditement of the nation and its people which will scar it history as long as records remain. The additional fact that many of these children have been or will be separated from their parents and guardians — in most instances — only compounds the problem as the present policies and practices of this country with respect to immigrants are largely inconsistent with the standards of reason, religion, and love of country which many US citizens espouse. [There are, unfortunately, a few instances when a child must be separated from its family— and the problems at the United Sates-Mexican border were certainly not created by the United States alone.] Still the present U.S. government's policy on immigration and its contemporary implementation at our border constitute one of the darker chapters in the history of our nation — a nation whose people tend to think of their country as a remarkable and exemplary nation.

II. What Robert Mueller got right! (Why we usually should follow the law and then some …)

As a matter of fact, almost all of us have some significant advantages in various large and small corners of our existence — whatever large and small tribulations have also come our way. So, given those privileges it is usually a good thing — even a very good thing — for those of us who have had our own fair share of privileges to obey the law.  And, parenthetically, it is often it a good thing for those of us who have not had a fair share of such privileges to obey the law as well. Furthermore, given that many of us who have had the blessings of privileges — due to the efforts of others and to the seemingly unfathomable blessings of the Almighty — have a tendency to overemphasize the efforts of ourselves, our families, and our nation to the detriment of others and other forces [call them what you will (nature, evolution, Allah, happenstance, virtue…] it is usually better for most of us to obey the law even more faithfully than is our actual practice. And, very unfortunately, it seems that those of us who have had more than their fair share of privileges tend to imagine that they, their family, and their cohorts have earned most of their privileges to the point that they will call them "earned". Indeed, some of them even refer to themselves and their social-economic heroes as (mostly or entirely) "self-made" — an imaginary species of humanity which has never existed. And, as a complicated consequence of many such considerations, one Robert Mueller has led an investigation of various activities by one Donald John Trump, several members of his family, and a relatively small number of close associates. During his investigation he has uncovered a significant number of crimes committed by Donald's associates and an even larger number of crimes committed by foreign actors who appear to have had Donald's short term political interests in mind. Mueller's tactics in his investigations have all the earmarks of those frequently undertaken against various mob bosses — (1) collect evidence against various subordinates, (2) prove or be able to prove the subordinates of serious crimes, and (3) offer them a significant reduction in jail time (or, sometimes, an elimination of all jail time) in return for significant information about their superiors in the crime network. In this case, it is important to consider that mob bosses in our country often have considered themselves the heads of "families" [e.g., the costa nostra imported from Sicily, etc.]. And, of course, equally important in Donald's economic and political shenanigan's is the fact that the main actors in Donald's close-knit legal-and-illegal enterprises over the past four+ decades have, in the main, involved only his family and a very small number of close associates.

Brief Interlude. Generic Comments about the Written Constitution of the United States
 ["A nation of laws rather than men…]

Now, for those of us who are citizens of the United States of America realize that in the period between 1775 and 1891 the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights accompanied the birth of a nation with a Written Constitution. There are, of course, within the US citizenry as many opinions about the US Constitution as there are citizens. However, I speak first about only one aspect of the constitution that I believe most readers will agree to. To wit, when there are serious and partisan issues within a country, it is usually a very good thing if the interested parties can resolve their difference to a reasonably fair-minded or "neutral" arbiter instead of resorting to bloodshed.

…What Robert Mueller "got" right (continued)

In the last decade or so, in the U.S.A. — partially because various parties complained about the tactics of various special prosecutors, the laws about them have changed.  Along with changes in the laws, the U.S. Justice Department has determined that as a matter of policy a sitting President of the United States should not be indicted when a special prosecutor has found credible evidence that the President has committed crimes. And, during the period of 2017 until late March 2019, special prosecutor Mueller found no compelling evidence (in his judgment) that either President Trump or any of his immediate family members had committed crimes in 'collusion' with agents of the Russian government with respect to the U. S. Presidential Election of 2016. Mr. Mueller submitted some interrogatories to the President, but he did not interview the President nor did he subpoena the President to obtain such an interview. Mr. Mueller — apparently — did encounter evidence of possible criminality and/or constitutional breaches of faith by President Trump and/or members of his immediate family. In any case, Mr. Mueller has submitted his findings to Attorney General Barr.

[Another brief note: Mr. Barr, an avuncular and quite skillful lawyer as well as a former Attorney General, is described as "respected" by many commentators of various political persuasion. However, while I am not a lawyer, I am a man. And, speaking as a man or, more to the point, as a thinking human being, I have listened carefully to some of Mr. Barr's well-chosen words and even parsed carefully some of his written statements. Mr. Barr believes that the President was not a proper target for the Special Prosecutor…But, returning to our story.]

Mr. Mueller has — following Justice Department Guidelines — submitted his report to the Attorney General. I do not know who he thinks is going to read his report or, more importantly, when anyone besides the Attorney General is going to read any particular portions of his report — especially the declinations [decisions about non-indictments] and the underlying evidence. I do not know whether Mueller will testify to Congress. As far as I can see, Mr. Mueller is much less boastful than almost all political persons who come on the political stage for whatever reason. He, apparently, has done what he believes his duty to have been — and he has submitted his report. And, there is the further fact, that he has also passed on a unknown number of apparent misdeeds over to the consideration of others within the justice department. Still, it is now as always up to us — the living citizenry of this nation — to do our own individual duties and our collective duty.

A postscript.

A story is recounted in Matthew 19:16-22 of a young man who approached Jesus about how he might obtain eternal life. It developed that he had been quite observant of the laws and commandments and yet still felt that he had fallen short. Jesus, having sized him up, told him that if that were the case he should (1) sell his possessions, (2) give the proceeds to the poor, and (3) come and follow him. At the end of the brief meeting, it is written that the young man turned away with a heavy heart as he was a man of great wealth…

As for Robert Mueller — although well paid — he does not at all seem to have been even mildly interested in becoming a man of acclaimed wealth or fame. And, furthermore, he has engaged in some activities which are presently unknown to the public… However, it still remains true that there are times when to stay strictly within the boundaries of the law — or, more specifically, to go strictly "by the book" — may be the very worse place to be.

III. What Robert Mueller got wrong!? Or, perhaps, more precisely, since the quality of Mueller's own work is not the precise issue before us — what has gone Wrong with this investigation up to this point. [Something, at least, has not been done right — even if Robert Mueller's work has not really been completed…] (Or, more fundamentally, why you must believe the Testimony of your own Eyes and Ears and why Truth trumps legal procedures…)

"There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat."
William Shakespeare.

"If you live outside the law, you must be honest. Now, then, about Donald and his lawyers…"

For a moment we provide a bit more context by continuing with our comments about the quite skillful lawyer,  Attorney General William Barr. Many of us have noted his use of unusually well-chosen words. Mr. Barr believes that the President was not a proper target for the Special Prosecutor. Indeed, in his unsolicited and initially private memo for the President's entourage he voluntarily suggested — in regard to the President's own exposure to legal and political jeopardy — that the President is virtually immune to any criminal exposure from the Mueller Probe while he remains President. In plain English, when it comes to currently relevant issues— Mr. Barr is very strongly predisposed to treat the President as if he were in fact above the law. Now, to be sure, there are some limits to his support for the President. For example, Mr. Barr has not declared himself ready to 'take a bullet' for the President. Still, he apparently believes that he himself need not commit any crimes to perform his own role as the President's Attorney General. And, in his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee and elsewhere he certainly has done a much better job of concealing his own intentions while simultaneously trying to avoid perjury than did, say, [for example] one William Jefferson Clinton. Mr. Barr is not as ossified in his thinking as Mr. Trump, so one can imagine him stepping away from the Donald — but for now he stands before us as an accessory in a Constitutional Putsch. So, for now, we are unable to determine the overall merits of Mr. Mueller's frequently meritorious work because — for the present — some of his most important findings are entangled in procedures-and-activities now being performed by U.S. citizens in high offices who — blinded by their own ambitions — have unfaithful, immoral, and sometimes treasonous intent. [Incidentally, the author is not making any generalized statements saying that political opponents are not excessively ambitious or that — given similar temptations — would not succumb to similar temptations. Such important realities and/or possibilities are simply not the current main event in U.S. politics…]

Problematics of evidence.

So, while Mr. Mueller was trying to execute his strategy for discovering what Trump and his closest associates were doing by collecting evidence which might convince a jury he ran into two difficulties. First, Trump and his associates were dangling promises [Technically speaking, they were "intimations" — but Donald J. Trump does not normally use direct speech to give directions to his  subordinates when he undertakes illegal and/or unethical deeds. Trump uses "Trump Speech" — his own idiosyncratic from of mob speech. To focus exclusively or primarily on conventional "direct" language while investigating Donal Trump would like trying to break the Japanese Code using only Classical Chinese.] In the present instance, such artificial restrictions upon "direct evidence" investigation is, at best, linguistically confused and trenches upon prosecutorial malfeasance. Mr. Trump has already offered to his minions his intimations of corrupt intent in broad daylite. These public encouragements by Trump and his associates of perjury and/or witness tampering with actors such as Manafort and Stone have already been quite effective in several instances!

Secondly, there is the question how to proceed in the legal thicket of the directives and personnel of the current Justice Department. It strikes me that — normally speaking — a prosecutor should not seek an indictment unless (1) most importantly, he or she believes that the person to be charged is indeed guilty of a crime and (2) also importantly — but not always determinatively so— he or she believes that there is a reasonably strong reason to believe that the prosecution will be successful. However, the case of Donald John Trump is not normal — and, furthermore, involves criminal or immoral activities that have not been seen in the previous 43 Presidents of the United states. Whether, (1) the President, his immediate family members, and/or his associates intended to directly cooperate with and/or guide the activities of the Russians during their meddling with the US election may be difficult to prove to a jury [made up of ordinary people who —like the reader and the author — have their own biases] or (2) whether the President has interfered with the Mueller investigation primarily because he wanted to keep his financial crimes and misdeeds secret is, of course, an interesting and vitally important issue. However, the overriding fact is that the President of the United States has acted — as all of us know who have a moderately active memory of either ourselves or other young children — like a young spoiled brat that knows he has done something wrong.  This particular spoiled brat has for ~65 years been able to get away with his behavior because he has discovered that many of those around him will allow him to continue. That is the human dimension of the stream of moral filth that comes out of this man's mouth and is reflected in the equally ugly policies full of vengeful excess that he and his minions produce. And, if we wish to survive as a nation, a large number of us must face that reality.

In this issue, Robert Mueller is not merely a servant of the law,  he is a privileged witness to the activities of one Donald John Trump —who with "Legal" assistance from others — has been involved in the subversion of the United States of America. The United States of America has been an inconsistent, but sometimes important contributor to the General Welfare of Our Nation and Its People and to the World and All Humankind. How Mr. Mueller proceeds in the near future is yet to be determined. However, if he deserves a genuine place as a genuine legal hero [as many have stated], it will be necessary either that his evidence is made public and/or that Mr. Mueller speaks publicly at an appropriate time about what he has beheld. It is, of course, quite possible that Mr. Mueller was blindsided by Mr. Barr's recent appropriation of his report so that he [Barr] could maim or delay the Constitutional Duty which the executive branch has to the legislative branch. We shall see. The wheels of genuine justice — like the wheels of the gods — grind slowly, often very slowly. [A important principle: It is quite true that many prelates and bishops had difficult decisions about how to use confidential information about priests who had seduced young children. It is also true that those who empowered these priests to continue to seduce multiple additional children sinned against both God and man.] The misdeeds committed by one Donald John Trump, his family, and his political associates against cannot be allowed to go quietly into that good nite… The Constitutional Standard is — and the legal standard should be— that improperly and flagrantly delayed justice is Actual Justice Denied.


IV. This is not exactly without relevant precedents. Some additional thoughts about various miscreants relevant to our U.S. American history.

According to the author of Ecclesiastes "There is nothing new beneath the Sun!" Having been alive when human beings first walked on the moon, when new discoveries about human history have been revealed by studies of DNA and RNA, and when new types of cyber crimes have been committed I, personally, do not believe that to be true. Still, there are numerous parallels between various events recorded during the past five millennia when written or inscribed records began to appear in large quantities upon the earth. I wish here to discuss briefly some episodes and themes in the history of the United Sates which seem especially appropriate in understanding our present political-moral crisis. I  will concentrate on various elements and actors important to understanding the American Civil War and the Second World War. And, again, as prologue I add a few quotations that strike me as especially pertinent.

"If this be treason, make the most of it!" — Patrick Henry (1765).
"Gentlemen may cry 'Peace! peace' when there is no peace." — Patrick Henry (1775)
"A House Divided against itself cannot stand." — Abraham Lincoln (~1858)

IVA. Prominent Demagogues in the United States (Highliting the American Civil War).

In the history of the United States, there are several "treasonous" episodes that are also episodes that exhibit moral depravity among human beings. To be sure, (1) I do not believe that treason is necessarily either an immoral action or, necessarily, a matter of great constitutional importance. Treason is by definition a political activity and always involves a political perspective. Thus, as an American citizen who believes that separation from the British Crown was a good thing — I do not believe that Patrick Henry's remarks against the British Crown were treasonous. But there are 3 human beings who have in our history committed — in my opinion — especially egregious and morally reprehensible acts of treason. Two are related to the Civil War — a product of a twenty-four decade legal (and, eventually) and constitutional policy that will always be reminder of the evil that U.S. citizens have been capable of doing.

First, Aaron Burr with his schemes for wresting control of what were then 'Western' portions of the young United States (Early 1800's). Secondly, John C. Calhoun, with his early (~1830) arguments for "nullification" and his concomitant rhetoric about the benefits of slavery for supposedly "inferior" African-born slaves and their descendants. Thirdly, Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederacy [1861-1865] with his commitment to the "property rights" of slaveholders accompanied, of course, by rhetorical appeals to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.  I don't usually argue about the "principles" involved or, more precisely, whether the Slaveholders and the Southern Confederacy leaders were "sincere" about their beliefs. I consider it simply a fundamental consequence of the Declaration of Independence that freedom and slavery are and always have been incompatible — and it took a terrible Civil War for most citizens of the United States to realize that chattel slavery was not only wrong, but an albatross around our neck that would destroy any "blessings" of freedom we might enjoy. I mention the Civil War  — not because I think that the Civil War ended the terrible legacy of slavery, but because it was a very real — if flawed — beginning of the process which sees neither black nor white — nor any of the actual hues and colors of our people — as valid markers for receiving the liberties and blessings of living on God's Good Earth.

Now that we have entered what is frequently a cold civil war we are in a situation in which — in spite of Donald John Trump's publicly vented racial spleen and the all-too-frequent murder by police of innocents, especially those of very dark hues — our inequalities are becoming based upon criteria that are usually more diffuse than such "simple" issues of "race" and "color" (as if "race" or "color" were ever simple matters). And, when it comes to the environment — the consequences of our foolish self-centeredness about nature's bounty (whether we are centered on our self, our family, our friends, our social/political cohorts, or our nation) are increasingly spread over any boundaries we imagine for "us" and "them". And, furthermore, we cannot even separate our fates from those plants and animals over which we have a certain dominion. It is indeed a single earthship we inhabit within an enormous and wondrous universe — but if we do not get our act together we can just as easily vanish in the twinkling of geological eye as did the trilobites, the dinosaurs, the mammoths, the neanderthals, the dodo, the passenger pigeons, the Roanoke settlers and countless peoples and species which have proceeded before us.

Let me be clear I do not view Donald J. Trump as a cause of the small number of plutocrats and attendants who try to profit from his success as they crowd together into smaller and smaller sets of self-aggrandizing elites. Rather, I see Donald as one who tries to personally profit from these contradictory cohorts. One can imagine that Donald can continue to "successfully" distract his various critics and political opponents — but it is all based on a set of contradictory lies about unearned privileges. And lies are just that — lies. Broken cisterns that hold no water; shimmering glitter that has no value. As far as I can tell he is the most successful and ruthlessly indifferent of our many demagogues [any country with a history has had demagogues as well as heroes]. Furthermore, he appears to have less shame than any of our previous presidents. One of his heroes — Andrew Jackson — had, at least, members of his own family killed by the British and known of real massacres by Indians before he began his own ugly and murderous attacks on native American people. Donald's attacks seem to be drawn from an even deeper reservoir of spleen and imagined victimhood. Which is all simply to say that everything that Donald touches dies — and when it all collapses his legacy will be simply the ruins of souls and fortunes when human fools can excite other foolish or craven souls to enter on their highways to hell.

IVA. Western Civilization's most Dangerous Demagogue  (Adolf Hitler and the Second World War).

Here I make only a few general and mostly unexceptional remarks[I claim no particular expertise, other than that of being relatively informed citizen who has given some time to the subject.] I also add a number of reflections from my own family history [important to me, but again not terribly unusual]. Both the 'remarks' and 'reflections' may help the reader to better assess bias or agenda on my part.

While I was growing up I heard a number of stories about my maternal grandfather, one John Alban Allen, referred to within the family simply as "Daddy Jack." As a child he had visited Germany for ~ a year, but — during World War I, he served as a balloon spotter for the Allied Forces. His older brother, Emer, was killed in France and is buried there, but Daddy Jack returned home — and in events that may have been related to earlier physical wounds or perhaps to other causes he died when my mother was three years old. In due time, aggravated by (1) reparations imposed by the French against the Germans [essentially giving the Germans sole responsibility for the European Debacle which brought on the War] and by (2) long standing military jingoistic traditions within Germany, Adolf Hitler became Germany's Dictator (Der Führer) and gradually initiated a series of Wars as well as the planned extermination of Gypsies, Albinos, Jews, and others. During  a week late in May 1940 [ I learned from a college assignment to write about the week I was born] the British were trying desperately to bring trapped British soldiers back from Dunkirk, France to the relative safety of Great Britain. Shortly before I reached the age of 5, one of my cousins reached the beaches of Normandy around 10 AM in the morning. When he reached the European mainland, the bulldozers had shoved most of the corpses out of the way and he and his company were able to proceed directly to their front lines.

So for these and other reasons, I have been interested in Germany — both its literature and its involvement in the Second World War. As an adult I have never thought of the 2nd World as a simple German initiated event or as a simple Hitler-led event. It seems quite clear that the Holocaust was so catastrophic in Europe precisely because many of the "Christian" populations were so deeply infected by anti-Semitism that they cooperated willingly with the Nazis. Still, the ability of Donald Trump to publicly air his filth about immigrants, reporters, democrats, prisoners-of-war, and handicapped persons strikes some people as so low on the empathy quotient that many have compared him to Hitler. In truth, Donald has been so preoccupied by his immediate fancies about both the glitter of wealth and his desire for revenge that he does not really compare to Hitler. Hitler was more focused on power — esp. military power — and could bide his time and, when opportunity arose, he could strike at the ready. Donald, however, seeks the opportunity to bask in the approval of dictators like Putin and Kim Jong-un. Indeed, with Putin he has become a real — if somewhat inconsistent  — stooge. It strikes me that there are important similarities between Hitler and Trump — both have been extremely cynical about their followers, both have discovered that the Big Lie is often surprisingly more effective than a simple lie, and while both of them have had moments of charm and even graciousness — they have been in their separate eras operating with hearts that are usually colder than those of most "hardened" criminals. Both men have been unusually skilled at identifying the (dishonest) sense of "victimhood" within their live audiences. There are occasional moments of surprisingly obvious humanity [These men are not the Devil himself; rather, they are men who have struck bigger bargains with the devil than most of us are wont to consider.] However, their claim to fame is the inability or, better, unwillingness of most people to confront their striking moral chutzpah and filth in any serious fashion. He/she who has ears to hear — let hem hear!

I do not really believe that any reader would share all or even most of my views. I am saying, however, that some of the most villainous of all human actors have had such disastrous effects precisely because so many human beings have downplayed events beheld by their very own eyes and ignored words heard with their very own ears. The Mueller probe has told us that the problem is not in Denmark. Whether we are to be or not to be a democracy is the issue that stands right before our eyes.



Lon Clay Hill
Miramar, Florida, USA
[29 March 2019]


[A Simplified Subsidiary Issue. — "Climate Change"]    The author has only touched the main components — in his mind — of a morally, politically, and legally complex set of issues surrounding the Mueller Probe. However, my approach is better understood by considering a somewhat simpler issue. Countless birds, insects, and fish have already accepted the reality of climate change — they have altered their migration patterns by distances of hundreds of kilometers or more and they have altered their migrations schedules by 2-3 weeks. Human beings have, however, an additional problem that creates additional problems. When they face difficulties — they often lie to themselves and/or to others. Human solutions to the problems of climate change are — like solutions to human migration — are quite difficult and complex. As a general rule it seems to me that discussions about whether climate change is "real" tend to be exercises in group evasion.

There are a number of reasons why people follow demagogues. One of the most important of them is that the evils in their own lives may have been partially or substantially produced by enemies or opponents of the demagogue. As for the politically active supporters of a demagogue, the blindness of those who first make a 'deal' with the devil that they imagine they can dissolve when matters get worse is simply difficult to overestimate…