Behind the straight shooting, ramrod demeanor always mentioned by his friends, Robert Mueller possesses a shrewd intelligence. He demonstrated that strategic acuity on Wednesday morning when, with a few carefully selected sentences, he wielded his own reticence to deliver a crushing blow to Donald Trump (and a hard shot to Attorney General William Barr, the White House henchman).
The more diffidence Mueller displayed in speaking publicly — after two years of principled silence as special counsel — the more powerful were the words he chose to utter. Standing before the seal of the Justice Department, he told us it is important that his 448-page report “speak for itself.” Yet with the nation listening, he briskly underlined the most salient aspects of the report, which the great majority of his fellow Americans will never read.
Mueller wants us to understand — contrary to whatever Trump, Jared Kushner, or assorted Republican patsies might claim — that the Russian plot to sway the 2016 election against Hillary Clinton was a historic assault on our democracy. This act by a hostile foreign power was a matter “of paramount importance” that “deserves the attention of every American.
View the complete May 29 article by Joe Conason on the National Memo website here.