"His report was predicated on caring about facts. Our world is about who can claim victory the quickest."
..The real tragedy of the Barr report is that he has facts at his fingertips—not just facts about the ways in which members of the Trump campaign acted inappropriately and then lied about it, which we all know, but also facts about obstruction that we do not yet know. But like Fox News had done a day before, Barr gave us spin in lieu of facts while asking us to believe that they are the same thing.
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In a world in which facts really mattered, the notion that Republicans “won” and Democrats “lost” the Mueller report, based on an incomplete summary that drew hasty conclusions without showing any work, would be laughable. Especially if the author of that summary auditioned for his job by claiming that presidential obstruction of justice couldn’t ever be a real thing, anyway. William Barr could write his letter in 46 hours because he had always known what it was going to say.
We do not live in a black-and-white world. The answer is not that Trump either did nothing wrong or committed massive crimes for which he can be removed from office. Mueller’s report—were we ever to inspect it—appears to have split the difference, and delivered its findings in nuanced shades of gray. But at this point, it almost doesn’t matter whether we can inspect it. The lines are drawn and the legal questions have been answered, not with findings but with political sides retreating to partisanship—one side says the president is cleared (and is now doubling down on attacking the press and the Justice Department) and the other side looks at the brick wall it is facing and concedes that maybe it’s not worth it, anyway. This has been the state of play for years now. The biggest question just might be why we expected anything else.