The Mueller Report is Out, But What Are Its Implications?
The investigation and subsequent report conducted and put together by Special Counsel Robert Mueller in response to claims Russia colluded with Donald Trump in the 2016 United States Presidential election to get him elected has finally been completed. And, the results are unsurprising. As many predicted, no evidence was found that Donald Trump colluded with Vladimir Putin or Russian officials in order to get elected.
This isn’t the first, and might not be the last, investigation launched to examine claims Russia and Putin are linked to Trump’s election in some way. Something important, that’s often forgotten, is that there were two other investigations launched, one by the House of Representatives and the other by the US Senate. Both, also, found no evidence of collusion. Now, after three investigations that all concluded the same thing, what happens next?
This particular claim, accusation and eventual investigation was one that Donald Trump described as a ‘witch-hunt’. It certainly resembled a witch-hunt as those accusing Trump did so without any evidence that he colluded and merely determined it to be true based off of baseless claims.
What’s quite interesting is that since September, MSNBC ran 4,202 stories on the Mueller investigation, CNN ran 1,965, the Washington Post ran 1,184 and the New York Times ran 1,156. On average, that’s 13 stories per day on a claim that’s been proven to be blatantly false. This certainly hints at bias.
As the 2020 US elections are coming up fast, the findings of this very publicized investigation may prove a key issue. They certainly paint the Democrats who completely believed that Trump and Russia colluded as disingenuous and untrustworthy, at the very least. The findings, however, paint President Trump in a more positive light, but it’s not exonerated him, its merely found no evidence of wrong-doing.
Although the full report has yet to be released, summarised reports have highlighted the main findings of the investigation. The first, and most obvious one is that there is no evidence of collusion between Trump, his campaign team and Russia or Russian officials.
The second is that it did not conclude whether or not Donald Trump committed a crime for actions such as the firing of James Comey. And the third is that Attorney General William Barr does not believe, after reading the report, that there was any obstruction of justice on the part of Trump. There are other findings, these are just some of the most important. For further clarity, you can find the summarised report here.
There are a variety of likely eventualities we might see in the near future following the report’s conclusion. The first is that the Democrats and those that oppose the current President will continue with their claims something happened, despite the evidence.
Claiming that something happened, without being specific, means that almost no ground will have to be ceded and will simply allow them to continue moving forward with the same narrative, albeit, most likely, at a slower pace.
Another possible course of action for those who still believe the collusion allegations is one that involves a new story filling in the void left by the findings of the Mueller investigation. This could take a number of forms but would allow the public eye to be shifted away in the hopes the entire debacle becomes a forgotten part of the past. Another possibility is that those who accused him and his staff of collusion admit they were wrong, but this is doubtful.
For Trump, however, its obvious the findings help his image, and this is crucial. The 2020 elections are already gearing up to be something similar to the 2016 elections and both sides need as much help as they can get. The next 19 months will be very interesting as both sides apply different strategies in order to get elected. Its very likely Trump and his campaign staff will use the findings to vilify the Democrats in the same way that the Democrats will find something new to vilify Trump on.
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