Jonathan Allen @jonallendc
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2h
I must be watching a different hearing than the rest of the punditry. What I've seen here is Mueller make very clear that he believes the president obstructed justice. That was true in the report, but his testimony went further. It may not be exciting to watch, but it's serious.
I’ve read those sections. It’s not “seriousâ€, it’s debatable. Mueller may believe some of the more esoteric theories of obstruction he bandied about in the report, but some are untested and all rely on chains of inference from circumstantial evidence.
Then there is the bottom line fact that justice was not, in fact, obstructed, which means you have at most attempted obstruction, which is a very thin reed on which to hang anything, let alone a sitting president.
The democrats, in my view, went looking for smoking guns and hot, expended shell casings, and found only a bunch of dust bunnies; gnarly, nasty dust bunnies, to be sure, but not smoking guns.
