The Mueller Fizzle: Hearings that Were Supposed to Catalyze the Impeachment Drive Against President Trump Probably Brought It to an Effective End

• The Mueller Fizzle: Hearings that Were Supposed to Catalyze the Impeachment Drive Against President Trump Probably Brought It to an Effective End
  by RICH LOWRY, https://www.politico.com/magazine/
  Rich Lowry is editor of National Review and a contributing editor with Politico Magazine.
  Rarely has a made-for-TV drama been such bad TV. The much anticipated Robert Mueller hearings that were supposed to catalyze the impeachment drive against President Trump probably brought it to an effective end.
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  The testimony represented the final installment of a years-long over-investment in Mueller by the Democrats and the media that finally went completely bust in his laconic, halting, uncertain performance.
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  All during the period of Mueller’s investigation and his public silence, he was built up as Eliot Ness and Leon Jaworksi wrapped up into one, the dragon-slaying, history-making crusader of American justice who would put Donald Trump in his place, and perhaps in handcuffs. It turns out that he is the deus ex machina who failed.
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  With Mueller, it was always waiting till the next thing.
  First, we needed to wait on Mueller’s purportedly explosive findings during the period when it was constantly said that the walls were “closing in” on the president. Then, when those finding were disappointing, at least as rendered in Attorney General Bill Barr’s initial letter, we needed to wait on Mueller’s report.
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  The report did indeed include more damning details, but when it didn’t really move the needle politically, we needed to wait on the unredacted version.
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  Finally, we needed to wait on Mueller’s testimony that, we were told, would potentially lend compelling TV moments to a lengthy report that not enough people read to have an impact.
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  This misread the reasons for the underwhelming political effect of the report, though. Mueller didn’t establish any meaningful coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia, which was the alleged underlying offense. He did find all sorts of scheming against his investigation, although the obstruction case lacks force because the underlying offense isn’t there and, at the end of the day, Mueller completed his probe with extensive White House cooperation.
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  Moreover, if a 450-page report making the case against the president isn’t enough, what will be? Mueller went through every alleged episode of obstruction in great detail in the report. On the theory that these mini-narratives were dead on the page but could be brought to life on TV, many Democrats walked Mueller through the facts of each episode during his testimony. This proved no more gripping. The Democrats asked leading questions, and Mueller answered as briefly as possible, always demurring if his questioner made some sweeping judgment.
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  A lot of attention has been paid to Mueller’s underwhelming performance, which was panned even by Trump critics who had high hopes he could kick-start impeachment with boffo testimony.
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