On Friday, March 22,
2019 the Mueller Report was finally handed to the Department of Justice with no
further indictments to be made. That was all on Friday. As usual, the lack of
any further information didnt stop all of the TV and other media pundits
from speculating on what else was coming, when would it come, what would
President Trump say or do, what about the Democrats, what would Alexandria
Ocasia Cortex say? No, I put in that last one because it seems nothing could
happen without bringing her into it.
I was interested in the
Mueller report announcement because in my last column for the monthly paper
that went to our retirement community Id written that no newscast was
complete without someone saying that the Mueller report might wrap up the next
week. Now it had actually done so. What would all the talking heads talk about
now? Id also written that Alexandria Ocasia Cortez was the medias
current darling and that everything she said or did had to be breathlessly
reported on. I was already composing my next column; Id write that
somebody on the Mueller team, or maybe Mueller himself, must have seen my
column and so decided it was time to wrap things up so I wouldnt be able
to continue making fun about it.
In my own life, I
didnt do anything special on that Friday but on Saturday my wife Sally
and myself took our oldest son Ken and his wife out for his birthday lunch and,
casually asking about how his job was going, found out that it might be in
jeopardy. He was having a meeting the next week and might find out more
then.
During the day on
Saturday the media continued to speculate on the Mueller report, with the
Democrats demanding that the entire report and everything that went with it be
released. This demand suggested that there was a sinister conspiracy not to
release the report although Trump all along said he was all for releasing it
and Attorney General Bill Barr said hed release everything the law
allowed.
On Sunday Barr released
a summary of the Mueller report. It said that that neither President Trump nor
anyone on his campaign had colluded with the Russians to rig the 2016 election.
Trump all along had been saying No collusion. So
I guess he was right. On the subject of obstruction of justice the summary was
less definitive, coming to no conclusion but leaving that to the Attorney
General. Of course, it there was really no crime then how could there had been
obstruction of justice? The Attorney General evidently thought the same; he
wrote there was no obstruction.
The thing uppermost in
my mind that Sunday was my sons job. Id told him to call after his
meeting and let us know the latest. I was also concerned about my oldest friend
Jake Bloom, back in New York, who was waiting for a cancer diagnosis. Jake and
I had been on our high school handball team and he was probably the only person
alive who remembered Id been a pretty good player back then. Closer to
home, I wanted to know about my fellow pool player Walt whod fallen the
week before and was in the hospital.
I had the TV on the
news channels for most of that Sunday afternoon. The news was all about the
Mueller report. As expected, on Fox, the Trump camp was exultant about the
results. Trump was exonerated. On CNN, Trump might still have colluded but
legally wasnt guilty and hed certainly obstructed justice. Bill
Barr, whod ruled he hadnt, was now the Trump-appointed
Attorney-General and so a Trump lackey who couldnt be trusted. Besides,
all we had was a summary of the Mueller report. We needed to have the whole
report, which Trump and Barr were trying to hide, although they kept on saying
theyd release it. When I wrote my column Id say that maybe there
were two reports as Fox and CNN seemed to be reporting on different
things. Alexandria Ocasia Cortez was bound to get involved so
Id get her in there, too. From what Id written, it appears Im
more on the side of Trump than of the Democrats. The first time I saw Trump on
TV I thought the word for him was obnoxious. Unfortunately, the
Democrats, suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome, were just as bad if not
worse.
In bed that night I
thought about the next week. Id call about Walt on Monday. Id wait
until Id heard from our son and his job situation and then Id call
Jake. As a diversion, Id keep watching Fox and CNN on TV. The politicians
and pundits all kept saying that the American people had to or wanted to or
deserved to know all about everything. If the American people were like me they
were thoroughly sick of Mueller, Trump and the Democrats and everything else
going on in Washington. The only useful thing about that sad circus was its
entertainment value. My son, Walt, Jake, that was what mattered.