McKay Coppins, who works for The Atlantic, wrote one of the most perceptive (I think) pieces on the Mueller Report I've seen in the past few days. Here's a key excerpt…
From the moment the 448-page document was published, two separate news universes took shape. In one, the special counsel's report was presented as a smoking-gun chronicle of high crimes and misdemeanors. In the other, it was heralded as a credibility-shredding blow to the president's opponents.
In between those two poles were plenty of journalists laboring dutifully to make sense of the report and give it proper context. But if what you wanted as a news or social-media consumer was simply an assurance that you'd been right all along about Trump and Russia and everything else, you could nestle yourself safely in a cocoon of validation, and stay there for the remainder of the news cycle.
As I read the piece, I was reminded of a moment in The Final Days, the chronicle of the end of the Nixon presidency written by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. The "smoking gun" tape had been found and a transcript was about to be released. Nixon called his family to the Lincoln Sitting Room in the White House to tell them about it. Included in the group were his daughter and son-in-law, Julie and David Eisenhower. Nixon described the piece of evidence that the world would shortly see and David asked to see the transcript. It was obtained and David and Julie took it to another room to study…
As he read the transcript now, David was convinced it was over, either by impeachment or by resignation. Julie did not express disagreement, though she was not ready to agree either. They went back to the Lincoln Sitting Room, and David went to the President's side. "It's been my feeling that we're not as innocent as we said, or as guilty as they said," David said.
Nixon did not react; he kept looking into the fire.
I don't think the Trump presidency is over, not by a longshot. The trouble is that more than ever, he looks like a guy who won the presidency because Russia helped him and who, confronted with an investigation, reacted like a mob boss with plenty to hide. He may not have been as guilty as his opponents said but he's not as innocent as he insisted he was.