Regardless of Mueller, public hearings are vital
by digby
QOTD by Emptywheel who unpacks the main details about what we already know about the Russia probe:
Consider all this from the perspective of Russia: over and over, they exploited Trump’s epic narcissism and venality. Particularly with regards to the Trump Tower deal, they did so in a way that would be especially damaging, particularly given that even while a former GRU officer was brokering the deal, the GRU was hacking Trump’s opponent. They often did so in ways that would be readily discovered, once the FBI decided to check Kilimnik’s Gmail account. Russia did this in ways that would make it especially difficult for Trump to come clean about it, even if he were an upstanding honest person.
Partly as a result, partly because he’s a narcissist who wanted to deny that he had illicit help to win, and partly because he’s a compulsive liar, Trump and his aides all lied about what they’ve now sworn to be true. Over and over again.
And that raised the stakes of the Russian investigation, which in turn further polarized the country.
As I noted here, that only added to the value of Russia’s intervention. Not only did Trump’s defensiveness make him prefer what Putin told him to what American Russian experts and his intelligence community would tell him, but he set about destroying the FBI in an effort to deny the facts that his aides ultimately swore were true. Sure, Russia hasn’t gotten its sanctions relief, yet. But it has gotten the President himself to attack the American justice system, something Putin loves to do.
We don’t know what the Mueller report will say about Trump’s role in all this, and how that will affect the rest of his presidency. We do know he remains under investigation for his cheating (as an unindicted co-conspirator in the ongoing hush money investigation) and his venality (in the inauguration investigation, at a minimum).
We do know, however, that whatever is in that report is what Mueller wants in it; none of the (Acting) Attorneys General supervising him thwarted his work, though Trump’s refusal to be interviewed may have.
But we also know that Russia succeeded wildly with its attack in 2016 and since.
She suggests that everyone take the Mueller report as the last word and go about protecting America from similar acts going forward. I'm going to guess that Trump and his henchmen will do everything they can to stand in the way of that happening. To stop it would mean admitting that it happened in the first place. Unless they are forced to do that, this will continue. They are still in charge.
Public hearings are vital. The American people have to hear the whole story, whatever it is, from the people who participated.
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