A pathetic abdication of duty

Time for a Mueller report reality check: Only a small segment of America’s most powerful have read it.

President Donald Trump can’t give a straight answer about the subject. More than a dozen members of Congress readily admitted to POLITICO that they too have skipped around rather than studying every one of the special counsel report’s 448 pages. And despite the report technically ranking as a best-seller, only a tiny fraction of the American public has actually cracked the cover and really dived in.

“What’s the point?” said Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who like many other lawmakers recently interviewed in the Capitol acknowledged they hadn’t completed their own comprehensive read.

The result, say lawmakers, historians and cultural critics, is a giant literacy gap in the country when it comes to the most authoritative examination into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and whether Trump obstructed that investigation. And closing that gap could determine whether Democrats feel they have public backing to launch impeachment proceedings against the president. That’s why numerous Democrats, activists and pro-impeachment advocates say it’s up to them to teach Americans what the Mueller report says, even if there’s already considerable public fatigue with the issue.

The education campaign runs the gamut, from celebrities staging a dramatic Broadway reading of Mueller’s most juicy findings on obstruction of justice, to House Democrats pulling Robert Mueller back from retirement next week to publicly testify, hoping that live television cameras can illuminate what the dense government report cannot.

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“You can’t expect people to read lengthy documents in large numbers. They have their own lives to lead,” said House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, the powerful New York congressman who has described his decision on whether to launch impeachment proceedings as hinging in no small part on public opinion.

The challenge in getting anyone to study the Mueller report is an uphill one, especially after Trump and his GOP allies made their own early play in mid-April to cement the “no collusion, no obstruction” mantra. And getting lawmakers to read beyond the Mueller report’s executive summary, media reports or their own staffers’ notes is no simple task.

“It’s tedious,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who has a copy of Mueller’s work in a large stack of things she turns to for her daily reading. She said she started right away on the report’s first volume detailing the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russians while on a trip to Vietnam, and as of late June she was still plugging along. “In fairness, I haven’t picked it up in at least two weeks.”

“I’ve got a lot on my reading list,” Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) said as he explained why he’s avoided one of the most highly anticipated reports in recent American history.

Republicans aren’t alone. “I’d be pretty reckless to say I have a full comprehension,” said Rep. David Price (D-N.C.). “I need to spend some more time with it.”

Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) also said he hadn’t read the whole report. “It is what it is,” he said when asked why.

“I didn’t have to read it. I lived it,” offered Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who was Hillary Clinton’s 2016 vice presidential running mate. “I intended to read cover to cover, but there was nothing in it that was a surprise to me.”

The Mueller report has of course hardly been ignored. The Washington Post’s version — published with an introduction written by its Mueller beat reporters — has held a spot on The New York Times’ best-seller list for 10 consecutive weeks. More than 357,000 copies of the report released by three publishers had been sold as of late June, according to NPD Bookscan.