On Wednesday, May 29, 2019, Robert Mueller broke his nearly two-year long vow of public silence. He announced the Special Counsel Office’s work is complete and tendered his resignation.

Since the release of his redacted report, there’s been infighting by Democrats on how to proceed, and spin from Republicans as to the report’s findings. Trump has attacked the Mueller Report on all fronts, yet still seems to promote the utterly false notion that the report exonerated him. And Bill Barr, Trump’s attorney general, misled the public on more than one occasion as to the report’s substance and overall conclusions.

Deciphering Mueller-Speak

Robert Mueller is a professional of the highest caliber. His reputation is steeped in qualities like integrity, honor, and fairness. He’s not a political player; he’s a professional. He doesn’t engage in hyperbole, and in his statement, never strayed from the carefully chosen words of his scripted remarks. Since we live in times of hyperbolic rhetoric, and Mueller has a strict code of conduct, we can’t mistake Mueller’s restrained statement as inconsequential. He’s never going to make an inflammatory statement, even if he may be thinking it. Therefore, we need to be able to read between the lines.

Mueller is the antithesis of Trump. While Trump will speak in an incoherent, impulsive, and stream-of-consciousness style, Mueller’s rhetoric is sensible and deliberate. Mueller speaks rarely; Trump speaks and tweets constantly. Mueller has morals and values; Trump is immoral and values only himself. Mueller speaks only on the facts; Trump lies so much the press can barely keep up with fact checking him.

He hasn’t spoken publicly since he started his role as leading the Department of Justice’s Special Counsel’s Office. This naturally gives the times he does speak special meaning. He didn’t have to give a statement, but he did. This, in and of itself, should lead us to infer that he’s trying to communicate something important to the American people.

Mueller’s Statement Translated: Commence with the Impeachment Hearings

Mueller’s statement was brief, measured, and purposeful. There are two significant takeaways from his statement:

Mueller could not prosecute Trump even if he wanted to due to Department of Justice rules and guidelines. He was aware of this fact when he started, which influenced the way he conducted the investigation –knowing no matter what kind of crime was uncovered, he would never be able to indict a sitting president.

If Mueller had the evidence to clear Trump of criminal allegations, he had the power to do so –but he didn’t.

As counterintuitive as it may sound, it’s true that a sitting president cannot be charged with a crime. If Trump, as he once bragged about, hypothetically shot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue, he technically couldn’t be charged with murder while he was a sitting president. This doesn’t mean he’s not culpable legally, however the criminal charges would have to wait until he left office.

Mueller, when speaking of the state of Trump’s criminality, said: “[if after completing the investigation] we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so.” Mueller investigated 10 areas of possible obstruction of justice committed by Trump. Therefore, in those 10 areas, Mueller holds the opinion that there was undoubtedly wrongdoing committed by Trump, but due to the restriction of being unable to charge a sitting president, he couldn’t indict him. In reference to Trump’s wrongdoing, all Mueller could do was investigate it and write it down (i.e. the Mueller Report).

During his short statement, Mueller never used the word “impeachment,” yet in Mueller’s classically stark, subtle, and understated style of speaking, he said, “The constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing.”

Mueller’s referencing the constitution’s section on impeachment:

“The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” United States Constitution; Article II, Section IV

While Mueller didn’t use the word “impeachment” in his statement, he did cite the remedy in Volume II of the Mueller Report. Impeachment is a political process and not a criminal process. From the start, Mueller knew his hands were tied in investigating Trump’s obstruction of justice from a criminal vantage point. Therefore, the only recourse is the political process of impeachment.

The vast majority of the Mueller Report is essentially a referral for impeachment. And Mueller’s statement was an appeal to Congress to initiate impeachment hearings. Mueller investigated and documented Trump’s wrongdoing, and then turned his findings over to Congress and the American people. Barr infamously issued a misleading summary on Mueller’s findings and then dragged his feet for nearly a month before releasing it. He did this in an attempt to manipulate public opinion.

In his statement, Mueller emphasized the importance of reading the report. He said he and his team selected their words “carefully.” He’s signaling that the evidence needed to initiate impeachment hearings are right there in the report.

Mueller and his team conducted their task with excellence and integrity. Nearly two years and not a single leak came out of the Special Counsel’s Office. The Mueller team did their job. Mueller gave the House the ammunition they need, and it’s now up to the House to use it.

Conclusions

For any rationally-minded person who read the Mueller Report, or at least understands the gravity of the areas of obstruction of justice, it’s clear this president has engaged in numerous acts of wrongdoing.

The world needs to see that we won’t stand for an amoral president. Future generations will judge us on how we dealt with this threat. Impeachment may not result in a conviction in the GOP-controlled Senate, but we need to establish that we did everything we could to fight back against injustice and hold this president to account.

When future generations ask what we did during these tumultuous times, nothing short of “we did everything we could” will suffice. This generation has a date with destiny, and the House needs to schedule it.