Now we know Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia report will become public
Even as Special Counsel Robert Mueller builds a more comprehensive criminal case against Donald Trump and his alleged co-conspirators in the Trump-Russia scandal, questions have arisen as to what happens next. What if Mueller concludes that he can’t directly file criminal charges against Trump, and instead sends Congress a report recommending impeachment, and the Republican controlled Congress simply decides to bury the report? Now we know it won’t play out that way.
We still don’t know whether Mueller will attempt to file charges against Trump. But we do know that Mueller is preparing to soon file a report about Trump’s obstruction of justice. This has concerned some people, because as NBC News was reporting this revelation, it referred to Mueller’s report as “confidential.” But here’s the thing: you have to read the sentence that comes immediately afterward.
Here’s the relevant passage from the NBC News report: “Mueller would then likely send a confidential report to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who is overseeing the Russia investigation. Rosenstein could decide whether to make the report public and send its findings to Congress. From there, Congress would then decide whether to begin impeachment proceedings against the president.” In other words, Mueller can’t unilaterally decide to make his report public, but Rosenstein can – and if he has to, he will.
Based on the forthrightness that Rod Rosenstein has consistently displayed in this investigation, if he gets the feeling that the Republican-controlled Congress is going to refuse to act on the report and refuse to release it, it’s a given that he’ll simply release it himself. In other words, we’re going to see this report. We still don’t know what else Mueller will do between now and the time he files his report, but because Rosenstein has the final say on whether it becomes public, Trump’s Republican allies in Congress can’t simply sit on it and bury it. And once the public sees it and demands impeachment hearings, the GOP will be in a no-win situation around the time of the midterms.
