People are jumping to conclusions about the Mueller report– which hasn’t been released yet. Trump supporters are, of course, spinning it their way, which is that the whole thing was a smokescreen and everyone who was expecting Trump to be indicted should go to jail instead. That’s what you’d expect from a bunch of people who have made no secret of their contempt for journalism, investigation, science, and rationality in general. But it’s more discouraging to see anti-Trump people turn bitter and pretend that they never expected it to be anything but a whitewash.
The crucial, the one crucial, fact is that the public has not yet seen the report in its entirety. Nothing less will do. Get on the phone right now, as I did, and call your Congressional representatives to demand that the report, the whole report, and no substitute in the form of a William Barr letter be put in the hands of every citizen with the patience to read it.
“Nullius in verba,” the Royal Society’s motto from the beginnings of the Scientific Revolution, means “We don’t take anyone’s word for it.” A good word to go on.
I read today in Publisher’s Weekly that several publishing houses are vying to be the first to reprint the Mueller report should it turn up unredacted. PW’s journalism extends to getting the name of the agent right, but the Mueller business is beyond them. They don’t even know how long the documents are, or how long the “good bits” are. In any case, the GPO would be the publisher of choice, and the big guns can only wait until GPO unveils it. GPO has not sent me either of my back-orders from 2017 and 2015, so it may be a long wait.