GUY BENSON: As America Yawned, Mueller’s Testimony Damaged Him, Made Impeachment Less Likely.
The problem for the Democrats is that the supposedly big ‘gotcha’ moments were simply Mueller affirming damaging-looking facts and allegations listed in the document that has been in the public realm — picked apart and argued over ad nauseam — for months. We discussed some of them here (my stance against impeachment was only reinforced today). The shareable moment of Mueller stating that his report was not a total exoneration of the president, as the president has claimed, wasn’t terribly powerful because that conclusion was literally in the document itself, and has been highlighted repeatedly. Polling shows that the public already disagreed with Trump’s over-broad boast about the extent of his exculpation. As for collusion, Mueller tripped all over himself very early in the proceedings, initially stating that “conspiracy” and “collusion” were not colloquial synonyms. But his — or “his” — report stated precisely the opposite. When pressed on that inconsistency, he meekly deferred to the written report, which bolsters the president’s “no collusion” bottom line.
The bottom line is that Mueller didn’t reveal anything we didn’t already know, and nothing we already knew was actionable.
The usual media outlets are trying to spin that as a win on substance for the Democrats, but there was nothing new of substance. And the optics, most everyone agrees, were just awful.