Robert Mueller and the collapse of American trust [View all]
The reaction to AG William Barrs Mueller letter reveals a disturbing truth about America.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/3/25/18280802/donald-trump-mueller-report-barr-news-trust
Attorney General William Barrs summary of special counsel Robert Muellers report has not resolved all of the disputes surrounding Donald Trumps ties to Russia during the 2016 election. But the reaction to it has revealed one of the ways in which American politics is deeply and profoundly broken.
Democrats have responded to Barrs summary by calling the attorney generals impartiality into question (
not entirely without reason). Leading members of Congress
have raised the alarm about very concerning discrepancies and final decision making at the Justice Department and are pushing for the full release of Muellers report and for Barr to testify under oath.
Congressional Republicans, meanwhile, have responded by blasting
the biased media for spreading
a collective scam and fraud. The chair of the
Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), even called for investigations into the FBIs investigation itself, to see if the bureaus pursuit of Trump and his allies was in any way improper.
A quick gander at social media shows this polarized reaction from partisan politicians is reflected in their parties respective
media surrogates and
rank-and-file voters. Theres not even a pretense of neutrality: Everyone is reading what they want into Barrs letter, establishing a reality in which their side is right and the other side is making things up.
Barrs document is
particularly vague on some points, an ambiguity heightened by the fact that no one weighing in from either side has read the full report. But even the most unequivocal report would be subject to the deeper forces: the death of the neutral arbiter.
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