The question in the title of the post comes from one of my students, amid yesterday's discussion. As is often the case, the simplest question is the insightful one. Mueller, according to Barr's summary, found Trump completely innocent on the matter of coordination/conspiracy with Russia. If so, then why has Trump spent the last two years acting like the guiltiest man ever?
This is almost the same question as: why obstruct if you're innocent? That leads to the matter over which I puzzled earlier today. How did Mueller find nothing on Trump regarding criminal conspiracy, but fail to reach a conclusion on obstruction if obstruction requires corrupt intent?
Here's my attempt at an answer because, seriously, this is not an easy question.
Trump is, obviously, not a lawyer. In my earlier post, I made an important distinction between the non-legal matter of "collusion," and the crime of "conspiracy." Mueller may have found nothing that he thought amounted to criminal conspiracy, but that doesn't mean "NO COLLUSION!!!" because the bar for criminal conspiracy is much higher than what a layperson would call, "COLLUSION!!!" So, Trump "COLLUDED!!!," but not being a lawyer, he didn't know how much legal danger he faced because he didn't know where the line was between "COLLUSION!!!!" and criminal conspiracy, nor even that there was a difference. He also didn't know what Mueller had. So, he was scared, and acted guilty because, from a layperson's perspective, he may very well be.
From a legal perspective, Mueller probably really doesn't have enough to prosecute for criminal conspiracy because it's a really hard thing to prosecute. But, Trump just knew that the campaign "COLLUDED!!!," and without a clear understanding of where the line was or what Mueller had, he acted guilty.
So, there's my attempt at an answer. From a legal perspective, we have to accept the high likelihood that nothing the campaign did regarding the 2016 DNC hacks amounted to criminal conspiracy. That doesn't mean they didn't "collude," or that there aren't other crimes, but nailing them for criminal conspiracy on the DNC email hacking would require getting Roger Stone or Jerome Corsi to flip. That ain't happenin', and without that, no prosecution for criminal conspiracy. If there is one, and legally, it might not be criminal conspiracy. Mueller could really be right here.
Anyway, that's my attempt to reconcile Trump's behavior with the apparent exoneration on criminal conspiracy.
Back to double and triple-checking some damned equations. I think my brain is melting.
