{"id":12082,"date":"2019-12-03T10:00:31","date_gmt":"2019-12-03T18:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=12082"},"modified":"2019-12-02T13:36:55","modified_gmt":"2019-12-02T21:36:55","slug":"are-thought-crimes-impeachable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/are-thought-crimes-impeachable\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Thought Crimes Impeachable?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>During special counsel Robert Mueller\u2019s investigation, his legal \u201cdream team\u201d tried to make a secondary case that Donald Trump also obstructed efforts to prove Trump-Russian \u201ccollusion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Trump was said to have advised his lawyers and other subordinates, past and present, not to cooperate fully with the Mueller investigation. Yet the special counsel did not pursue any actionable cases of egregious interference by the White House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Indeed, Mueller would never have concluded his $35 million, 22-month investigation had he not enjoyed cooperation from the White House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>White House employees were questioned freely by the special counsel. Documents were released. When the special counsel\u2019s exhaustive investigation into purported Trump-Russia collusion found no such crime, the fallback claim of obstruction arose. Trump allegedly wanted to curtail Mueller\u2019s parameters of inquiry into something that was proven not to be a crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mueller found no grounds for a criminal referral on obstruction of justice. But he repeatedly hinted that Trump had thought about obstructing the non-crime of collusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/2019\/11\/trump-impeachment-inquiry-alleged-bad-thoughts-not-crimes\/\">Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review During special counsel Robert Mueller\u2019s investigation, his legal \u201cdream team\u201d tried to make a secondary case that Donald Trump also obstructed efforts to prove Trump-Russian \u201ccollusion.\u201d Trump was said to have advised his lawyers and other subordinates, past and present, not to cooperate fully with the Mueller investigation. Yet [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-38S","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11798,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/mueller-investigation-was-driven-by-pious-hypocrisy\/","url_meta":{"origin":12082,"position":0},"title":"Mueller Investigation Was Driven by Pious Hypocrisy","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 25, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness Special counsel Robert Mueller\u2019s two-year, $30 million, 448-page report did not find collusion between Donald Trump and Russia. Despite compiling private allegations of loud and obnoxious Trump behavior, Mueller also concluded that there was not any actionable case of obstruction of justice by the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Mueller&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Mueller","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/mueller\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11805,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/clinton-projection-syndrome\/","url_meta":{"origin":12082,"position":1},"title":"Clinton Projection Syndrome","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 2, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness Hillary Clinton recently editorialized about the second volume of special counsel Robert Mueller\u2019s massive report. She concluded of the report\u2019s assorted testimonies and inside White House gossip concerning President Trump\u2019s words and actions that \u201cany other person engaged in those acts would certainly have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hillary Clinton&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hillary Clinton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/hillary-clinton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10817,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/one-mueller-investigation-coincidence-too-many\/","url_meta":{"origin":12082,"position":2},"title":"One Mueller-Investigation Coincidence Too Many","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 12, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/National Review \u00a0 Stacking the deck with anti-Trump staffers is proving to be a really bad idea. \u00a0 Special prosecutors, investigators, and counsels are usually a bad idea. They are admissions that constitutionally mandated institutions don\u2019t work \u2014 and can be rescued only by supposed superhuman moralists,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Mueller&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Mueller","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/mueller\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10765,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/who-watches-the-watchmen\/","url_meta":{"origin":12082,"position":3},"title":"Who Watches the Watchmen?","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 29, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Originally published in the National Review. Read the original article here.\u00a0 History shows that special counsels almost inevitably overstep their mandates. Former FBI director Robert Mueller was supposed to run a narrow investigation into accusations of collusion between the Donald Trump campaign and the Russian government.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Mueller&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Mueller","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/mueller\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11050,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/swamp-things-in-the-russia-investigation\/","url_meta":{"origin":12082,"position":4},"title":"Swamp Things in the Russia Investigation","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 13, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness \"The Swamp\u201d usually refers to the vast federal bureaucratic machinery of mostly unelected top officials who exercise influence and power without worry about the appearance of conflicts of interest. They are often exempt from the consequences of the laws and regulations that affect others.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;James Comey&quot;","block_context":{"text":"James Comey","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/james-comey\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11763,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/with-mueller-hopes-gone-so-goes-progressive-unity\/","url_meta":{"origin":12082,"position":5},"title":"With Mueller Hopes Gone, So Goes Progressive Unity","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 4, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness The Democratic Party has lots of radical new ideas, and lots of radical presidential candidates and politicos. But the common hatred of President Donald Trump has united otherwise quite disparate Democratic leaders such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.); former Vice President Joe Biden;\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;2020 Election&quot;","block_context":{"text":"2020 Election","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/2020-election\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12082"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12082"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12084,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12082\/revisions\/12084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}