Robert Mueller, a
Testament to American Mythology
The beginning of Robert Swan Mueller
III’s life marked one day past two months after the Allied invasion
of Normandy in 1944. Indeed, troubled times and the call of duty
predicate the life of this man. In his mid-twenties, Mueller served
in the Marine corps in Vietnam, and faced the unspeakable trauma and
hardship of bitter warfare alongside so many young men of his
generation. During his service he went above and beyond to set a
precedent of excellence and impeccable performance, a pattern which
time has proved to be a constant throughout the rest of his life. For
his valor he was awarded a Bronze Star, a Purple Heart, and in the
process of rescuing his beleaguered comrades from heavy machine-gun
fire he received a bullet in his leg and honorable discharge from the
military.
After his release from the military he
went on to earn a Master’s degree in International Studies as well as
a law degree. In the coming decades he would serve as an assistant
attorney general for the Department of Justice, U.S. District
Attorney for Boston as well as San Francisco, and in 2001 he was
appointed to be director of the FBI. One week after his installment
in the FBI, the most deadly terrorist attack in modern history took
place on U.S. mainland. Two passenger jets were flown into the World
Trade Center towers on September 11th and the country as
well as the world changed forever.
Mueller’s life has been marked by public service, and devotion in the most dangerous times. This man has not only lived through these remarkable events, he is part and parcel of them, a remarkable individual seemingly born for unprecedented times. Under Mueller’s supervision, the FBI shifted its focus from a reactive, investigative methodology to what has amounted to a high alert, preemptive, intelligence oriented approach. 9/11 became the largest FBI investigation in the bureau’s history, and has resulted in a paradigm shift for American Law enforcement, moving the FBI’s focus to prevention of terrorism, foreign and domestic.
During a career of service facing the
most serious of law enforcement and national security problems, one
could imagine that Bob Mueller would have hoped to retire amid some
form of resolution. After all he has been through, one could surmise
that the human expectation would be of some satisfactory end to the
years of turmoil. And that maybe, just maybe one of the best among us
would deserve to see a country more whole than when his work began.
But alas, life is no respecter of persons. America, whose bold precepts coax heroism from among our ranks and into her defense while her quiet whispers echo among the hills and across the plains the seductive sermon of bigotry. Her greatest achievements are imprinted on the pages of time with the blood of untold souls. She is unworthy of the greatest among us, and she is an engine at fault for the worst. Every American shall bear the mark of her mother’s hypocrisy, and the cross of her dreams. It is in the righteous humiliation of the “Information Age” that America will either allow the livid sea of our political landscape to capsize her, or she will heave fro and sail on to her next peril.
This is the story of our country, and
this is the course of Robert Mueller’s adventure. A man in his 70’s,
he has lived through the metamorphosis of this nation and the
emergence of modern society as we now recognize it. Indeed, as so
many pointed out during his testimony in front of congress this past
Wednesday, Mueller has been in the fight. What then can be said of
this modern world? To what legacy will Mueller’s generation give up
their ghost? And for what future have Mueller’s comrades shed their
blood in foreign wars?
Mueller’s testimony to two committees in the house of Representatives this week cast public light on the trepidatious state of our nation’s electoral security. He exposed his report’s findings on the compromise of our most sacred institutions as laid out in his report on Russian interference in the 2016 election as well as attempts by the top executive officer in the land to cover it up. Among Mueller’s report were revelations of the deep ties of corruption between the the Kremlin and the White House. In the wake of “sweeping and systematic” interference in our election through the weaponizing of social media platforms, the Trump campaign and administration have been unwavering in their efforts to benefit from Russian influence through personal profit and electoral advantage.
Mueller also revealed that after the
success of the Russian cyber attack and Trump’s installment as
President, he has made every effort to scuttle attempts at oversight
of his administration and investigation into this matter. The former
Special Counsel has even gone so far as to assert that, were it not
for Trump’s position as President, he would certainly be charged with
Obstruction of Justice. This is the same crime which Richard Nixon
decided to step down from his presidency over, effectively preserving
the institution, even though his misdeeds had defiled it.
Robert Mueller was called into
service for what is arguably the most consequential project of his
long career, and by all credible accounts has proven his utility once
again. Only this time, the stakes are much higher. Our Nation’s
response to the findings of the Special Counsel’s office will shape
the future of democracy in the world, make no mistake about it. Let’s
not be naive, the electoral process in this country has been subject
to all manner of hacks among the states for all sorts of hateful,
partisan, and class reasons. Those demons are ours to bear and we are
to blame. But a foreign adversary leveraging varying degrees of
direct access into the minds of 150,000,000 Americans to elect
someone like Donald Trump to the presidency is all new.
So what then will The United States decide to do about this attack, and about the psychological warfare of the Trump presidency? Congressional reactions vary from complete denial and projection to calls for impeachment and sweeping measures to protect the 2020 election cycle. Republicans, the most fiercely partisan political faction since the civil war, have refused to put two election reform bills to a vote on Thursday, sticking to a party line of blind defense for the right of those endowed with much capital to affect their preferred political outcomes in the U.S. These bills would have gone a long way in securing our elections with simple solutions like a requirement for keeping a paper trail of al ballots. Two other bills which would’ve effectively closed the breach in American election interference that was opened by the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizen’s United Vs. FEC will not make it through the Senate’s stone wall. The 2010 Citizen’s United Vs. FEC ruling allows corporations and monied interests to spend unlimited capital on elections without regulation.
Mitch McConnell, who denigrated the recently proposed election reform bills as, “partisan”, and “not a serious attempt to pass legislation” did in fact sue the Federal Election Commission in 2003. McConnell’s litigation occupied the grounds that previous election reform legislation which regulated the source, content, and timing of political advertising was a violation of corporate “free speech”. Interestingly, McConnell argued alongside Kenneth Star, the “independent counsel” responsible for concocting the seedy report that lead to Bill Clinton’s unpopular impeachment and appropriate acquittal in the Senate in 1998. These conservative hacks lost in McConnell vs. FEC, but gained a massive win with the Court’s 2010 decision.
Every single Republican who is opposed
to these bills has been paid for as a result of the court rulings
which lead to their necessity. Because they have ridden into power on
the wave of corruption and dirty tricks which have ensued since 2010,
we can only assume that they have no better plan to maintain their
power in the future. This corporate insurgency is the mechanism by
which we have gotten Donald Trump, and by which our great state has
been emasculated into his retention. Any healthy democracy would’ve
been impenetrable by the likes of Trump, but America is infected deep
within.
Bob Mueller stands as a testament to
the very ideals that were meant to differentiate between our
democracy and the rest of the world. His report is an example of the
stark honesty, and appropriate blindness of executive pursuits of
justice which under-gird the basic assumptions of fairness which we
are told to expect from government. These principles seem like a
distant mythology in such an administration. Nevertheless, the work
of the Special Counsel’s office cannot be mistaken. Trump is a
Criminal, he is a Threat, and he must be removed by representatives
of the people for the sake of the people.
We are fools if we expect our institutions to accomplish this without our input. If we can learn anything from the life and times of the Special Counsel, it’s that justice is not won by complacent men. Valor, Courage, Truthfulness, Conscientiousness, and incessant democratic political action are necessary ingredients of every notable American accomplishment. May these virtues coax our heroes into the fight, and may the security of our democracy be bought and paid for by the roar of a million warriors for Democracy and the Liberal values she’s birthed.
References:
Encyclopedia Brittanica (2019), “Robert Mueller, American Law Enforcement Official” retrieved 7/27/2019 from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Robert-Mueller#ref340187
F.B.I (2016), “Remembering 9/11: FBI Has Evolved in Response to Changing Threats”Retrieved 7/27/2019 from https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/remembering-911
Guardian News (2019), “Robert Mueller testimony to Congress on Trump and Russia- watch live” Retrieved 7/27/2019 from
“McConnell v. Federal Election Commission.” (n.d.). Oyez. Retrieved July 27, 2019, from https://www.oyez.org/cases/2003/02-1674
My American Life 