EDITORIAL: Mueller time, with a whimper

After two years of hints, cajoling and cattery, Special Counsel Robert Mueller dropped his report on the Trump organization in a late Friday news dump, almost like he was embarrassed to file it.

This may be the most perfect government report in history, if only because no one has seen it yet, and as such can be the perfect blank screen for all of the projections we’ve built up as individuals, as political parties and as a nation.

Trump’s folks can say that it vindicates Trump against everything from collusion with Russian efforts to influence our election, to obstruction of justice, to spray-tanning. Folks on the left are already crafting the sorts of corrupt and conspiratorial scenarios the likes of which we haven’t seen since Obama’s birth certificate.

Or, you know, Benghazi.

Blame it on the media for outsizing the import of the Mueller Report. Blame it on Trump for being exactly the sort of guy that most Americans wouldn’t mind seeing taken down a few more notches. Blame it on the Trumpers who were determined to shout down any findings before they were even registered.

But the Mueller report has become that rare document that satisfies everyone and no one at the same time.

And that’s precisely because no one has seen it.

But truly, we have been watching the results of Mueller’s investigation roll out in real time for more than a year. Trump’s former campaign chair, Paul Manafort, got 7.5 years in federal prison for tax fraud, money laundering and obstruction of justice. Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen pled guilty to making false statements to Congress about his meetings with Russian business interests during the campaign. Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn is awaiting sentencing for lying to the FBI about his meetings with Russian government officials. George Papadopoulos, Rick Gates and Alex van der Zwann all pled guilty to activities they engaged in while working for the man who would become president. Roger Stone, who pled not guilty of lying to Congress and witness tampering, awaits trial.

Oh, and 25 Russian agents and companies were indicted for influencing the American presidential election of 2016, and also wire fraud.

So those who say the Mueller Report is a big ball of nothing are just as mistaken as those who claim it will bring down the president when it inevitably gets leaked to some ambitious Washington DC reporter.

If we’re smart, the electorate will move on to the next big thing, which is finding a candidate that can actually beat Trump, and not dwell on an investigation that will never bear the sort of fruit for which they clamor.