Mueller Quietly Established His Credibility and Re-Focused the Agenda, Part 3: And We're Not Listening to His Warnings

The Atlantic’s David A. Graham tells us that we are missing the point of Special Counsel Robert A. Mueller’s rhetoric. In his May 29, 2019 speech, Mueller began and ended by warning us that Russia attacked our democracy by interfering in the 2016 election and that they are likely to do so again. Everybody, including me, paid attention to Mueller’s strong hints about whether Trump committed obstruction of justice. But that was not Mueller’s main point!

Every good debater knows how important it is to emphasize your main points. Every speech teacher tells students to state their main point in the speech’s introduction and to repeat it in the conclusion. However, every communication professor also knows that communication is not complete until the receivers have heard and interpreted the message for themselves. Mueller emphasized the danger of Russian interference. Most receivers only heard his comments about obstruction of justice.

Robert Mueller III, FBI photo

After a couple preliminary comments, Mueller told us his main point: “Let me begin where the appointment order begins: and that is interference in the 2016 presidential election.” He continued to remind us that the grand jury had indicted “Russian intelligence officers who are part of the Russian military” who hacked into the Clinton campaign’s computers. When they did so, “they stole private information, and then released that information through fake online identities and through the organization Wikileaks.” He emphasized that “The releases were designed in time to interfere with our election and to damage a presidential candidate.” He also pointed out that “a private Russian entity engaged in a social media operation or Russian citizens posed as Americans in order to interfere in the election.” So, Mueller made his point about Russian interference and made it a substantial portion of his speech.

Then, and only then, Mueller talked about the obstruction issue. Noting how important it was to understand Russian interference in the investigation, Mueller said that “When the subject of an investigation obstructs that investigation or lies to investigators, it strikes at the core of the government’s effort to find the truth and hold wrongdoers accountable.”

He concluded his speech by returning to the Russian interference: “I will close by reiterating the central allegation of our indictment – that there were multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our election. That allegation deserves the attention of every American. Thank you.”

Mr. Trump and his supporters are mostly interested in preserving his presidency, and therefore they attack the obstruction issue with every bit of ammunition they have. Trump’s opponents are mostly interested in ending his presidency. But Mueller began and ended his speech by talking about Russian interference. And what are we doing about the interference? Not much.

The House of Representatives has passed legislation to approve election security. The Republican-controlled Senate has not even brought the issue up for debate. Is this because they think they benefit from the Russian interference? Is it because they are willing to sell out our country to win the next election? Or do they have some innocent motive? The Senate leadership won’t say.

In any case, those are the more important questions. The country has survived having bad presidents in the past. That’s not the main issue. The main issue is whether we are going to let another country stomp on our democracy. And, yet, we are hardly talking about that. Whether Trump committed obstruction of justice dominates the news. The Senate’s refusal to protect our elections has become a trivial story. Why?

Mueller tried to warn us. He made Russian interference the first and last points of his speech. In what psychologists call the primacy and recency effects, that should have called our attention to Russian interference.

Anyone who follows social media can see that foreign bots are still active on social media and they are almost all pro-Trump. Unfortunately, we are all interested in the horserace aspects of the presidential campaign. If the president committed obstruction of justice, a very serious crime, this will surely affect his ability to continue in office. It is our interpretation as listeners that the obstruction of justice issue is more important. But Mueller tried to redirect us toward protecting our democracy against the foreign cyber-attack. Is anyone listening?