Atlantic journalist lays out why Robert Mueller will never indict Donald Trump. Not what we want to hear, but he makes a good point.

Courtesy of The Atlantic:  

Mueller will not indict Trump for obstruction of justice or for any other crime. Period. Full stop. End of story. Speculations to the contrary are just fantasy.

(Yes, I wanted to stop reading right about here as well, but I urge you to at least read to the bottom of the post.)

He won’t do it for the good and sufficient reason that the Department of Justice has a long-standing legal opinion that sitting presidents may not be indicted. First issued in 1973 during the Nixon era, the policy was reaffirmed in 2000, during the Clinton era. These rules bind all Department of Justice employees, and Mueller, in the end, is a Department of Justice employee. More to the point, if we know anything about Mueller, we think we know that he follows the rules—all of them. Even the ones that restrict him in ways he would prefer they not. And if he were to choose not to follow the rules, that, in turn, would be a reasonable justification for firing him. So … the special counsel will not indict the president. 

What can Mueller do if he finds evidence of criminality involving the president? He can and will (as authorized by Department of Justice regulations) file a report on his findings with the attorney general (or, since Attorney General Sessions is, in this case, recused, with the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein). Rosenstein will then be faced with the important decision of whether and how to make that report public—whether to convey it to Congress or not; whether to release it publicly or not. The regulations are so vague (they say only that he “may determine that public release of these reports would be in the public interest, to the extent that release would comply with applicable legal restrictions”) that they, in effect, give Rosenstein plenary discretion to do whatever he thinks is in the best interest of the country. 

So, every time you read about the threat to fire Mueller, remember this—the critical actor in most future scenarios is not Mueller, but Rosenstein. Knowing Rosenstein personally, I have high confidence that he will make what he thinks is the best decision for the country—the same may not be true of his replacement (or of the replacement attorney general, should Sessions be fired). That, of course, is why the highly dubious “secret memo” prepared by House Republicans reportedly targets Rosenstein—even though he is a Trump appointee who advocated firing Comey, Trump supporters fear he will follow the rule of law.

Well that sucks.

It also could help to explain not only why Trump seems so convinced that the Mueller investigation will not end his presidency, but also why the Republicans are attempting to undermine Rosenstein.

If Trump replaces Rosenstein with his own guy, he could make sure that Mueller's findings, no matter how scandalous, will never see the light of day.

That means, and has likely always meant, that the only way to remove Trump from office is through impeachment.

And the only way to accomplish that is to flood the House and the Senate with as many Democrats as possible.

In other words it is up to us, the voters.