Re: “Assault weapons: DOJ threatens city, state on bans,” May 5 news story

Regarding President Donald Trump’s move to sue Colorado over its existing gun regulations and his obviously vindictive indictment of James Comey, I have an observation.

These are yet additional moves by the administration to deflect our attention from other, more important U.S. and world events (has anyone heard of the war in Iran and its horrible human and economic costs?). I feel bad for even writing about these subjects because it shows that I am falling for this deflection too. However, I write this letter to offer a suggestion.

Denver, the state of Colorado, and James Comey are most likely incurring a great deal of expense in defending these frivolous actions. When the cases are either thrown out or defeated, Denver, Colorado and Comey should be compensated for these legal expenses. This compensation should not be paid from the Justice Department coffer, which is taxpayer money, but from Donald Trump himself. The man understands only money, and he needs to pay for this show of manipulation and impunity.

Mark Edward Geyer, Denver

It’s about the Constitution

I have read a great deal about Colorado’s liberal Democrat politicians passing unenforceable, “feel-good” laws that clearly violate the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment. Didn’t these politicians swear to support the U.S. Constitution when they took their oaths of office?

There is such a thing as the that places federal law and the U.S. Constitution “over” any state’s infringement of the people’s Second Amendment rights.

RD VanOrsdale, Broomfield

Crime-solving doesn’t require invasive technologies and erosion of privacy

Re: “Police opposition kills Flock camera data limits,” April 30 news story

Dear Gov. Polis,

I strongly oppose any policy or rhetoric that treats mass surveillance as a necessary tool for public safety. Suggesting that law enforcement needs to monitor the movements of the entire population to solve crimes is both misleading and historically false. Crimes were investigated and solved long before governments had the ability to collect pervasive location and behavioral data on ordinary people — and they are still solved today without it.

The absence of mass surveillance does not “hamper” law enforcement¶¶Òőap ability to investigate crimes. Effective policing relies on targeted, evidence-based investigations, warrants, due process, and professional skill — not on tracking everyone, regardless of suspicion. Equating blanket surveillance with public safety conflates convenience with necessity.

Collecting data on the entire citizenry treats everyone as a suspect by default and undermines fundamental privacy rights without proven benefits. Public safety and civil liberties are not in conflict here. We can support lawful, effective law enforcement while firmly rejecting indiscriminate surveillance of the public.

I urge you to clearly state that mass surveillance is not required for effective policing and to prioritize policies that respect privacy, constitutional limits, and the presumption of innocence.

Jeffrey Marquez, Thornton

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Robert S. III, the FBI director who transformed the nation’s premier law enforcement agency into a terrorism-fighting force after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and who later became special counsel in charge of , has died. He was 81.

“With deep sadness, we are sharing the news that Bob passed away” on Friday night, his family said in a statement Saturday. “His family asks that their privacy be respected.”

At the FBI, Mueller set about almost immediately overhauling the bureau’s mission to meet the law enforcement needs of the 21st century, beginning his 12-year tenure just one week before the and serving across presidents of both political parties. The cataclysmic event instantaneously switched the bureau’s top priority from solving domestic crime to preventing terrorism, a shift that imposed an almost impossibly difficult standard on Mueller and the rest of the federal government: preventing 99 out of 100 terrorist plots wasn’t good enough.

Later, into whether the Trump campaign illegally coordinated with Russia to sway the outcome of the 2016 presidential race. His on Trump’s behalf and that the Trump campaign welcomed the help, but Mueller and his team ultimately found insufficient evidence of a criminal conspiracy and did not make a prosecutorial decision about whether Trump had obstructed justice.

Mueller was maligned throughout the two-year investigation by Trump, who regularly derided it as a “witch hunt.” But the patrician Princeton graduate and Vietnam veteran who walked away from a lucrative midcareer job to stay in public service remained silent throughout the criticism, exhibiting an old-school, buttoned-down style that made him an anachronism during a social media-saturated era.

Trump posted on social media after the announcement of Mueller’s death: “Robert Mueller just died. Good, I’m glad he’s dead.” The Republican president added, “He can no longer hurt innocent people!”

Republican President George W. Bush, who nominated Mueller, said in a statement that he was “deeply saddened” by Mueller’s death and praised him for having “dedicated his life to public service” and for overhauling the FBI’s mission. Democratic President Barack Obama, who kept Mueller on even after his 10-year term had expired, called him “one of the finest directors in the history of the FBI” who saved “countless lives” after transforming the bureau.

“But it was his relentless commitment to the rule of law and his unwavering belief in our bedrock values that made him one of the most respected public servants of our time,” Obama added.

The FBI did not respond to a request seeking comment and current , a Trump loyalist, did not immediately note the death on social media. The FBI Agents Association cited Mueller’s “commitment to public service and to the FBI’s mission.“

A second act as an investigator of a sitting president

The second-longest-serving director in FBI history, behind only J. Edgar Hoover, Mueller held the job until 2013 after agreeing to Obama’s request to remain on the job after the conclusion of his tenure.

After several years in private practice, Mueller was asked by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to return to public service as in the Trump-Russia inquiry.

Mueller’s stern visage and taciturn demeanor matched the seriousness of the mission, as his team spent nearly two years quietly conducting one of the most consequential, yet divisive, investigations in Justice Department history. He held no news conferences and made no public appearances during the investigation, remaining quiet despite attacks from Trump and his supporters and creating an aura of mystery around his work.

All told, Mueller brought criminal charges against six of the president’s associates, including his and .

His released in April 2019 identified substantial contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia but did not allege a criminal conspiracy. Mueller laid out damaging details about Trump’s efforts to seize control of the investigation, and even shut it down, though he declined to decide whether Trump had broken the law, in part because of department policy barring the indictment of a sitting president.

But, in perhaps the most memorable language of the report, Mueller pointedly noted: “If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment.”

The nebulous conclusion did not deliver the knockout punch to the administration that some Trump opponents had hoped for, nor did it trigger a sustained push by House Democrats to impeach the president — on separate allegations related to Ukraine.

The outcome also left room for Attorney General to insert his own views. He and his team made their own determination that Trump did not obstruct justice, and he and Mueller privately tangled over a four-page summary letter from Barr that Mueller felt did not adequately capture his report’s conclusions.

Mueller deflated Democrats during a highly anticipated congressional hearing on his report when he offered terse, one-word answers and appeared uncertain in his testimony. Frequently, he seemed to waver on details of his investigation. It was hardly the commanding performance many had expected from Mueller, who had a towering reputation in Washington.

Over the next months, Barr made clear his own disagreements with the foundations of the Russia investigation, moving to dismiss a false-statements prosecution that Mueller had brought against former national security adviser Michael Flynn, even though that investigation ended in a guilty plea.

Mueller’s tenure as special counsel was the capstone of a career spent in government.

FBI transformed into a national security agency

At his 2001 confirmation hearing, Mueller spoke emphatically about the FBI’s role in combating everything from health care fraud to crimes against children and described the agency he would soon lead as “vital to the preservation of our civil order and our civil rights.”

“One could hardly overstate the significance of the FBI in the life of every American,” he said.

It quickly became clear that his time as FBI director would be defined by the Sept. 11 attacks and its aftermath as an FBI granted broad new surveillance and national security powers scrambled to confront an ascendant al-Qaida and interrupt plots and take terrorists off the street before they could act.

It was a new model of policing for an FBI that had long been accustomed to investigating crimes that had already occurred.

When he became FBI director, “I had expected to focus on areas familiar to me as a prosecutor: drug cases, white-collar criminal cases and violent crime,” Mueller told a group of lawyers in October 2012.

Instead, “we had to focus on long-term, strategic change. We had to enhance our intelligence capabilities and upgrade our technology. We had to build upon strong partnerships and forge new friendships, both here at home and abroad.”

In response, the FBI shifted 2,000 of the total 5,000 agents in the bureau’s criminal programs to national security.

In hindsight, the transformation was a success. At the time, there were problems, and Mueller said as much. In a speech near the end of his tenure, Mueller recalled “those days when we were under attack by the media and being clobbered by Congress; when the attorney general was not at all happy with me.”

Among the issues: The Justice Department’s inspector general found that the FBI circumvented the law to obtain thousands of phone call records for terrorism investigations.

Mueller decided that the FBI would not take part in abusive interrogation techniques of suspected terrorists, but the policy was not effectively communicated down the line for nearly two years. In an effort to move the FBI into a paperless environment, the bureau spent over $600 million on two computer systems — one that was 2½ years overdue and a predecessor that was only partially completed and had to be scrapped after consultants declared it obsolete and riddled with problems.

For the nation’s top law enforcement agency, it was a rocky trip through rough terrain.

But there were many successes as well, including thwarted terror plots and headline-making criminal cases like the one against fraudster Bernie Madoff. The Republican also cultivated an apolitical reputation on the job, nearly quitting in a clash with the Bush administration over a surveillance program that he and his successor, James Comey, considered unlawful.

He famously stood alongside Comey, then deputy attorney general, during a dramatic 2004 hospital standoff over federal wiretapping rules. The two men planted themselves at the bedside of the ailing Attorney General John Ashcroft to block Bush administration officials from making an end run to get Ashcroft’s permission to reauthorize a secret no-warrant wiretapping program.

In an extraordinary vote of confidence, Congress, at the Obama administration’s request, approved a two-year extension for Mueller to remain at his post.

“A great American died today, one I was lucky enough to learn from and stand beside,” Comey said in an Instagram post.

Another former FBI director, Christopher Wray, who was appointed during Trump’s first term and then served under President Joe Biden, said in a separate statement that Mueller was the “consummate straight shooter.”

“As everyone at the FBI who worked for, or with him, is well aware, Bob Mueller embodied the virtue of prioritizing service to the country over self, and he always put the mission first,” Wray said.

A Marine who served in Vietnam before becoming a prosecutor

Mueller was born in New York City and grew up in a well-to-do suburb of Philadelphia.

He received a bachelor’s degree from Princeton and a master’s degree in international relations from New York University. He then joined the Marines, serving for three years as an officer during the Vietnam War. He led a rifle platoon and was awarded a Bronze Star, Purple Heart and two Navy Commendation Medals. Following his military service, Mueller earned a law degree from the University of Virginia.

Mueller became a federal prosecutor and relished the work of handling criminal cases. He rose quickly through the ranks in U.S. attorneys’ offices in San Francisco and Boston from 1976 to 1988. Later, as head of the Justice Department’s criminal division in Washington, he oversaw a range of high-profile prosecutions that chalked up victories against targets as varied as Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega and New York crime boss John Gotti.

In a mid-career switch that shocked colleagues, Mueller left a job at a prestigious law firm to join the homicide division of the U.S. attorney’s office in the nation’s capital. There, he immersed himself as a senior litigator in a bulging caseload of unsolved drug-related murders in a city rife with violence.

Mueller was driven by a career-long passion for the painstaking work of building successful criminal cases. Even as head of the FBI, he would dig into the details of investigations, some of them major cases but others less so, sometimes surprising agents who suddenly found themselves on the phone with the director.

“The management books will tell you that as the head of an organization, you should focus on the vision,” Mueller once said. But “for me there were and are today those areas where one needs to be substantially personally involved,” especially in regard to “the terrorist threat and the need to know and understand that threat to its roots.”

Two terrorist attacks occurred toward the end of Mueller’s watch: the Boston Marathon bombing and the Fort Hood shootings in Texas. Both weighed heavily on him, he acknowledged in an interview two weeks before his departure.

“You sit down with victims’ families, you see the pain they go through and you always wonder whether there isn’t something more” that could have been done, he said.

___ Associated Press writer Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.

There was the “Access Hollywood” tape, in which Donald Trump confessed to his proclivity for serial sexual assault. The fabled “pee tape,” the existence of which would have been pornographic proof of Russiagate, haunted the first few years of the Trump presidency.

James Comey hoped there were recordings of what he described as Trump’s mafialike efforts to suborn him. (“Lordy, I hope there are tapes.”) Michael Cohen released a tape in which the president assented to a scheme to buy the silence of a former Playboy model he allegedly slept with. Omarosa Manigault Newman had a tape in which she and two other Black Trump staffers worried about the existence of another tape, which she claimed had caught Trump using the vilest of racial slurs. Actor Tom Arnold had a whole cable series about his search, ultimately fruitless, for incriminating Trump tapes.

Trump recordings loom so large because they offer the prospect of breaking through his alternative reality, of nailing down this most slippery and mendacious of presidents, of showing everyone who he really is. But even those that materialize are often quickly forgotten, as Trump’s approval rating stays low but stubbornly stable and one scandal is eclipsed by another. Our politics suffers no shortage of incontrovertible proof of Trump’s venality. What it lacks is accountability.

It¶¶Òőap possible, maybe even likely, that famed journalist Bob Woodward’s utterly damning tapes of Trump discussing the coronavirus will fall into this same nothing-matters cycle. But decent people with public platforms should try to make sure that doesn’t happen.

It¶¶Òőap not just that these tapes reveal the president lying about the pandemic that has ravaged America on his watch. What¶¶Òőap shocking — even after more than 3 1/2 numbing years — is the deliberate, willful nature of the lies. Unlike most Trump tapes, Woodward’s actually tell us something new about the president, rather than just confirming what we think we already know.

Because Trump is a prodigious consumer of propaganda as well as a creator of it, it¶¶Òőap not always clear how aware he is of spreading disinformation. People who’ve spent time with him often conclude that truth has no meaning for him. Woodward quoted Dan Coats, Trump’s former director of national intelligence, saying, “To him, a lie is not a lie. It¶¶Òőap just what he thinks. He doesn’t know the difference between the truth and a lie.” Trump creates for his supporters a carapace of malignant fantasy, but he often seems to live inside it with them.

Yet in recordings Woodward has released of Trump talking about the coronavirus — excerpts from interviews conducted for Woodward’s new book, “Rage” — the president doesn’t sound ignorant or deluded. Rather, he sounds uncommonly lucid. On Feb. 7, Trump described the virus as airborne and “more deadly than even your strenuous flus,” adding, “this is 5% versus 1%, or less than 1%.” It¶¶Òőap not clear whether Trump thought that COVID-19 had a 5% case fatality rate — a number that seemed plausible in February — but he clearly knew that compared with the flu, it was several times more likely to kill.

And yet he told the country just the opposite. “The percentage for the flu is under 1%,” Trump said on March 7. “But this could also be under 1% because many of the people that aren’t that sick don’t report.” Despite knowing that the virus was airborne, he mocked mask-wearing and held several large indoor rallies. He told Woodward in March that “plenty of young people” were getting sick, but over the summer would insist that 99% of cases were “totally harmless” and that children are “almost immune.”

We know now that this wasn’t just Trump being buffoonish and engaging in magical thinking. It was conscious deception. Publicly, Trump kept insisting that the virus would disappear. Privately, he told Woodward, “I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.”

Of course, Trump usually loves creating panic — about immigrants, about antifa, about low-income people invading the suburbs. But there is one place he wants to maintain tranquility: in the financial markets. “Just stay calm; it will go away,” he said on March 10. “We want to protect our shipping industry, our cruise industry, cruise ships; we want to protect our airline industry.” He added, “A lot of good things are going to happen. The consumer is ready.”

And so Trump lied to the country about the calamity that would soon overtake it. His administration didn’t ramp up a national testing or contact-tracing program. He and his supporters pressured states to open up prematurely. A July Pew poll found that only 46% of Republicans and those who lean toward the Republican Party considered the coronavirus a major threat to public health, compared with 85% of Democrats and Democratic leaners. Trump could have made Republicans take the virus seriously. He chose not to.

Not long after attending the president¶¶Òőap June rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain died of COVID-19. In August, whoever is maintaining Cain’s Twitter account tweeted, “It looks like the virus is not as deadly as the mainstream media first made it out to be.” It was Trump who made such a cultish commitment to denying the lethality of COVID-19 into a sign of loyalty. And all the time, he knew better.

Trump supporters may not care that their president has knowingly endangered them, withholding potentially lifesaving information that he readily confided to an elite Washington journalist. But that doesn’t change the importance of what Woodward has captured on tape. It¶¶Òőap now clear that just because Trump is lying to us, that doesn’t mean he’s lying to himself.

Trump’s lies sabotaged efforts to contain the coronavirus, almost certainly leading to many more deaths than it would have caused under a minimally competent and nonsociopathic leader. On Wednesday, there were 1,176 coronavirus deaths in the United States. In Canada, there were two.

When someone’s actions lead to the death of another, we evaluate that person’s intent and state of mind in order to assign the right measure of blame. When a president¶¶Òőap actions lead to the deaths of thousands, we should do the same.

Michelle Goldberg has been an opinion columnist since 2017. She is the author of several books about politics, religion and women’s rights, and was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize for public service in 2018 for reporting on workplace sexual harassment issue.

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The action was a stunning reversal for one of the signature cases brought by special counsel Robert Mueller. It comes even though prosecutors for the past three years have maintained that Flynn lied to the FBI in a January 2017 interview about his conversations with the Russian ambassador.

Flynn himself admitted as much, pleading guilty before later asking to withdraw the plea, and he became a key cooperator for Mueller as the special counsel investigated ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 political campaign.

Thursday’s action was swiftly embraced by Trump, who has relentlessly tweeted about the “outrageous” case and last week pronounced Flynn “exonerated.” It could also newly energize Trump supporters who have taken up the retired Army lieutenant general as a cause.

But it will also add to Democratic complaints that Attorney General Barr is excessively loyal to the president, and could be a distraction for a Justice Department that for months has sought to focus on crimes arising from the coronavirus.

Shortly before the filing was submitted, Brandon Van Grack, a Mueller team member and veteran prosecutor on the case, withdrew from the prosecution, a possible sign of disagreement with the decision.

After the Flynn announcement, Trump declared that his former aide had been “an innocent man” all along. He accused Obama administration officials of targeting Flynn and said, “I hope that a big price is going to be paid.” At one point he went further, saying of the effort investigating Flynn: “It’s treason. It’s treason.”

In court documents filed Thursday, the Justice Department said that after reviewing newly disclosed information and other materials, it agreed with Flynn’s lawyers that his interview with the FBI should never have taken place because he had not had inappropriate contacts with Russians. The interview, the department said, was “conducted without any legitimate investigative basis.”

The U.S. attorney reviewing the Flynn case, Jeff Jensen, formally recommended dropping it to Barr last week, the course of action vehemently and publicly recommended by Trump, who appointed Barr to head the Justice Department.

Barr has increasingly challenged the federal Trump-Russia investigation, saying in a television interview last month that it was started “without any basis.” In February, he overruled a decision by prosecutors in the case of Roger Stone, a longtime Trump friend and adviser, in favor of a more lenient recommended sentence.

Jensen said in a statement: “Through the course of my review of General Flynn’s case, I concluded the proper and just course was to dismiss the case. I briefed Attorney General Barr on my findings, advised him on these conclusions, and he agreed.”

The department¶¶Òőap action comes amid an internal review into the handling of the case and an aggressive effort by Flynn’s lawyers to challenge the basis for the prosecution. The lawyers cited newly disclosed FBI emails and notes last week to allege that Flynn was improperly trapped into lying when agents interviewed him at the White House days after Trump’s inauguration. Though none of the documents appeared to undercut the central allegation that Flynn had lied to the FBI, Trump last week pronounced him “exonerated.”

Thursday’s filing was the latest dramatic development in a years-old case full of twists and turns. In recent months, Flynn’s attorneys have leveled a series of allegations about the FBI’s actions and asked to withdraw his guilty plea. A judge has rejected most of the claims and not ruled on others, including the bid to revoke the plea.

Earlier this year, Barr appointed Jensen, the top federal prosecutor in St. Louis to investigate the handling of Flynn’s case.

As part of that process, the Justice Department gave Flynn’s attorneys a series of emails and notes, including one handwritten note from a senior FBI official that mapped out internal deliberations about the purpose of the Flynn interview: “What¶¶Òőap our goal? Truth/admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?” the official wrote.

Other documents show the FBI had been prepared weeks before its interview of Flynn to drop its investigation into whether he was acting at the direction of Russia. Later that month, though, as the White House insisted that Flynn had never discussed sanctions with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, FBI officials grew more concerned by Flynn’s conversations with the diplomat and decided to keep the investigation open so they could question him about that. Two agents visited him at the White House on Jan. 24., 2017.

But Thursday’s filing says the FBI had no basis to continue investigating Flynn after failing to find that he had done anything wrong. It says there was nothing on his Russia calls “to indicate an inappropriate relationship between Mr. Flynn and a foreign power,” and that none of the statements he made to the FBI had any relevance to the underlying investigation into whether the Trump campaign and Russia were illegally coordinating.

It also cites internal uncertainty within the FBI over whether Flynn had lied, noting that the agents who interviewed him reported that he had a “very sure demeanor” and that-then FBI Director James Comey had said it was a “close” call.

Flynn pleaded guilty that December, among the first of the president¶¶Òőap aides to admit guilt in Mueller’s investigation. He acknowledged that he lied about his conversations with Kislyak, in which he encouraged Russia not to retaliate against the U.S. for sanctions imposed by the Obama administration over election interference.

He provided such extensive cooperation that prosecutors said he was entitled to a sentence of probation instead of prison.

However, his sentencing hearing was abruptly cut short after Flynn, facing a stern rebuke from U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, asked to be able to continue cooperating and earn credit toward a more lenient sentence.

Flynn’s views about the case were already on display when his then-attorneys pointedly noted in their sentencing memo that the FBI had not warned him that it was against the law to lie when they interviewed him.

He later hired new attorneys, including conservative commentator Sidney Powell, who have taken a far more confrontational stance to the government. The lawyers accused prosecutors of withholding documents and evidence they said was favorable to the case and have repeatedly noted that one of the two agents who interviewed Flynn was fired for having sent derogatory text messages about Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Re: “What¶¶Òőap polluting Colorado’s air?” Jan. 19 news story

You can’t have your cake and eat it, too. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment should turn around, go back to the legislature and tell them to stop promoting Colorado as the next best place to migrate to.

From the governor’s office to each and every municipality that has a so-called economic-development program charged with enhancing its desirability to out-of-staters, the message to the rest of the U.S. needs to be clearly articulated: “Colorado is full. Our skies are polluted, our roads are congested and we have no more water to provide newcomers. You may be able to get a job here, but you can’t afford the housing costs.”

Denver and surrounding cities continue to encourage population expansion in order to swell their revenues, and it must stop.

Projects like Westminster’s proposed Uplands development (2,350 new houses) must be stopped. It is unfair of the cities to create a problem with their P.R. campaigns and then dump it in the lap of the agencies to solve. The only effective solution, like the only effective solution to climate change, is to control the rate of population growth.

Susan Williams, Lakewood

Please stop finding scapegoats for global warming! The oil and gas companies are only providing a product that each and every one of you is choosing to use.

Fossil fuels also fill in the energy gaps of renewables, enabling us even to use renewables.

If you are not walking or biking to work, then you are part of the problem. If you are heating or cooling your home, then you are part of the problem. If you are using the internet (data center), wearing synthetic fabrics (not cotton, wool or hemp), buying anything wrapped in plastic, or throwing any food away, then you are part of the problem.

It is up to each and every one of us to reduce our footprint. Please take some responsibility!

What are you willing to give up?

Susie Law, Denver

This was a very interesting article describing the current state of climate-changing carbon pollution, broken down by quantities contributed by major sources. The article further describes current actions taken in the effort to amend the continually increasing effects posed by greenhouse gas emissions, giving cause for hope that we may ultimately reign in the problems we are creating in favor of a future with a livable climate.

It would be informative and helpful if the paper were to publish, alongside articles like these, information about organizations and their priorities.

For example, I am aware of NRDC Action Fund and Environment Defense Action Fund, which are two national environmental organizations that advocate for legislative action to promote a clean energy future. One of their projects is the Green Team, with which I am a volunteer in Aurora. The objective of the Green Team is to build a local voice for these issue areas.

The climate crisis requires urgent action by our representatives. I have been proud to work with the Green Team to ensure Congressional leadership from my representative in Aurora, Jason Crow.
Again, it is important to keep the status of climate change at the forefront of public awareness, but it is equally important that individual readers are aware of organizations and activities with which they can become involved in fighting for an equitable solution.

Robert Wilson, Aurora

Solve emissions issues by solving RTD cycle issues

Re: “Metro air quality: Residents drive more despite other options” and “Denver will build 125 miles of bike lanes …” Jan. 17 news stories

The most obvious solution to reducing emissions in the greater Denver metropolitan area is first to increase the convenience and reliability of a service already established and second make existing infrastructure safer. In the first case, it¶¶Òőap called the Regional Transit District. In the second, adding safer and more bicycle lanes.

This is the wrong time to build wider roads, which will soon be as congested as what we currently have.

Denver’s plan to add 125 additional miles in bike lanes is a start. The surrounding suburbs need to pledge that and more. Instead of spending more money on roads, make RTD convenient and reliable. Encourage more bicycle commuting by creating safe lanes.

I had eagerly anticipated the opening of the G-Line as a convenient way to travel to downtown and the A-Line to travel to the airport. I also like to use the buses depending on my destination and to keep my car in the garage.

But, I am not interested in waiting for a bus or train that never shows or is on a less frequent schedule due to the lack of drivers.

I encourage Colorado officials to put money into logical programs (RTD and bike lanes), not more and wider roads.

It¶¶Òőap a no-brainer.

Mariann Storck, Wheat Ridge

A quick way to increase ridership on RTD rail? More parking at RTD stations. I can’t use RTD to airport or Denver because I can never get parking. Recently I had to drive back home and call Uber just to get me to the station, and there is no overnight parking, so I can’t use RTD to the airport.
I might as well just take Uber to the airport. That is good news for Uber and Lyft — bad news for RTD, which keeps cutting train schedules because of low ridership.

Lorraine Lore, Littleton

Denver’s pit bull ban is in place for good reasons

Re: “Councilman wants pit bull probation, not ban, in Denver,” Jan. 16 news story

It seems shocking that Councilman Chris Herndon would lead an effort to abandon Denver’s sensible and long serving ban on ownership of pit bull breeds in our town. A google search using “pit bull attack deaths” yields nearly unending pages of search results festooned with hideous news accounts and obituary notices.
A 2007 study published in the American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology stated that pit bull breeds present special and pronounced risks versus other breeds, because they tend not to snarl, bare their teeth or make other aggressive gestures or warnings before attacking humans. The study cited the fact that pit bulls also tend to take multiple bites, using jaws which can apply up to 1,800 pounds-per-square inch of pressure — far in excess of virtually all other breeds. Lastly, the study cites the fact that attacking pit bulls tend to attack continuously — unlike virtually all other breeds, which tend to bite once.
As has been stated by many, we don’t need to teach a pointer to point. We don’t need to teach a retriever to retrieve. Why do some people refuse to accept that we don’t have to “train” a fighting dog to fight?

Peter Ehrlich, Denver

Don’t cast your ballot early

Re: “It¶¶Òőap billionaires vs. grassroots,” Jan. 12 news story

The sub-headline on the Sunday’s Post front page should not go without consideration — “Mail voting in Colorado begins in a month, but not all the candidates are making their presence known here yet.”

There is too much information coming out between now and the primaries and Election Day. Consider former FBI director James Comey’s pre-2016-election bombshell. What if that had real teeth or even indisputable evidence of a crime? Can you cast a vote without all information one should have to make the best-informed decision? I maintain, an uninformed vote is worse than no vote at all.

In the article, political strategist Rick Ridder and other political experts say that Colorado will matter in the race to determine who takes on Donald Trump in November. How many will potentially throw that vote away because they voted without all the facts? We should not accept ballots cast before election day (for both the primaries and general). The only exception being an absentee ballot when one is required to be outside the election district on election day.

Colorado owes more to its constituents and nation than to accept uninformed votes. Every American should cherish their right to vote and do so on election day no matter what. What is more important? The American right to vote should not be reduced to a convenience. I, as you should, implore our legislature to correct our voting protocol. Vote on election day and demand everyone else does too! If they’re too busy on election day, I would surmise they don’t really care!

Paul C. Gremse, Denver

Kids can’t rideshare alone

Re: “Cramming for the school-choice exam,” Jan. 19 letter to the editor

A letter writer mentions parents sending their children to distant “choice” schools by employing a rideshare driver (Uber, Lyft, etc.) instead of driving their offspring to and from school themselves.
By doing so, the writer falls into the same deep trap as many such parents unwittingly do (I am being charitable; I suspect that many parents know the rules quite well and find it inconvenient).

Some rideshare drivers are forbidden to transport unaccompanied minors, yet as a driver I have arrived to pick up a rider outside a school many times only to find a child well under the age of 18 expecting to enter my car, the ride having been requested by the child’s mother. The rideshare companies do nothing to prevent this. Why? Because it would entail adding a brief age verification step to the ride request app; this leaves drivers with the responsibility of following the rules(and foregoing the fare).

It astounds me to realize that I have more care for the well-being of a child than that child’s parents.

Christopher Stimpson, Westminster

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Re: “,” Dec. 8 letter to the editor

With respect to the letter writer from Monument and writers of other letters and columnists with a similar argument, can we please end the canard that Trump will “side with Putin at every turn against America’s interests, which include the support of Ukraine against Russia” in light of the fact that Trump has been willing to arm Ukraine on a level that the Obama administration was never willing to do?

The Obama administration decided to offer Ukraine only nonlethal aid: radar equipment, MREs (meals-ready-to-eat) etc. in an attempt to avoid a Russian escalation. That is water under the bridge now, the wisdom of which we can judge later.

But the fact is that the Trump administration in December of 2017 (and again this year) approved the sale of Javelin Anti-tank Missiles to Ukraine — something Obama was not willing to do. This cannot possibly have pleased Vladimir Putin.

The Javelin is the most advanced anti-tank missile on the planet. It empowers a Ukrainian soldier to destroy a tank and kill all of the Russians inside of it that he cannot even see. The fact that the Ukrainians now have about 500 of them means that the Russian advance in Eastern Ukraine is frozen in place. A very effective policy.

So, in the interests of accuracy, will you please refrain from publishing claims that everything Trump does is in favor of Putin? It is simply and demonstrably not true.

Bob Lobis, Longmont

A fair hearing in the Senate is essential for justice

I have been watching, reading and learning about all of the evidence that the House investigation presented to the Congress about the articles of impeachment. It is clear to me that there was wrongdoing on the part of the president and his administration and needs more examination.

Why are Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans resisting a full trial and hearing of evidence before the Senate? What else are they hiding from the public? These questions need answers and if you agree call or write to Colorado Sens. Cory Gardner and Michael Bennet.

Ann Freeman, Denver

Re: “,” Jan. 17 editorial

As a former military officer and attorney/mediator with the U.S. Department of Justice, I twice took an oath to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” This is the same oath U.S. Rep. Ken Buck took when he worked for the Justice Department and when he was sworn in as a U.S. representative. We did not take an oath of allegiance to any political party and certainly not to any individual (as the German military did in the 1930s). Our oath to the Constitution is what establishes the rule of law and preserves our democracy and what distinguishes us from dictatorships and monarchies.

I briefly worked with Ken Buck in the U.S. Attorney’s Office here in Denver where he was an assistant U.S. attorney before he became a politician. I also volunteered with his campaign and contributed money because I thought Ken was a fact-based person. This was before I switched parties due to the outrageous antics and denial of facts by Republicans.

The question I now ask my Republican friends — including Ken Buck — is “when did you stop believing in our institutions?” Ken Buck was employed by the Department of Justice and used the FBI as his investigative arm. He relied on the integrity and honesty and apolitical approach of the agents to conduct impartial investigations for cases Ken was handling. Ken then issued subpoenas based on that data (evidence) and had every expectation — and right — to believe they would be honored; and if they were not honored, Ken would have them enforced.

Now Republicans denigrate the Department of Justice, trash the FBI, and condone the Trump administration’s refusal to honor lawful subpoenas issued by the House of Representatives. This is the very definition of “obstruction of justice” (or Congress).

Don’t Republicans realize they are setting the precedent for a Democratic president to ignore Congress in the future, just as Trump is doing now? Thus, by not upholding the checks and balances contained in the Constitution, and enforcing Congress’s role in that process, Republicans are damaging (destroying?) our fundamental founding principle, the “rule of law.”

An old Chinese proverb says, “When all else fails, keep your honor and your name.” I fear Republicans have lost both.

Kenneth T. Cook, Littleton

There are two articles of impeachment:

1) Abuse of power. Demanding public announcement of investigations into his political rival before Ukraine could get congressionally approved defense money and recognition for the new government.
2) Obstruction of Congress. The president directed every member of the government to ignore all subpoenas.

Despite Republican distractions, endless presidential obfuscation, and Fox News alternate facts, the articles of impeachment have nothing to do with the Mueller report, the dossier, James Comey, or the Trump campaign.

He did this while in office as the president, running a 6-month program (not just a phone call) to squeeze Ukraine to do a “favor” for his personal re-election campaign.

Seventeen witnesses all told the same story. He fired an ambassador who would not play along with the “drug deal” (John Bolton’s words according to a witness), created a shadow foreign policy outside of all oversight (”I want you to talk to Rudy”), and hung Ukraine out to dry even though Russia had already invaded their country and taken their Crimea territory, while threatening even more.
Our president has betrayed the public trust, and used public office for personal benefit. Then he directed everyone in government to cover it up.

His intent was to influence and interfere in the November 2020 election using foreign governments. How can anyone say “let¶¶Òőap just wait for the November 2020 election.” It¶¶Òőap an urgent threat to the United States, our elections, and our system of government.

Tom Newson, Loveland

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Sure, he’s getting impeached. And he is agitated about that, judging by his fandango of self-pitying tweets. And he did lose out to a 16-year-old girl for Time’s Person of the Year, which made him so jealous he couldn’t resist mocking her, amplifying just how big a loser he is.

But on a scale of one to prison, it wasn’t a bad week. His disheveled pal, Boris Johnson, won in a landslide over an unappetizing liberal, which many took as a good harbinger for Trump in 2020.

On the Hill, the party of Faust stuck together and vociferously defended their Apollyon. The most twisted defense was offered by Ken Buck, a Colorado Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, who said that it doesn’t make sense to impeach the president for obstructing Congress because “we were sent here to obstruct this Congress.” It was “a campaign promise.”

Even as Democrats declaimed that their hearings were momentous, many deemed them monotonous. The evening news broadcasts demoted impeachment to their No. 4 story, and no one seemed to move a scintilla in either direction.

I’ve often wondered if Trump was even worthy of impeachment. And now it seems as if he is degrading this process just as he degrades everything else.

As Carl Hulse wrote in The New York Times, “fears are mounting that presidential impeachment might, like the filibuster, become a regular feature of America’s weaponized politics.”

Trump is pretending that his pressure on Ukraine’s president was about fighting corruption when we all know that he fosters corruption. He sins in the saintliest areas. It was just announced that he had to pay $2 million to eight charities after admitting that he diverted funds from his foundation to his campaign and to cover business debts.

We see a constant parade of Washington pooh-bahs like James Comey, Andrew McCabe and John Brennan on cable, sounding the alarm and presenting themselves as the white hats to Trump’s black hat. Retired generals grimace at the president¶¶Òőap impetuous, ego-driven foreign policy.

The left keens that the president is destroying our sacred institutions and jeopardizing our national security. But for many Americans, the events of the last week prove that Trump is right to be cynical about a rigged system and deep-state elites.

The inspector general’s report about the FBI’s Russia investigation offered a hideous Dorian Gray portrait of the once-vaunted law enforcement agency. As Charlie Savage wrote in the Times, the report uncovered “a staggeringly dysfunctional and error-ridden process.” The FBI run by Comey and McCabe was sloppy, deceitful and cherry-picking — relying on nonsense spread by Christopher Steele.

With the stunning and sad “Afghanistan Papers,” The Washington Post revealed what we knew in our hearts: We have spent 18 years and $1 trillion in Afghanistan with generals lying and hiding evidence that the war was unwinnable, just as the generals did in Vietnam. As one general conceded, they did not understand Afghanistan and didn’t have “the foggiest notion” of what they were doing.

Even as President Barack Obama escalated the war, poured in more billions and promised to crack down on corruption, the Post said, the United States looked away and let its allies — the Afghan president, warlords, drug traffickers and defense contractors — wallow in fraud, corruption and dark money.

Then there’s “The Report,” streaming on Amazon: the heroic saga of Daniel Jones, played by Adam Driver. Jones is working for Dianne Feinstein on the Senate Intelligence Committee and spends years compiling a report documenting the CIA’s use of waterboarding and other forms of torture in secret prisons — a barbaric, un-American and ineffective system designed by two creepy psychologists who were paid about $81 million by the CIA.

The movie is not kind to Obama and Denis McDonough, suggesting that they protected the CIA and tried to bury grisly details from the report to fend off criticism that Obama was weak on terrorism. It is also a harsh portrayal of Brennan, MSNBC’s Voice of Morality, who, as CIA director, fought the Senate inquiry so hard that his operatives even clandestinely hacked into the computer network of committee staff members to figure out how they were getting their information.

If this weren’t enough institutional perfidy for one week, we had the Boeing hearing in Congress: A Federal Aviation Administration analysis done after the first deadly crash off the coast of Indonesia showed that the agency knew that if it did not act, the Boeing 737 Max was likely to crash 15 times in the 45 years it was expected to fly, theoretically killing more than 2,900 people. But that wasn’t enough to immediately ground it. The government is supposed to protect us from greedy capitalists, not the other way around.

Unfortunately, this climate of confusion and cynicism allows Trump to prosper. He did not come to Washington to clean up the tainted system; he came to bathe in it.

Maureen Dowd, winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary and author of three New York Times best sellers, became an Op-Ed columnist in 1995.

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Impeachment can be retrospective, for offenses committed, or prospective, to prevent probable future injuries to the nation. Greg Weiner is a Madison scholar par excellence and author of a new book on a subject — prudence — that Democrats should contemplate (“Old Whigs: Burke, Lincoln, and the Politics of Prudence”). Elsewhere, he writes this about what he calls “one of the Constitution’s most solemn powers”:

“The purpose of impeachment is not punitive. It is prophylactic. Criminal law looks backward toward offenses committed. The object of impeachment is not to exact vengeance. It is to protect the public against future acts of recklessness or abuse.”

Attempting to overturn the result of a presidential election is a momentous undertaking. In 1998, when Republicans impeached Bill Clinton for lying about sex with an intern, the public punished them for what it considered a grossly disproportionate response. Today, many Democrats are fixated on Trump’s possible obstruction of the investigation into an offense — conspiracy with Russia — for which the investigation did not find sufficient evidence. Prudent Democrats will not propose removing Trump because, for example, they think he had a corrupt intention when he exercised a core presidential power in firing FBI Director James Comey.

What can accurately be called aesthetic considerations are, however, powerfully germane. As Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 65, impeachable offenses should “relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.” Trump’s incessant lying and increasingly contemptible coarseness are as reprehensible as was Richard Nixon’s surreptitious criminality. And — because they are constant, public and hence desensitizing — they will inflict more long-term damage to America’s civic life than Nixon’s misdeeds did.

But Democrats should heed Weiner: “That an offense is impeachable does not mean it warrants impeachment.” Potential impeachers must consider “the general political context of the times,” including “the potential public reaction.” Democrats should face two lamentable but undeniable facts: Trump was elected because many millions of Americans enjoy his boorishness. And he essentially promised to govern as a lout. Promise-keeping would be an unusual ground for impeachment.

Furthermore, impeachment will not result in Trump’s removal. Consider today’s supine behavior of most congressional Republicans, which stirs fragrant memories of the vigorous obedience of many members of the U.S. Communist Party to Stalin in the late 1930s. Until Aug. 23, 1939, Stalin wanted, so the CPUSA advocated, U.S. engagement in European resistance to Hitler’s expansionism. However, when on that date Germany and the Soviet Union signed a nonaggression pact as a prelude to carving up Poland, the CPUSA instantly pivoted to advocating U.S. noninvolvement in Europe’s affairs. Then on June 22, 1941, Hitler invaded the Soviet Union and the CPUSA lurched back to advocating maximum U.S. engagement in resistance to Hitler.

Most congressional Republicans today display a similar versatility of conviction. They were for free trade until Donald Trump informed them that they were not. They were defenders of the U.S. intelligence community until Trump announced in Helsinki that he believed Vladimir Putin rather than this community regarding Russian support for his election. They excoriated wishful thinking regarding North Korea until Trump spent a few hours with Kim Jong Un and, smitten, tweeted, “There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea.” Republicans have moved from stressing presidential dignity to cowed silence when, to take only the most recent example, Trump endorsed a North Korean state media outlet’s ridicule of “low IQ” Joe Biden (a taunt Trump falsely ascribed to Kim). Republicans railed against Barack Obama’s executive overreaching but are eloquently mute when Obama’s successor promiscuously declares “emergencies” in order to “repurpose” funds Congress appropriated for other purposes, and to truncate the process of congressional approval of weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and its allies.

CPUSA members in the 1930s, blinkered by ideology, had a servile faith in a Soviet regime that they identified with historic (and therefore progressive) inevitabilities. Today’s congressional Republicans, blinded by their puppy-like devotion (and leavened by terror of the capricious master to whom they are devoted), would make a Senate impeachment trial a partisan debacle ending in acquittal.

Impeachment can be an instrument of civic hygiene. However, most of today’s Senate Republicans, scampering around the president’s ankles, are implausible hygienists.

George F. Will writes a twice-weekly column on politics and domestic and foreign affairs.  His email address is georgewill@washpost.com.

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Trump’s eruption came a day after Mueller pointedly rejected his repeated claims that he was cleared of obstruction of justice allegations and that the two-year inquiry was merely a “witch hunt.”

The president also offered mixed messages on Russia’s efforts to help him defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton, first tweeting that he had “nothing to do with Russia helping me get elected,” then minutes later, telling reporters: “Russia did not help me get elected.”

Trump said Mueller, who is a Republican, was “conflicted” and should have investigated law enforcement officials who the president claims tried to undermine him.

“Robert Mueller should have never been chosen,” Trump said, adding falsely that Mueller wanted the FBI director job, but the president told him no. “I think Mueller is a true never Trumper. He’s somebody who didn’t get a job that he wanted very badly.”

Mueller, who was appointed special counsel by Trump’s Justice Department, was previously FBI director, appointed by Republican President George W. Bush.

Speaking to reporters on the White House South Lawn, Trump insisted that he’s been tough on Russia and that Moscow would have preferred Hillary Clinton as president. The special counsel’s report said Russian interference in the election helped Trump defeat Clinton,

Asked about impeachment by Congress, he called it a “dirty word” and said he couldn’t imagine the courts allowing him to be impeached. “I don’t think so because there’s no crime,” he said.

Mueller said Wednesday that charging Trump with any crime in court was “not an option” because of federal rules, but he used his first public remarks on the Russia investigation to emphasize that he did not exonerate the president.

“If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so,” Mueller declared.

The special counsel’s remarks on indicting Trump marked a counter to criticism, including by Attorney General William Barr, that Mueller should have reached a determination on whether the president illegally tried to obstruct the probe by taking actions such as firing FBI Director James Comey.

Mueller made clear that his team never considered indicting Trump because the Justice Department prohibits the prosecution of a sitting president.

“Charging the president with a crime was therefore not an option we could consider,” Mueller said during a televised statement .

He said he believed such an action would be unconstitutional.

Mueller did not use the word “impeachment” but said it was the job of Congress, not the criminal justice system, to hold the president accountable for any wrongdoing.

The special counsel’s statement largely echoed the central points of his lengthy report, which was released last month with some redactions. But his remarks, just under 10 minutes long and delivered from a Justice Department podium, were extraordinary given that he had never before discussed or characterized his findings and had stayed mute during two years of feverish public speculation.

Mueller said his work was complete and he was resigning to return to private life. Under pressure to testify before Congress, Mueller did not rule it out. But he seemed to warn lawmakers that they would not be pulling more detail out of him. His report is his testimony, he said.

“So beyond what I have said here today and what is contained in our written work,” Mueller said, “I do not believe it is appropriate for me to speak further about the investigation or to comment on the actions of the Justice Department or Congress.”

His remarks underscored the unsettled resolution, and revelations of behind-the-scenes discontent, that accompanied the end of his investigation. His refusal to reach a conclusion on criminal obstruction opened the door for Barr to clear the Republican president, who in turn has cited the attorney general’s finding as proof of his innocence. Mueller has privately vented to Barr about the attorney general’s handling of the report, while Barr has publicly said he was taken aback by the special counsel’s decision to neither exonerate nor incriminate the president.

New York Rep. Jerrold Nadler said it falls to Congress to respond to the “crimes, lies and other wrongdoing of President Trump — and we will do so.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has so far discouraged members of her caucus from demanding impeachment, believing it would only help Trump win re-election and arguing that Democrats need to follow a methodical, step by step approach to investigating the president. But she hasn’t ruled it out.

Trump has blocked House committees’ subpoenas and other efforts to dig into the Trump-Russia issue, insisting Mueller’s report has settled everything.

The report found no criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia to tip the outcome of the 2016 presidential election in Trump’s favor. But it also did not reach a conclusion on whether the president had obstructed justice.

Barr has said he was surprised Mueller did not reach a conclusion, though Mueller in his report and again in his statement Wednesday said he had no choice. Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein then stepped into the void, deciding on their own that the evidence was not sufficient to support a criminal charge.

“Under longstanding department policy, a president cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office,” Mueller said. “That is unconstitutional. Even if the charge is kept under seal and hidden from public view that, too, is prohibited.”

Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick, Lisa Mascaro and Jonathan Lemire contributed to this report.

As the Russia investigation heated up and threatened to shadow Donald Trump’s presidency, he became increasingly concerned. But the portrait painted by special counsel Robert Mueller is not of a president who believed he or anyone on his campaign colluded with Russians to interfere in the 2016 election.

Instead, the Trump of the Mueller report is gripped by fear that Americans would question the very legitimacy of his presidency. Would Trump, the man who put his name on skyscrapers and his imprint on television, be perceived as a cheater and a fraud?

To Trump, his victory over Hillary Clinton was both historic and overwhelming, though he won millions of votes less than did the Democratic candidate.

If people thought he’d won with the help of Russia, that glorious victory might be tainted.

Just a month after Election Day, on Dec. 10, 2016, reports surfaced that U.S. intelligence officials had concluded Russia interfered in the election and tried to boost Trump’s presidential bid.

The next day, Trump went on Fox News and called the assessment “ridiculous” and “just another excuse.” The intelligence community actually had “no idea if it’s Russia or China or somebody,” he argued.

“It could be somebody sitting in a bed some place,” the Republican president-elect added.

The president’s public narrative quickly shifted. He blamed Democrats and accused his political opponents of putting the story out because they “suffered one of the greatest defeats in the history of politics.”

But the intelligence community’s assessment that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election to sow discord among American voters and to help get Trump elected was his “Achilles’ heel,” one of his closest aides, Hope Hicks, would tell investigators.

In the months that followed, Trump reacted strenuously to investigations into links between the Russians and his campaign and transition teams.

Michael Flynn, who served on the transition team and would go on to be national security adviser, spoke with Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. Flynn asked that Russia not retaliate against the United States because of sanctions announced by the Obama administration; the ambassador later told Flynn that Russia would hold back.

In the weeks that followed, Trump paid careful attention to what he saw as negative stories about Flynn. He grew increasingly angry when a story broke pointing out that Flynn had discussed sanctions with Kislyak.

By mid-February, Flynn was forced to resign.

A day later, as Trump was set to meet with FBI Director James Comey, the president had lunch with his confidant and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. He told Christie he believed the Russia investigation would end because of Flynn’s departure.

“Flynn met with the Russians. That was the problem. I fired Flynn. It’s over,” Trump said.

That couldn’t have been further from the truth.

The fear — and Trump’s anger — continued for months as the Russia investigation ensnared some of his closest confidants. Over and over, he would tell advisers that he thought the public narrative about Russian election interference was created to undermine his win. It was a personal attack, he insisted.

On May 9, 2017, Trump fired Comey. Trump would later admit in an interview that he had considered “this Russia thing” when he decided to fire Comey.

Days later, Trump held an Oval Office meeting with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, White House lawyer Don McGahn and Sessions’ chief of staff Jody Hunt to interview candidates to be the next FBI director.

Sessions walked out of the room to take a call from his deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein. When he returned, he informed Trump that Rosenstein had appointed a special counsel to investigate possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Trump feared that his presidency, still in its infancy, could be over. And he was furious his aides hadn’t protected him.

The president slumped back in his chair.

“Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I’m f—ed. This is the worst thing that ever happened to me,” he said.

For months, as the Russia investigation grew and more people in Trump’s inner circle appeared to be under intense scrutiny from federal investigators, Trump became completely preoccupied with press coverage of the probe. The message was persistent: It raises questions about the legitimacy of the election.

At rallies and on Twitter, Trump decried what he said was a politically motivated “witch hunt.”

In the end, the redacted version of Mueller’s report cleared the Trump campaign of colluding with Russian efforts to influence the election.

Trump crowed that the report found “No Collusion.” But he ignored Mueller’s finding that Russian meddling was very real and was intended to support Trump’s campaign.

Did Russia’s efforts lead to Trump’s victory? Mueller doesn’t venture an opinion, much as he does not decide whether Trump committed obstruction of justice.

But how could Trump have obstructed justice if there was no collusion to hide?

The lack of an underlying crime doesn’t really matter, Mueller argued. Trump still had a motivation to obstruct the investigation — fear that people would question the legitimacy of his election.