As one with an increasing collection of political literature, mostly books, accumulating on shelves that are getting close to full, I gave in to the temptation to purchase a copy of The Mueller Report, and then waded through the information provided on over 500 pages of text. Needless to say, after reading through all of that, I did not come to the same conclusion that former Attorney General Bill Barr did, in determining that "there was no collusion" between agents of Putin's government and the Presidential campaign of Donald Trump. In fact, "Collusion and Obstruction of Justice" would have been an appropriate title for a non-fiction work based on that subject.
In college, I majored in history and English, and then earned a graduate degree in an education concentration. I wrote lots of papers. I learned, after getting some disappointing grades on my first few attempts, that support for the thesis of the paper was the key to success. The more sources I found to support the thesis the better. It did not take long to learn that an A on a research paper was the result of writing skills that presented more than enough evidence to prove the thesis of the paper, or to draw a different conclusion.
The Mueller report is particularly well documented, the list of corroborating evidence almost as long as the text itself. The evidence of the interference of the Russian government in the election was already a fact before evidence began turning up that there was collusion with certain persons in the Trump campaign. The report documents the interference and the connections with Trump's campaign, along with the atttempts to use the power of the presidency to obstruct the investigation and to attempt to keep the evidence and conclusions of the investigation from seeing the light of day. The attorney general at the time, thwarted any grand jury indictments and Republican partisan control of Congress stifled a legitimate investigation.
The Difference Between Democrats Conducting the Impeachments and the January 6th Hearings and Republicans Conducting Hearings on the FBI "Weaponization"
Along with millions of Americans, I watched vritually every public hearing Congress held during its two impeachments of Trump. One of the characteristics of Democrats on the committees, along with at least two Republicans who participated, was their continuous referral to documented evidence. I'd be curious to find out exactly how much time was spent during the hearings on references to the page number, and specific headings of documents in the questioning. Long periods of silence occurred as both those who were testifying and those who were questioning read from documents in front of them. The presentation of evidence characterized the televised hearings led by Democrats.
I watched about an hour and a half of the recent hearings conducted by the House into the fantasy issue of FBI "weaponization." Typical of several of the members of Congress who were engaged in the questioning, there was no reference to any evidence, only the citation of a conspiracy theory or a speculative comment with clear, political overtones. Questions, in fact, are rare. Most Republicans make assertions first, then ask pointed questions based on their assertion. There's almost never a reference to any documents sitting in front of the committee or witnesses, no turning of pages, no questions about specifics in any kind of sequence of events.
In the segments of the hearings that I watched, I give FBI Director Christopher Wray an "A" in the manner in which he handled the questioning. He deflected almost every assertion by asking that the questioner present evidence to support their assertion before agreeing to answer their question. In one instance, he silenced Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz by destroying his assertion that "the public approval of the FBI's job performance is at an all time low," by asking to see what data supported that claim (there was, of course, no such evidence), and then pointed out that applications from Floridians who want to become FBI agents is at an all time high.
I can't take credit for noticing this on my own. I was clued in to what was happening by several news commentators, most notably Jill Winebanks, a former General Counsel who is an MSNBC contributor, who initially pointed out the lack of any documentation or facts used by Republicans during their public questioning of Ketanji Brown Jackson. She noted that the Democrats on the committee almost always referenced written documentation while Republicans just popped off agenda-driven questions, never bothering to support their assertions.
Her observation prompted mine. I looked back at some of the televised hearings convened by Congress into the January 6th insurrection, and compared them to what I saw in the GOP's investigation of the FBI. I'm sure Winebanks was not the only one who noticed, or pointed it out.
If Something Can be Labelled "Political," This is it
I don't think Democrats should be afraid of anything being labelled, or appearing as "political" coming up in the way of investigations into Trump and his subversive, insurrectionist, election-denying crimes. Being political doesn't take away from documented facts in any case. The crimes being investigated and eventually charged and tried are certainly political. Politics was the motive behind them.
Would the average American, sitting on the couch watching these hearings, be able to pick up on this stark difference in the conduct of hearings between Democrats and Republicans, after having it pointed out once or twice? I did, and I'm not claiming any kind of special insight or intelligence at all, because it didn't take that to observe it and figure it out. It does take watching these hearings and the manner in which members of Congress conduct themselves when they are questioning witnesses. Republicans always turn their question into a political assertion and never cite sources wihile Democrats almost always use some kind of documentation that they have with them and expect the witness who is testifying to refer to the same reference in their answer.
Of course, that's not always the way it happens, but Democrats, for the most part, don't seem to be prone to the use of conspiracy theories and unprovable assertions like their GOP counterparts do. It seems like a terribly ineffective, inefficient way for government to operate, since facts tend to provide reliable information that leads to wise decisions. Perjury is a criminal charge for lying in a court of law, but Congress doesn't appear to have any such standard in its hearings and investigations.
And most people don't notice, because all they see of most Congressional investigations and hearings are the sound bytes that are presented by the media. Few people have the patience, or the interest in the subject matter, to watch hour long segments of boring hearings that are difficult to discern the feelings of those involved. That may be one of the root causes of the problems in politics that we now face. Unqualified and incompetent candidates should easily be weeded out by the facts. The presence of such individuals on the current presidential campaign trail on the GOP side, and of multiple members of Congress who are already elected, is proof of this.
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