Five conclusions from the Mueller report

Assuming that one believes this could be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, it is not hard to imagine this fact pattern as a count in an indictment. It is hard to imagine a plausible defense based on the idea that pressuring an employee to create false government records by way of influencing his ability to tell the truth is within the president’s constitutional authority.

There are a number of other examples. If one accepts, as I do, Mueller’s general reading of the obstruction statutes as applied to official presidential action, there are many more. When Trump leaves office, assuming statutes of limitations have not yet run, someone will have to make the binary assessment, which Mueller did not make. of whether they amount to prosecutable cases. As a historical matter, the report leaves me with little doubt that the president engaged in criminal obstruction of justice on a number of occasions.