John Oliver dissects the revelations of the Mueller report on Last Week Tonight
After more than a year of anticipation among President Donald Trump’s political enemies, the Mueller report was finally released to the public last week. The special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election declined to reach any conclusion about whether the president illegally obstructed justice. But the report also contained many other revelations, and John Oliver was happy to go through them on Sunday’s episode of Last Week Tonight.
One such revelation was that, despite the ultimate outcome of the report, Trump certainly saw Mueller’s investigation as a threat. According to the documents, upon being informed of the investigation, Trump “slumped back in his chair and said, ‘oh my god, this is terrible. This is the end of my presidency. I’m f—ed.'” This anecdote is probably the most embarrassing thing for Trump in the entire report, so Oliver relished it, imagining an even more comprehensive scene where “Trump, upon learning Robert Mueller was appointed, is slumping back in his chair. Meanwhile Ivanka is playing fetch with Don Jr., Eric’s tongue is stuck to a somehow-frozen flagpole, Reince Priebus is walking around with his head inside a honeypot, Jared is standing motionless directly in front of a blank wall, Steve Bannon is stress-eating a bowl of used syringes, and Stephen Miller is gleefully pulling the legs off a spider.”
“When it comes to conspiracy, Trump’s saving grace may have been that despite Russians wanting to help, everyone around him was too inept to work with them,” Oliver added. Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen tried emailing Russian contacts, but got the address wrong. Donald Trump Jr. had a much-publicized meeting with Russian officials in Trump Tower, but didn’t fully grasp the possibilities of the meeting. Other times, President Trump would order subordinates to commit unlawful acts or obstruct justice, but they would ignore his orders.
After going through all these things extensively, Oliver summed up what is and isn’t in the report.
“So Mueller’s report did not find collusion, and wasn’t trying to, because that word doesn’t even apply here. And it didn’t establish that Trump’s team was part of a criminal conspiracy to hack the election. But it found a lot of other stuff,” Oliver said. “Just consider what we learned or had confirmed this week: Russia interfered in our election and made efforts to help Trump win. While his campaign did not provably collaborate with Russia, they seemed eager to accept their help in a way no one should be comfortable with. Also, Trump may have obstructed justice, and if he didn’t, it may have only been because people who worked for him ignored his orders. On top of all this, the Attorney General, the nation’s top law enforcement official, has proven himself to be a dishonest hack. I’m not saying any of that is good news, but it is definitely good that we know about it.”
Watch the full clip above.
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