honorentheos wrote:That's an odd read. The Mueller report got a black eye when he was brought in to testify despite the actual evidence being what it is, for a counter example you are overlooking.
That occurred after a long period of time in which the Democrats deliberately killed impeachment momentum related to the report and allowed Bill Barr's lies about it to define press coverage. I'm not sure why you don't see how this would impact public opinion on what was contained in it. Robert Mueller's testimony was handled poorly, but what's in that report is a scandal that is as bad as exists in American history. Democrats did not want to impeach on the basis of it, not because it isn't the right thing to do or because the evidence wasn't clear enough, but because they think doing so had negative political consequences. People opposed to that decision repeatedly made the point that if you pursue impeachment, you get public attention, hearings, and investigatory power that can change public opinion. Low and behold, that's exactly what happened with Ukraine. It's not because the facts are any more damning or there isn't easy to appreciate examples of malfeasance there.
People can understand that the President ordering his people to create a fake paper trail to hide obstruction of justice is bad just as easily as they can understand that illegally hiding conversations under encryption meant to conceal national security secrets is bad. It's not the facts. It's what political leaders are doing with them that is pushing public opinion.
This is a case where Trump handed the evidence to the public out of the gate and from there the inquiry has practically wrote itself. They now have a winning case and are building it.
Donald Trump admitted to obstructing the Russia investigation on TV. It's not about the clarity of evidence. It's about the political will to fight.