Journalistic accounts of the Mueller investigation, and discussion of the degree to which the final report will be made public, has reminded me of another investigation--the one into the conduct of John Nienstedt, the former archbishop of the Twin Cities Archdiocese of the Catholic Church. With regard to Mueller, a lot of people are saying that the good news is that the system worked, he was able without interference to pursue his investigation to its conclusion, and has now issued a report on his findings that will eventually be made public. I hope that all turns out to be true. It's now in the hands of the attorney general, who was selected by Trump himself, so perhaps the appropriate attitude to take is inscribed on the license plates of Missourians.
Possibly Nienstedt is a better operator than Trump, or Rome more corrupt than Washington, D.C., because what Trump might have wished for was achieved by Nienstedt: when the investigation got hot, it was called off. The best summaries of which I'm aware, this one from MPR News, augmented here by National Catholic Reporter, are damning, months or years old, and up-to-date. The investigation was not completed, what had been discovered before it was terminated has not been made public, and it appears there will be no further developments. To all my boyhood friends who fascinated me with descriptions of what you'd tell priests inside the confessional: if you're still practicing, the contents of your offering envelopes hard at work!
On the other hand, you could argue that, for the cover up to succeed, at least Nienstedt had to resign. I think I could accept similar terms for the investigation into Trump.
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