I don’t really want to write about the Mueller report. It’s one of a string of depressing episodes that exposes the disturbing division in the country and one side’s insistence on putting party over country. Unfortunately, North Carolina’s Senators, Richard Burr and Thom Tillis, are right in the middle of it. Both are behaving shamefully. 

Apparently, Richard Burr briefed the White House after confidential briefings to Congress. I’ve always thought Burr was a bit of a dim bulb but always believed him to be a relatively straight shooter. The Mueller report makes him out to be little more than a Trump lacky. For all of Trump’s rants about leaks in the White House, Richard Burr was part of a leaky Senate. He certainly wasn’t acting like the responsible Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. 

As for Thom Tillis, he learned his lesson about criticizing the president. After he wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post  laying out his principled opposition to Donald Trump’s emergency declaration on the border, he trashed those principles under pressure from Republicans and voted for the measure. This time, he’s jumped out in front of the probe, parroting Trumps “No collusion” talking points and calling the president “vindicated.” What bullshit. 

While the probe found no evidence of intentional collusion, it found a campaign willing to accept Russia’s help as they meddled in our election. It found a corrupt White House willing to lie and distort information in an effort to fend off the investigation. If Trump didn’t obstruct the investigation, and there’s plenty of evidence that he did, it’s because people around him prevented it. The report shows that subordinates disobeyed his orders and prevented his attempts to end or derail the probe. That sure sounds like obstruction or, at the very least, attempted obstruction. 

We’re at a crisis in our democracy. Our president and his administration are clearly corrupt. While Trump claims, on the one hand, that the report totally exonerates him, he claims implications in it that he obstructed justice are “total bullshit.” The Mueller report should bring down his administration since it shows that the administration willingly lies to the people and the press.

Instead, Republicans like Thom Tillis are digging in and ones who should be providing oversight of the Executive Branch like Richard Burr are little more than accomplices. Both men are putting party ahead of country. Right now, we desperately need patriots, not partisans. We need statesmen but we’ve got a couple of hacks.