The Mueller report exposed a Russian plot to subvert U.S. democracy with laughably false information -- that Americans, including Donald Trump's inner circle, were all too eager to lap up.
The first volume in special counsel Robert Mueller's 448-page report exposed a deep rot in American democracy and crude efforts by a cast of low-quality individuals in the Trump campaign to exploit any means available to promote themselves and the improbable Republican nominee, reported investigative journalist Michael Weiss for The Daily Beast.
"Mueller here acts a Virgil guiding us through the moronic inferno of an unlikely candidacy for high office," Weiss wrote. "If anything, it’s the Russians, primarily interested in alleviating sanctions and satisfying their own naked interests, who come across as befuddled and exasperated to even be dealing with such a motley assortment of outer-borough lowlifes and chancers."
Weiss runs down the list of shady characters -- George Papadopoulos, Michael Cohen, Carter Page, Paul Manafort, Erik Prince -- who worked to get Trump elected, while jumping at meetings with Russians or looking for angles to enrich themselves, who turned up in Mueller's report at the conclusion of his investigation.
Papadopoulos, Cohen and Manafort have all pleaded guilty to charges in connection with Mueller's probe, but the special counsel's report shows their corruption -- and the success of Russia's psychological warfare -- are symptoms of the same problems that threaten democracy.
"In anatomizing active measures, (Mueller) has shown us just how prosaic these weapons of mass psychology really are," Weiss wrote. "They neither hypnotize nor mystify; they simply hold up a mirror to reflect the venality, baseness and stupidity of which their target audience, their dupes, are quite capable without any external intercession."
"The weapon the Russians used against our democracy was one always located on these shores," he added. "They sought out the all-American assh*les among us, patted them on the head, and offered loud encouragement for them to simply keep going."
