Chances are you have already made up your mind about President Trump. There are few in the world who haven’t. That’s just the climate we live in: Polarized and entrenched.
That polarization was on full display when Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders made an appearance on The Today Show . It was like watching two people who exist in different realities.
Less than 24 hours after Attorney General William Barr issued his summary of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders sat down with The Today Show’s Savannah Guthrie to discuss the summary.
And chiefly, the two sparred over the White House’s position that Barr’s summary amounted to a “total and complete exoneration of the President of the United States,” as Sanders tweeted .
As Guthrie brought up, a “total and complete exoneration” did not appear in Barr’s summary.
Rather, Barr’s summary says that the report “does not conclude that the President committed a crime,” but “it also does not exonerate him.”
However, when Guthrie pressed that point, Sanders refused to concede.
“Would you acknowledge it is incorrect for the President to call this a total exoneration?” Guthrie asked.
“Not at all,” Sanders replied. “It is a complete and total exoneration and here’s why. The special counsel couldn’t make a decision one way or the other. The way the process works is they then leave it up to the attorney general.”
Guthrie followed up by asking about concerns over Barr making a “snap judgement” after spending just 48 hours with the Mueller report.
And she also called into question Barr’s impartiality, noting he had authored a memo arguing against obstruction of justice charges despite not having access to any evidence at that point.
Sanders responded by saying “look at Bob Mueller’s report…in the legal community when you can’t convict somebody on something, you’re exonerating them.”
However, Guthrie argued that “to say you can’t prosecute someone because they don’t meet the elements of the statute is not an exoneration.”
But still, Sanders would not concede that point. “The big takeaway here is that there was nothing to show conclusively that the President obstructed justice, they couldn’t make a final decision, they followed the legal process, they referred it to the Attorney General, who consulted with the Deputy Attorney General…and together they made that decision.”
Few, if any, viewers were surprised that Sanders stuck to the White House’s official line.
As many noted online, it’s fully in keeping with Sanders’ history in her role as Press Secretary. Of course, if it wasn’t, she probably wouldn’t be Press Secretary anymore.
There are many out there who don’t trust Barr’s summary, especially given his memo regarding the obstruction of justice case.
Meanwhile, supporters of Sanders and President Trump are ready to change the channel and move on from the Trump-Russia story now that Mueller’s report has been submitted.
Of course, the full Mueller report hasn’t been made public, so the Barr summary is all anybody has to work with at this point.
It’s simply unknown how much evidence of what crimes Mueller was able to gather, so we can expect that questions will continue to swirl until the full report is made public.
Watch the exchange between Guthrie and Sanders below.
