Special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the U.S. election, and the reaction to it, makes it abundantly clear how far the world’s oldest democracy has strayed from the founding fathers well-intentioned but flawed vision.

The report details the lies and plethora of bad behaviour by the country’s leader, who was not elected by a majority of its citizens but instead because the archaic electoral college devised 150 years ago to appease the defeated slave states allows the minority to rule. It affirms Trump received significant help from the Russians, who wanted him to win, and that his campaign was open to offers and never advised the FBI about this foreign intervention. It concludes Russians used social media to target more than 100 million voters in an election that was ultimately decided by about 80,000 votes.

Despite Mueller scrupulously outlining dubious ethics, slack morality and almost daily deceit, The Conman-in-Chief and his legion of debased lackeys are crowing about exoneration, as if the only standard a President must meet is to avoid indictment for a criminal offense, all the while knowing the constitution has been amended to exempt a sitting President from criminal indictment. A convenient Catch 22 for a budding despot and his duped or deplorable followers in a country that claims no man is above the law.

Remember Trump’s infamous admonition to his deplorable base: ‘Don’t believe what you see and read, believe what I say.’

Okay, Big Orange Brother.

The report meticulously notes how Trump did everything to hinder the investigation but walk over to the Department of Justice and fire the Special Counsel in person. It relates how various campaign officials, including Trump Jr. and his son-in-law, tried to collude with the Russians, then lied about it. It documents campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s ongoing sharing of polling data with a Russian agent.

Exoneration?

Below is an abbreviated summary of some of the the Conman-in-Chief’s more egregious behaviour.

• Trump had Russia on his mind when he fired FBI director Jim Comey, the man originally in charge of the Russia investigation, after Comey refused to guarantee his loyalty.
• He pressured acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to lie about the reason Comey was fired.
• Rosenstein was so concerned he appointed a Special Counsel.
• Trump, fearful of what investigators might dig up, ordered White House counsel Don McGahn to fire the Special Counsel and relented only when McGhan said he would resign first.
• He told aide Corey Lewandowski to ask then Attorney General Jeff Sessions to curtail the investigation.
• He commanded his Chief of Staff Reince Priebus to pressure Sessions into ‘unrecusing’ himself so Sessions could control the Special Counsel and feed information about it to Trump or his lawyers.
• He directed various White House staff to lie to the American people and personally directed the false narrative concerning the meeting his son and top campaign officials had with Russian operatives with the purpose of obtaining illegally obtained information on his election.
• He denigrated patriotic Americans risking their lives in law enforcement and intelligence gathering.
• He lied about conducting business in Russia while running for the Presidency.
• While running for office, Trump authorized and coordinated an illegal hush money payment to a porn star he had sex with shortly after his wife gave birth.
• He conspired with a sleazy supermarket tabloid to suppress the story of a Playboy Bunny he was fooling around with while his wife nursed their infant son.
•   He attacked the media for spreading fake news which turned out to be accurate, while tweeting a stream of lies to his Twitter followers.
•  He intimidated witnesses and dangled the possibility of a pardon if they refused to cooperate with investigators.
• He refused to be interviewed in person by the Special Counsel, and in heavily lawyered written responses to investigators’ questions claimed he couldn’t recall specifics 30 times, despite his boast of having ‘the best memory’.
• He hired an unqualified lackey to care-take the investigation while he searched for an Attorney General who would protect him like his mentor, disbarred and now deceased mob lawyer Roy Cohn.
• He found his Roy Cohn after private lawyer and conservative ideologue William Barr sent Trump’s attorneys a job application that laid out reasons why a President can’t commit obstruction of justice.
• He lauded his hand-picked new Attorney General when Barr provided a misleading narrative about the investigation to the American people and needlessly held the report for almost a month to let his spin ferment.

The Conman-in-Chief brays about personal exoneration because Mueller didn’t recommend criminal charges, but the report is a clear indictment of a sleazy democracy in the time of Trump run by immoral swamp rats supported by 40 per cent of American voters.