Honestly, former special counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony before Congress was about what I expected. We knew Mueller wasn’t going to spell out exactly what he thought, unvarnished and for all to see. We knew he’d hedge his bets and refer back to his report to do the talking for him.

That observed…man, you can tell that we’re not holding presidents to the same standards as we used to. Mueller said enough to finish any other president. He made it clear that he would have indicted the president but for the Justice Department’s policy (which, by itself, coming from a prosecutor of Mueller’s record, is pretty damning), and he reasserted that President Trump actively knew about and expected to benefit from Russian interference in the election. Any other president, that’d be the end of it.

I admit, it’s frustrating that Mueller didn’t go further, but I get why he didn’t. End of the day, he’s trying not to get involved in partisan politics — if he’s anything like the rest of us, he’s tired of the back-and-forth, and he’s tired of impartial systems being used for partisan gain. Hell, even I’ll say that’s what last week’s hearing was for — but it’s partisan only because one party is trying to protect the United States, and the other is trying to protect its grip on the presidency.

Those who were expecting something more damning will be disappointed, but honestly, Mueller said enough there to end Trump’s presidency, were we dealing with a Congress that actually cared about the integrity of the United States. Instead, the GOP will take it as a sign that nothing said there was sufficiently revelatory for them to change position and condemn their own president. They’ll keep spinning the “Witch Hunt” narrative and dismiss the contents of the report, and leave the voters to dismiss it accordingly.

It also places the Democrats in a bad position — they should impeach Trump on the back of this testimony, but they know it wasn’t sufficient to get the Republicans to budge, so now that action will be taken as a partisan political attack rather than for what it is — an act taken by the people’s representatives to protect the United States from a corrupt and likely criminal president.

In other words, nothing’s really changed.