By now, most people have probably seen or heard the ambiguous statement in the Mueller Report to the effect that, “The investigation did not find sufficient evidence to either convict or exonerate the President.”
Historically in the USA, an admitted lack of prosecutorial evidence always has engendered an automatic “Not Guilty” verdict. American courts do not issue verdicts such as, “We couldn’t convict him, but he still may have done it.” Neither do they issue “Innocent” verdicts. You cannot prove innocence. A person is assumedto be innocent until proven guilty. The ignorance of the media and even some in the government (e.g. Mueller himself, J. Nadler, A. Schiff) demonstrated by their being unaware of this, is disgraceful. Where did these people go to school?
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the word as follows: “Exonerate derives via Middle English from the past participle of the Latin verb exonerare, meaning “to unburden,”; it is formed by combining the prefix ex with onus, meaning “load” or “burden” (onus itself lives on with that meaning in modern English).”
Therefore, use of the word exonerate assumes that the subject has already been accused (indicted) or convicted of something. One cannot become “unburdened” if he/she has not first been “burdened”. It is a word similar to “divorce”. One cannot become “divorced” unless and until one is first married. A woman cannot have an “abortion” until after she has become “pregnant”. A prisoner cannot be exonerated unless and until he has first been convicted (or at least indicted). Pres. Trump cannot be exonerated; he is simply Not Guilty.
Despite this, Jerry Nadler, Adam Schiff and their Democrat associates continue to dig into Trump’s past in hope of “finding something”. This is nothing more than intentional harassment. The dictionary definition of that word is: Harassment: aggressive pressure or intimidation. As in “they face daily harassment and assault on the streets”. Synonyms are:
persecution · harrying · pestering · badgering · intimidation · bother · annoyance · aggravation · irritation…
The Constitution gives Congress the right to perform fact seeking investigations. It does not grant it any powers to persecute, harry, pester, intimidate, bother, or intentionally annoy, aggravate and irritate. Any decent appeal court judge ought to quickly issue a stay against congressional ‘fishing expeditions’ into the life and financial background of someone who a multi-year, several million-dollar investigation empowered by that same Congress has just shown to be Not Guilty.
Donald E. Scott
Scottsdale
