Who helped Russia undermine the election? We did. | Editorial

What does Robert Mueller mean when he says that President Trump did not commit a crime, but is not exonerated either? Is Attorney General William Barr overstepping by taking possible obstruction of justice charges off the table for Trump? These and other questions argue for making the Mueller report public. But there is another argument that overrides all others: This can’t happen again.

Of course it would be a disaster beyond measure if the president of our country were found guilty of colluding with a hostile foreign government in order to undermine our political system and disrupt democracy. Fortunately for us — as well as for Trump — Robert Mueller’s report released Friday to the attorney general did not find evidence that Trump or his campaign worked with Russia to undermine the presidential election.

But we’re still left with the fact that Russia did, in fact, undermine our system. We’re left with the fact that a hostile government targeted a candidate it didn’t like and undermined that candidate’s campaign, and did it to ensure that a candidate it prefer was elected president.

We’re glad the president didn’t have a direct hand in that. Maybe now we can stop obsessing about him and face a truth that might be even harder to face: that we all had a hand in the disruption of our system. The fact is that Russia was able to compromise voters through dirty tricks, hacked e-mails, social media, and disinformation points out our own weakness as a country: We’re too gullible, and we don’t check facts, and we would rather share a meme than debate our differences.

We would never go as far as saying we deserved Russia’s manipulation of our election — because we didn’t deserve it — but it’s a bitter truth that our gullibility means we all had a hand in Russia’s success. It’s not a relief to learn how easy it was to disrupt democracy. We need to be more skeptical, informed, and less enchanted with creating a circus to distract us from more important things — like working harder to ensure the integrity of our elections.

That’s one of the strongest arguments for the report to be made public, not so much for confirming Trump’s lack of involvement, but for laying bare Russia’s tactics and strategies so we can use it as a blueprint to restore confidence in our electoral system.

Robert Mueller spent two years, called 500 witnesses, issued 2,800 subpoenas and executed 500 search warrants. It cost upward of $25 million (according to PolitiFact, more than $12 million each in direct and indirect costs). We paid for it. We deserve to read it.

The president and his campaign didn’t collude with Russia. But Trump is not blameless from other misdoings: his obvious and public delight in Russia’s efforts on his behalf, or the fact that six of his associates have been charged with crimes, or his insistence that this effort was a politically motivated witch hunt.

The fact is, the information contained in the report is as important to democracy as the Constitution. It belongs to us.