Two overarchingly important points about the Mueller report: the meddling started on the Most Equal Comrade's watch, and, while the Very Stable Genius isn't guilty of crimes, he's shown to be weak and of low character

Scott Jennings, former advisor to George W. Bush and Mitch McConnell, has a piece at CNN today that lays out point number one:

The Mueller report flatly states that Russia began interfering in American democracy in 2014. Over the next couple of years, the effort blossomed into a robust attempt to interfere in our 2016 presidential election. The Obama administration knew this was going on and yet did nothing. In 2016, Obama's National Security Adviser Susan Rice told her staff to "stand down" and "knock it off" as they drew up plans to "strike back" against the Russians, according to an account from Michael Isikoff and David Corn in their book "Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin's War on America and the Election of Donald Trump". 

Why did Obama go soft on Russia? My opinion is that it was because he was singularly focused on the nuclear deal with Iran. Obama wanted Putin in the deal, and to stand up to him on election interference would have, in Obama's estimation, upset that negotiation. This turned out to be a disastrous policy decision.

Obama's supporters claim he did stand up to Russia by deploying sanctions after the election to punish them for their actions. But, Obama, according to the Washington Post, "approved a modest package... with economic sanctions so narrowly targeted that even those who helped design them describe their impact as largely symbolic." In other words, a toothless response to a serious incursion.

But don't just take my word for it that Obama failed. Congressman Adam Schiff, who disgraced himself in this process by claiming collusion when Mueller found that none exists, once said that "the Obama administration should have done a lot more." The Washington Post reported that a senior Obama administration official said they "sort of choked" in failing to stop the Russian government's brazen activities. And Obama's ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, said, "The punishment did not fit the crime" about the weak sanctions rolled out after the 2016 election.

Okay, so we know that the MEC was at least asleep at the switch, and may have been calculating that it was not the time to bring the meddling up, because he was so intent on appeasing a rogue state, because he thought history would therefore portray him as a visionary peacemaker.

But after him we got another president whose flimsy character ought to give us pause, as David French, writing at Time, makes clear:

We now know for sure what kind of man Donald Trump is. Beyond the tweets, the rallies, the interviews, the debates, the press conferences, the scandals, the best-selling yet unclearly sourced insider books and the unrelenting braggadocio and aggrandizement, a comprehensive read of the Mueller report brings to life the portrait of the man Donald Trump more than anything before it.

It takes the traits we already knew he exhibited — his mendacity, his propensity to surround himself with crooks and grifters, and his single-minded self-focus — and places them in the context of a sweeping narrative about a presidential campaign and presidency devoid of ethics, honor or even strength. The stories paint a picture of a president who is both petty and small, so very small.

One of the most telling moments occurs on page 102 in the obstruction of justice section of the Special Counsel’s analysis. It tells a short version of a story we largely already knew. When Donald Trump’s son, Donald Junior, learned that the New York Times was about to break the news of his now-infamous June 9, 2016, meeting in Trump Tower with Russian lawyer Natalya Veselnitskaya, his first instinct was to come clean.

He drafted a statement that began, “I was asked to have a meeting by an acquaintance I knew … with an individual who I was told might have information helpful to the campaign.” But his father said no. His father demanded that the statement be revised to omit the motivation for the meeting. Donald Jr. complied and misled America. 

Think for a moment about that story. With his campaign in the media crosshairs, President Trump threw his son under the bus. He made his son transmit his own deceptions. He exposed his son to the scorn and ridicule he so richly deserved.

There are other important moments in the report. Here’s one we didn’t know before. According to the report, in June 2017, President Trump dictated a message for his former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski — who had been fired in June 2016, a few months after a misdemeanor battery charge against him had been brought and then dropped — to dictate to then Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Trump was directing Sessions to essentially reverse his recusal from the Russian investigation to narrow the scope of the Special Counsel’s investigation. Trump wanted Mueller to merely investigate “election meddling for future elections.” 

Lewandowski never delivered Trump’s message. He scheduled a meeting with Sessions, but when Sessions canceled, Lewandowski never followed through. A disgraced former campaign manager felt free to disregard a directive from the President of the United States.

It’s difficult to overestimate the extent to which Trump’s appeal to his core supporters is built around the notion that — regardless of his other flaws — he possesses a core strength, a willingness to “fight” and an ability to strike a degree of fear in the hearts of his opponents. I live in the heart of Trump country in Tennessee, and I have consistently heard the same refrain from his most loyal supporters. Trump, as they say, “kicks ass.” He was the ultimate alpha male, a political version of Tony Soprano, a formidable boss who commands an army of loyal consiglieri. Cross him at your peril.
But now, thanks to the Mueller report, his “fights” look more like temper tantrums, and those closest to him — including low men like Lewandowski and far-more-noble men like former White House counsel Donald McGahn — understand that his fury is passing and his directives are unreliable, seemingly transitory and easily forgotten or disregarded.

Moreover, his vaunted personal judgment — an image cultivated through years of careful television production on The Apprentice — has been exposed as well. When one reads Robert Mueller’s account of Trump’s own campaign chair’s extraordinary efforts to maintain an encrypted connection to Ukrainian and Russian oligarchs, it’s plain that Trump was played. Paul Manafort used Trump’s gullibility as a business opportunity.

Folks, this is why I call the country we live in post-America. The last two presidents we elected have been reckless, shallow men. And three of the four most recent (W is the exception for those who need it spelled out) have been flaming narcissists.

The United States of America used to elect presidents that, even if they were shaky from a character standpoint, grasped the magnitude and gravity of their responsibilities and tried to prevent making destructive messes. They often didn't succeed, but I don't think that since the 1930s, when FDR pursued economic policies he knew damn well were going to prolong the Depression, we've seen such executive-branch deliberate harmfulness.