One hand clapping.  That's the sound after the Mueller report's release.  Why?

Because one of the questions we would have hoped to see answered in the report is, what, exactly, was the charge against President Trump; what, exactly, is he supposed to have done?  It is astonishing that the word used for his alleged activity has been, from start to finish, "collusion."

"Collusion" is a characterization of a charge, not a description of one.

If, for instance, Vladimir Putin had come ashore in a dinghy on a remote patch of the Maine coastline and had handed Trump a briefcase with $1 billion in it, that would be the charge.  Poets could characterize that as "collusion" between Trump and Putin, but the charge would be that Trump had accepted from Putin — a foreigner — a contributed of $1 billion to Trump's campaign.

We can narrow things down because we know what did not happen and thus could not have been collusion with the Russians or anybody else.

1. That George Papadopoulos could have opened the investigation into the Trump campaign is absurd. Papadopoulos allegedly told Alexander Downer that the Trump campaign knew that the Russians had Hillary's 33,000 deleted emails.

Our intelligence guys would have laughed themselves sick if they believed this.  Why?  Because Hillary had already turned back in to the State Department all the emails containing Official Business!  The 33,000 emails that she deleted contained only "wedding arrangements and yoga appointments."  How do we know this?

Hillary told us!

2. In addition to that, the FBI was convinced of it by means of the FBI's investigation.  Would the agents have cleared Hillary of prosecution if they thought Official Business/secrets of the country had been conveyed to the Russians due to her use of her private server while secretary of state?  Obviously not!  And we know that the FBI must have been extremely careful, because it had to account for the massive amount — $500,000 — the Russians had paid for a speech by Bill.

3. There is one more thing that locks this up tight.  James Comey — at that time director of the FBI — broke with normal practice and made himself responsible for the investigation of Hillary's emails.  No more need be said!

4. We know that "hacking" of the DNC computers could not have been an issue because that never rose to the level of a formal complaint through channels.  There were some mutterings about hacking having taken place, but when the FBI sought to investigate — that is, when the authorities wanted to initiate a criminal investigation — the DNC would not permit the FBI to examine its computers.  Thus, the DNC, whatever may have happened with its computers, had not a criminal problem, but rather an I.T. problem.

5. Some of the emails from John Podesta — Hillary's campaign chairman — were published by WikiLeaks.  By Podesta's own account, he was phished.  That is not a hack.  And, in any case, "sunshine is the best disinfectant."  There would be no activities that a campaign chairman would be involved in that the public does not have a "right to know" about.

Mueller cleared President Trump of all charges, but that still leaves his report a disappointment because we still don't know what charges it is that Trump was cleared of!

Look at it this way.  Our quadrennial elections for president are the most important ritual of the U.S. of A.  People in the intelligence community — Brennan, Comey, Clapper — knew that there was "unprecedented interference" by the Russians in the 2016 election.  How do we know this?  They've told us so!

Well, who was in charge of seeing that that did not happen?  The CIA, the FBI, and the director of National Intelligence, who coordinates all our intelligence.

But they have not told us what the Russians did or what they — Brennan, Comey, Clapper — did about it and what they directed their organizations to do about it.

The point of intelligence is to inform the president so he can direct the affairs of the country.  A matter this grave would have been reported upward to President Obama.

What did he know, and when did he know it?  And why didn't he do anything?   

After Hillary lost the election, the Democrats, examining their souls in light of 150 years of machine politics, wondered what trick Trump used to fool the public.  Not being able to find one, they made one up — with the support of the Intelligence Community, which turned on the country.

Trump offered himself as a citizen, at great personal risk, to lead the country.  He made the case to the public on critical issues that had been ignored or on which the country was being sold out by its permanent leadership and about which the public was gravely concerned.

Trump picked up the trampled flag and hollered, "Follow me."