How to Take Down Trump

OK, actually kind of boring. Not, of course, anything like the scene Donald Trump described later, in which it sounded as if Mueller fell weeping to the floor, admitting his whole investigation was a pile of lies.

“The administration, our president, me, we’ve done a great job,” Trump boasted as only he could. The probe into Russian interference in the election and his own attempts at obstruction of justice, he claimed, had “totally folded.”

“Robert Mueller had no material,” Trump said of the former special counsel, who authored a 448-page report on presidential misdeeds.

In the real world, Mueller didn’t say anything unexpected when he was called before two different committees on the same day. He testified once again about Russia’s assault on American democracy and said very clearly that the president was not exonerated on any count.

However, the man is just not good at drama. Think of him as Robert “I’d Refer You to the Report for That” Mueller.

The hearing was a miscalculation on the part of the Democrats, who were a little frustrated that Mueller’s report, although damning for Trump, did not have the kind of juicy language that makes for memorable headlines. His big quote, after all, was: “If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime we would have said so.”

Plus, how many Americans were going to read 448 pages? One clue came when the FBI director admitted he’d just kind of skimmed. A CNN poll found 3% of the country had read the whole thing.

And even at that, how many of that 3% do you think were fibbing?

A) A lot

B) 2.9%

C) Everybody but vicious political science professors who assigned it as a term paper.

To get the story out, some House Democrats decided to bring Mueller himself before the cameras. Once Americans heard the report’s conclusions in his own words, how could they not get ready to impeach? The most riveting bits would be all over Twitter and Facebook and the evening news. What could go wrong?

Zzzzzzzz.

The result was the political equivalent of a movie that makes you want to avoid reading the book. Either through all-purpose weariness or determination not to be pushed, Mueller was pretty consistently ... unexciting.

“We decided we would not make a determination as to whether the president committed a crime,” he said, um, determinedly.

The Trump forces seemed to feel the day was a big triumph for their side, which was true only if you’d be encouraged by the news that the world doesn’t think you’re any more wretched today than it did yesterday.

Even the 97% of Americans who don’t claim to have read the report know that the Russians interfered with the 2016 election, and Trump did everything but jump up and lead a cheer with pompoms when WikiLeaks dumped a ton of hacked Clinton emails on the nation.

The president’s defense was somewhere between outrageous and pathetic. He refused to talk with Mueller, even though — as Rep. Eric Swalwell noted — during the time he was rejecting those invitations, he met with Vladimir Putin six times.

The Russian connection more than disturbed Mueller, even though he tried to avoid saying anything news-making about it. The closest he came was when someone mentioned Trump’s WikiLeaks euphoria. “Problematic is an understatement,” he said, in what was the equivalent of a howl of fury.

Mueller had warned that he wasn’t going to say anything that wasn’t in the report, and you can’t claim the man didn’t try to keep his word.

“I can’t speak to that.”

“I defer to you on that. I can’t get into the details.”

“I am not going to answer that question, sir.”

“If that’s what was written in the report, yes.”

“I can’t go into it.”

Congressional hearings can be worthy and boring at the same time. Honestly, if you want to complain about something, there are lots of better targets. Tax cuts for the wealthy. Overpopulated Democratic debates. Bicyclists who ride on the sidewalk. “The Secret Life of Pets 2.”

And even if Mueller had been way, way more forthcoming, it’s unlikely it would have given the impeachment crowd much help. The nation is so divided on the subject of Trump that it’s almost impossible to imagine anything would get him kicked out of office.

If he got caught standing with a knife and a pile of murdered puppies, he’d claim that he had actually protected innocent children from a pack of small fuzzy sharks. And around a third of the country would shrug, while Senate Republicans muttered something about danger at the beaches.

Looks like the Democrats are just going to have to run a strong presidential campaign about how to make the country better. If they do that, Trump will not be in the White House in 2021. At which time, we can let the collusion and conspiracy indictments roll.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.