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The verdict is in. While difficult to determine if it was a clear knockout, special counsel Robert Mueller’s conclusion of a nearly two-year investigation has left the hopes and dreams of the Trump Resistance on life support. President Trump will not be frog-marched from the White House, guilty of treason while conspiring with the Kremlin to influence the 2016 election.

Trump may be guilty of many things. He is an intemperate, wholly unconventional, morally suspect, trampler of inviolate norms. He speaks without thinking. He bullies and antagonizes the opposition. His ego makes former President Barack Obama appear humble and self-effacing.

But Trump is not a traitor to the United States.

In a four-page letter delivered to Congress on Sunday, Attorney General William Barr summarized the findings of the Mueller team. In unequivocal terms, Barr shared Mueller’s determination that there exists zero evidence that Trump is guilty of collusion.

The two FBI men at the heart of the Trump-Russia investigation provided some fairly damning tells the past few weeks. If they had seen the goods, they certainly weren’t too confident of their casework. Fired for lying under oath, Andrew McCabe, one-time acting director of the FBI, stated that “it’s possible” that Trump may be a Russian asset.

Yet, in his recently released tome, The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump, McCabe describes being “twisted in knots” over the public announcement of the decision made in the Clinton email investigation. He then laments that the “same thing might happen with the Russia case.” In other words, the man who fully sounded the alarm of Trump’s Russia ties acknowledges that there may be no there there.

James Comey, fired FBI director, has long enjoyed a cozy relationship with the establishment media outlets that he shamefully leaked FBI documents to. In a fortuitously timed op-ed published by The New York Times last week, entitled, James Comey: What I want from the Mueller Report, the disgraced former director goes a step further in bet-hedging, announcing:

That’s not what confidence in one’s work and legacy look like.

As a cautious skeptic of the Russian-collusion case from its inception, I found Mueller’s determination beyond satisfying to read. Any questioning of the conduct of the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation that was predicated on a shoddily assembled, politically influenced dossier of easily disprovable assertions was met with the torch and pitchfork crowd shrieking, “You’re a Trumpist!” and “Your criticisms are ‘corrosive attacks’ on our sacrosanct institutions of justice.”

Bullfeathers.

No, I just believe that no matter how much we may loathe a person or their conduct, they are entitled to due process protections and the presumption of innocence. I maintained that posture throughout my 25-year FBI career whether it was a violent gangbanger, a Mafiosi, a pedophile, or a terrorist that I worked to send to jail.

It also applies to folks whose political views we abhor, or who tweet disparaging things, or whose personal conduct may be detestable and loathsome. Our justice system is predicated on fairness and equal application of the law. Some may argue that our system is fraught with unfairness, that the rich are afforded better representation than the poor. They’re right.

I could also argue that no one was ever charged with lying to the FBI throughout my quarter century of service with the Department of Justice. In this instance, the special prosecutor’s office wielded the statute like a cudgel. Heavy-handed tactics? That could be argued. Folks lie to the FBI all the time. They are rarely, if ever, prosecuted for same.

Which brings us to the single, fraying thread that the political Left is perilously clinging to: whether or not the president committed an obstruction of justice offense. Barr provides Mueller’s assertion that “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” If Trump has indeed committed this crime, he did so without having been part of an underlying scheme, collusion, which many legal scholars have argued makes the “process crime,” obstruction, moot, and he did so in plain sight, on national television, in a May 2017 interview with NBC News’ Lester Holt.

Yes, it may be argued that Martha Stewart was not convicted of criminal insider trading, for which she was charged. Instead, she went to jail for conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and yes, lying to the FBI. But she also had to pay $195,000 to settle a civil case with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Mueller’s exoneration of Trump on collusion, conspiracy, charges show there was an absence of any evidence against Trump, beyond unrelated criminal activity of others, and simply doesn’t implicate the president.

There should now be an accounting from some prominent Democratic politicians who have loudly proclaimed or inferred that there was ample evidence to charge the president with treason. This stoked public fears, fomented division, and in some cases, incited violence. Many made continuous appearances on cable television, staring into the camera, providing assurances that they had actually seen this evidence in closed-door sessions on Capitol Hill.

What now? In the blood sport that is politics, probably nothing. No apologies. No mea culpas. No quiet resignations from public office for misleading the public.

Lest anyone believe that the imperiled presidency has now found safe haven, a word of caution: I’ve long argued that this president’s conduct can certainly be considered impeachment worthy. Impeachment is a political process, not a legal one. Its standard, high crimes and misdemeanors, gives Congress fairly wide latitude to remove what they may consider an “unfit” chief executive. But this president tends to thrive when he has an adversary. Tread cautiously.

But as the Democrats work tirelessly to expand the bandwidth of the narrow Mueller probe, seeking tax documents and business records in perpetuity, here is where the president faces the greatest exposure. Couple that with the ongoing investigations by the Southern District of New York and the New York State Attorney General’s Office into hush money payments and violations of federal election campaign laws, and Trump should be advised to keep his personal attorney roster well-staffed.

Trump’s FBI antagonists, Comey, McCabe, et al, may ultimately face their own legal jeopardies, as well. McCabe has yet to be cleared from the criminal referral to DOJ for lying under oath. The Comey team that initiated the counterintelligence investigation into Russian election meddling in 2016 will have its handling of the dossier materials and FISA applications scrutinized by the nonpolitical Inspector General’s Office, with a report pending.

Buckle your seat belts. As one two-year-old collusion case door closes with a clunk, a multitude of others are soon to be thrown open. It’s about to get real.

James A. Gagliano (@JamesAGagliano) worked in the FBI for 25 years. He is a law enforcement analyst for CNN and an adjunct assistant professor in homeland security and criminal justice at St. John’s University.