The redacted version of the Mueller report is now available from the attorney general. Here are the key takeaways from it. USA TODAY
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When Tom Dillard sat down to read the Mueller report, he didn't look for R's or D's.
The two-time U.S. attorney found what he read so disturbing he joined more than 450 former federal prosecutors this week in signing a letter declaring the report lays out a textbook case for obstruction of justice charges against President Donald Trump. Two other veteran East Tennessee prosecutors signed the letter as well.
"It's not a Republican or a Democratic thing," Dillard said. "It's an American thing. Based on what I know, if this was an ordinary individual, the case would certainly have severe consequences, and there is ample evidence that any U.S. attorney could make that decision. We need to hear from (special counsel) Robert Mueller. Otherwise the country at large is not going to know the truth."

'We need to know'

Dillard served for 18 years in the U.S. Department of Justice — as a rank-and-file prosecutor in Tennessee's Eastern District, as acting U.S. attorney in Knoxville, and as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Florida in the 1980s, under appointment by then-President Ronald Reagan. In private practice, he represented clients from Pilot Flying J CEO Jimmy Haslam to George Thomas, who was convicted in the 2007 torture-killings of Channon Christian and Chris Newsom.
He's met Robert Mueller, the former FBI director who spent two years investigating whether the Trump campaign conspired with Russia during the 2016 presidential election. And he suspects Mueller would have recommended prosecution, if not for longstanding Justice Department policy that a sitting president can't be indicted.
Attorney General William Barr ruled against an obstruction case. Dillard wants to hear Mueller tell Congress the rest of the story.
"With Bob Mueller, what you see is what you get," Dillard said. "Bob Mueller is going to do what he thinks is right. We need to know how and why his decision was made. What thoughts went into it?"
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Acts of obstruction?

Guy Blackwell made hundreds of such decisions over 30 years as a federal prosecutor, all in East Tennessee. He estimates half of his cases involved public corruption or white-collar crime, from sending onetime Cocke County Sheriff Bobby Stinson to prison for conspiracy to deal cocaine to unraveling the collapse of the Butcher banking empire.
Blackwell considers himself a Democrat but served under presidents — and prosecuted politicians — of both parties. He signed the letter and said he can easily imagine asking a jury to indict or convict anyone on the evidence Mueller presented in the report, which listed 10 instances of potential obstruction of justice by Trump.
"The act (of obstruction) itself doesn't have to be a crime on its own," Blackwell said. "There are a lot of ways to get people to do things without giving direct orders or memorializing it in writing. I don't know what a smoking gun would be unless someone confessed under oath.
"I would want to sit down with the witnesses, look them in the eye and get a sense of their credibility. I would take the 10 occurrences one-by-one in chronological order and summarize the witness testimony and simply argue it all shows an overall course of conduct. You look at it for the facts and the evidence, not the last name or the political party."

Lifting the layers

Neil Smith's work as a prosecutor spanned a series of presidential administrations, including years spent dismantling a dynasty of political corruption in Cocke County more than a decade ago in a probe the FBI code-named Operation Rose Thorn. The resulting cases took years to resolve in court.
Some of the events described in the Mueller report and in former Trump attorney Michael Cohen's testimony before Congress brought back memories for Smith, who signed the letter, too.
"When you send out a signal to witnesses that they'll be rewarded if they keep their mouths shut, that's obstruction of justice," he said. "You don't have to explicitly tell your lieutenants to go out and wack somebody. We see this every day in all manner of crimes. You've got layers between the foot soldiers and the leaders of a criminal organization, and unless you can make the link, you can't bring a prosecutable case."