It's a rehash. He died in 2015, the report that isn't liked is from 2016.
The report said he died from blunt-force trauma, and said he repeatedly hit his head. Initial reports were "heart attack." But like the dead American soldiers in Jordan last fall, it pays not to believe the first reports.
Now, I'd assume the medical examiner would have looked for any other evidence on the body in photos, and assume, in good faith, he found none. Could he have been falling-down drunk and seriously hurt himself? Sure. I had a kid who tripped and had a concussion that kept him home for 3 days and on light duty for a month. Good thing there weren't any sharp corners around.
Is it likely he clumsy-battered his noggin to death? I doubt it, but what do I know? But "beaten to death" and "blunt-force trauma from falling" might look fairly similar. Depends on the details, which, conveniently, we lack. So we can argue from the silence that the examiner was right, or we can argue from the silence that he was wrong. Silence is a bear. No, wait. bears are loud.
If I go with bad faith, I'd have to assume he was ignoring something or covering up something. Then, why?
Because the examiner's a bad person. Nah. Because he likes Russians? Doubtful. Because he wanted to help the Russian hurt HRC? Probably not. Because he took a payoff? Not something I think likely. Why? Because in the long run it's not worth it. Could he have been intimidated? Sure. But I'm betting before that report was issued he was questioned about it. Repeatedly. So since the obvious "he's hiding something for nefarious reasons of his own devising" are dealt with, let's move on.
Perhaps those involved have immunity?
Every time I can recall--let's face it, that's a small number, and they're old, old cases--there was a lot of outrage that there was this murderer who, because of some lame technicality like diplomatic immunity, couldn't be prosecuted. It triggers all kinds of stereotypes and hate because some spoiled or out of control diplomat's kid did something stupid. Stupid happens, it's only a federal incident for the courts and diplomatic immunity is a good thing. If we ignore their DI, then, oh, somebody like Russia could ignore our guys' diplomatic immunity. I have to assume that since those big rows, oh, 30 years ago or more, murders or rape by diplomats and their families has *not* plummeted to zero. There are more diplomats and more people now than before. I seriously don't think that they're all better behaved than before. I figure that they happen and the idjits are vanished--families are paid off, the murderer quietly vanishes, and while nobody's happy it's to everybody's advantage to let it slide. The killer's going to walk anyway, he'll be quietly handled by his government and the dead person's relatives get the best deal they could (while if they speak up, they get publicity and a worse deal).
Fair? No. But if the person's dead and the diplomat will walk away whatever happens, "fair" is not a terribly relevant word.
A second serious option would be that there was a cover up and it was handled. Those who did the deed left the country, never to return, possibly before he was even identified. Meaning, in other words, he's probably not identifiable and the entire investigation would do nothing but annoy everybody with no satisfying results. But in return for no investigation, there wasn't some huge distraction involving Russian relations that interfered with something important. Obama would have to deal with a huge murder-by-Russians while he had a presidential campaign that he was supporting, dealing with cleaning up various things, and still, probably, trying to keep US-Russia relations on an even keel. It wasn't a slam-dunk that Russia would be a big stain on his legacy; even now, the focus isn't on what Obama did or didn't do last year, but on what a candidate did or didn't do. Meanwhile, Obama had all kinds of bad news about Russia he wasn't sharing at the time. I don't know what was going through his head. Maybe in 10 years he'll write a book.
So was it a murder? Dunno. Might be that he had a bit of help with that blunt-force trauma. Maybe not. Don't see that it much matters. And the cover-up is entirely in Obama's lap, so I don't see how that helps anybody here. We can speculate about what he was going to say. But that's mostly navel-gazing.
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