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Mueller Did the Right Thing
It seems that “13 hardened Democrats” or “angry Democrats” did not deliver a politically-motivated, illegitimate hit job after all. Based on what we know so far, the special counsel’s office reported that it did not find evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. This is a fabulous vindication of the integrity of the system.
No one is noticing that. Instead, the Trump team is gorging on schadenfreude, and the anti-Trump team is choking on bile.
It’s fair to say that those who spent hour upon cable TV hour lovingly anticipating that President Trump would be frog-marched from the White House in handcuffs after the delivery of this report have egg on their faces. It isn’t clear which hurts more, the disappointment about being wrong or the worry about drooping ratings.
But there’s plenty of egg to go around. Team Trump spent nearly two years denouncing the Mueller investigation as a “rigged witch hunt.” By one count, the president used the term “witch hunt” more than 1,100 times. He mercilessly eviscerated his own attorney general, Jeff Sessions, for the sin of following Justice Department guidelines instead of corruptly abusing his office to shield Mr. Trump from scrutiny. At various times, the president has also suggested that the inquiry was a sinister plot of the “deep state;” a ploy by supporters of “crooked” Hillary Clinton to extract revenge (while also suggesting that the real collusion was between Democrats and the Russians); and an “illegal hoax” perpetrated by the “fake news” media. President Trump claimed that the Mueller probe was staffed by “very bad and conflicted people,” and that the investigation was a “disgrace to our nation.”
The battlespace was thus prepared for a Mueller report that would be devastating to the president. His supporters would disbelieve anything that reflected badly on Trump because the investigation itself, along with the law enforcement bodies tasked with carrying out their responsibilities in an impartial fashion, had been discredited.
Yet, when it turned out that the investigators did not invent or plant evidence, did not default to process crimes like lying to investigators, did not spring a perjury trap, and, above all, did not permit their own feelings or political preferences to taint the administration of justice, there has been no embarrassment from team Trump. On a dime, they have reversed themselves completely. A totally corrupt witch hunt has become a total vindication. (It wasn’t that. Even Attorney General William Barr’s letter acknowledged that the report did not “exonerate” the president on the charge of obstruction of justice.) But even if it had been a clean bill of health, how can they trust the Mueller people? Weren’t they thoroughly corrupt? A disgrace?
President Trump has a long history of impugning anyone or anything he perceives as a threat to his own interests and flattering anyone he thinks can help him. When he feared he would lose an election, he denounced the voting as “rigged.” Judge Curiel became a “Mexican” judge when Trump feared he might rule against him in the Trump University case. Gold star parents, deceased heroic senators, Charles Krauthammer, S.E. Cupp, Jeff Bezos, and an endless list of others have joined the ranks of the slighted. On the other hand, if you repent and join the Trump fan club — as pretty much the entire invertebrate Republican party has done — then you are swiftly forgiven and elevated. Lindsey Graham went from “nasty” and “dumb mouthpiece” to favorite golfing buddy in a trice.
This transparently solipsistic approach to the world would be of little interest if it were just a quirk of a New York businessman. But when Trump employs the tactic to undermine confidence in institutions like the justice system, he does lasting damage.
The “witch hunt” was nothing of the kind. Honorable people did the right thing. Politics did not taint a criminal investigation. But that reality is buried under an avalanche of bad faith.
Published in Law, Politics
GC,
Very, very well said.
Regards.
Jim
Well boy oh boy, then I guess it makes it all okay. And we didn’t need that 40 million bucks for anything else anyway.
Of course, the fact remains that one of the first people the witch hunt went after was Gen Mike Flynn. After all, he might have pulled us out of the mess that is the Middle East. And Flynn was a lifelong Democrat. This goes to show that like an angry parent in a custody battle, the Dems were delighted to knock down and away an intelligent decent guy whose appointment to National Security Adviser proved to us that initially, Trump was about bi partisanship.
I disagree.
Mueller did half of his job competently, eventually. He did conclude that the evidence did not show collusion. We do not know whether or not he should have reached this conclusion a year or more ago.
Mueller utterly failed at the other half of his job. His job was to make a decision on the obstruction charge, as well. He punted. Even without seeing the report, it is hard to see any justification for this. The job of the special prosecutor is to reach a conclusion, not present the evidence and pass the buck to the AG.
Exactly how could Mueller rule on obstruction? If the charges against a person are not known by or ever presented to the supposed perp, and there is not even any evidence to show the perp was a perp, exactly how would there be any obstruction? If your meaning is that Mueller should have openly shot down the entire premise of indicting for obstruction, I’d agree with you on that.
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men–
Julius Caesar
William Shakespeare
If Mueller did his job so competently and fairly, how exactly did he miss the real Russian collusion?
500,000 dollar speakers fees?
Millions in donations to a politically connected “foundation”?
The transfer of a large percentage of our uranium resources to Russian control?
Inquiring minds want to know….
“Orange man still bad!”
I think that we’re in agreement, but I’m being a bit more cautious. We haven’t yet seen the Mueller report, so we don’t know what he found regarding obstruction, if anything. My point is that it was Mueller’s job to make a decision, one way or the other, and the fact that he didn’t indicates that he did not do a good job.
It is possible, in theory, for there to have been obstruction even where the report concludes that there was no collusion. For example, if the President had destroyed evidence and bribed (or even killed) witnesses, the result could be that the evidence does not support a collusion charge because the obstruction was successful. I do not say that this is the case, and I know of no evidence supporting this hypothetical. It is possible, however. Thus, I do not think it follows that a “no collusion” conclusion implies a “no obstruction” conclusion.
He went as far as the absence of evidence allowed him. He left it as uncertain as he could so it leaves room for Mona and other never trumpers to avoid grasping what we face and protects elite Democrats from having to admit error. Moreover, most importantly from his standpoint, it helps avoid coming to grips with the real issues of the deeply corrupt Democratic establishment that we squeaked past this time . Mona, it’s not about Trump, he’ll be gone in 2 to 6 years, it’s about the nation and we remain very vulnerable to the kind of dangerous corruption and centralization of power that is always the threat.
That Mueller failed to fatally wound the presidency of Donald Trump is not a glowing endorsement of the current state of the rule of law. Mueller continued the ‘establishment’ vendetta against Gen. Flynn, wandered far away from his original charter, evinced no curiosity about the provenance of the documents and bogus evidence that gave rise to the charges he was assigned to investigate and dragged out the process way too long given the seriousness of the charge that the President of the United States was compromised by a foreign power. Mueller obviously know at least a year ago that there was no there there. And the FBI had already largely covered the counterintel lines of inquiry before he took the case.
Trump was not wrong to call it a witch hunt. It always was. Trump was not wrong to resent being kept under suspicion of a horrible crime of which he was innocent. He was not wrong to point out that Mueller stacked his staff with partisans who would go to great lengths to get Trump on something, anything.
The high publicity raids on Cohen and Manafort were clearly done to induce an over-the-top reaction by Trump that could then be construed as obstruction. In other words, Ms. Charen, they were attempting to generate new evidence, to lay traps even if there was nothing in past events to justify any charges.
Mueller turned over every rock and in a final act of pettiness refused to expressly dismiss the possibility of obstruction even though there was no requisite underlying criminal activity for an obstruction charge.
And to make the big takeaway that Donald Trump should not have criticized the noble Mueller is just as distorted and just as petty.
Jerry, I agree with this. I also think others here are correct in noting that Mueller had both an ambit and an opportunity to investigate non-Trumpian collusion and corruption, since the investigation must necessarily have touched upon the Steele Dossier and, hence, the Justice Department / DNC / Clinton campaign interactions. I consider this failure to address institutional corruption is the biggest failure of the investigation. (This assumes, of course, that Barr didn’t simply skip that bit in his summary, which seems unlikely.)
@henryracette – If Mona only reads one comment, she should read yours. It was a measured and intelligent response to the OP — much more than I would have been.
Thank you. I’ve gotten the impression that she doesn’t read comments here anymore, and I suppose I can sympathize with that decision. But hers is a strong, well-established voice, and it would be good to re-engage her in the conservative dialogue, including where Trump is concerned, if that’s possible.
Mona is one of those people who needs to apologize for spending the last two years pushing a conspiracy theory that has truly harmed our nation.
There needs to be a reckoning and consequences for the conspiracy-mongers.
I hope one consequence is that the publishers and outlets they have relied on for exposure, fame, and money decide that perhaps they won’t allow themselves to be used to spread malicious gossip anymore.
Well @henryracette, dream on. Even after Mueller is finished and Trump is still POTUS, Mona Charon, like other NT’s, finds a way to wordsmith more calculating derogatory commentary about Trump. Not one word of how happy she is that our President has been proven not to be a Russian spy. Not a word of encouragement that we can move forward with a strong conservative agenda without the intentionally created cloud hanging over his head. With the Democrats going all bat guano crazy socialist, I have to wonder if she even cares about our country at all. Can you point to one article Mona Charon has written in the last three years that indicates her concern about the Democrats and what they might do if in power? Seriously.
This is pretty unbelievable. Mona must have been asleep for the last 2 years.
The “deep state” and the Clinton campaign manufactured the Steele dossier to give the Justice Department the predicate to start investigating the Trump campaign based on nothing. Period. Unprecedented in the history of American politics.
So please spare me the scare quotes.
Conveniently these issues were not within scope of the investigation
The Witch Finder found no witches, and I am expected to cheer. Which I assure you that I will, just as soon as I get a detailed, coherent answer to the question “why did you think that there were witches to be found?”
“Because of the dossier” is neither detailed nor coherent. Try again.
Yet they went out and investigated anything and anyone even remotely connected to the Trump campaign. Once the special council starts investigating there are no limits to where he can go.
You must know something no one else knows…the Scope of the investigation. That document has yet to be released. It was hinted at by Barr. He is the first to do so.
And — don’t forget the Podesta brothers, especially Tony Podesta. There’s something seriously strange there.
The publicly released authorization from Rosenstein specifically references the Trump campaign. It does not reference Clinton nor her campaign.
Curious how the Podesta group folded once a member (Manafort) was charged with being an unregistered foreign agent.
Curious how the owners of the Podesta group (brothers Tony and John) managed to secure offers of immunity (supposedly for being unregistered foreign agents) before folding their tent.
Say, didn’t John Podesta work for Former President Barack Obama and President Wannabe Clinton?
The whole Podesta thing is extremely concerning for curious minds. What led to Tony Podesta shutting down one of the most profitable and powerful lobbying firms in DC. Who shuts down a business making them rich?