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What if Mueller Was “Used” from the Start?
Yesterday was a sad day for Robert Mueller. Many have already focused on his inept and befuddled performance in front of the House Committees. After reflecting on the two meetings, I have an even more tragic and disgraceful theory of what we watched.
They used Mueller from the very beginning.
Let’s go back to when Mueller was first hired. I surmise that even then, Mueller was showing signs not only of age but of mental difficulties, albeit to a lesser degree. Although he was no longer in government, he associated with people who were, people who might have realized that he was no longer the brilliant, dedicated, and admirable man he once was. Wouldn’t he be the perfect person to “put in charge” of a group of operatives who were working to take down the president? Especially if the position of Special Counsel were presented to him as a worthy way to save the country from a crazy and incompetent president?
And they would provide him with all the help he needed: dedicated and smart attorneys who would do all the leg work, and one man who had shown his “bulldog” approach to investigations would lead the group: Andrew Weissmann. The investigation would be the project of the century, and Robert Mueller would be the best man to head all of it.
Only the whole thing was One. Big. Lie.
I think that Robert Mueller may have signed up with mostly respectable motives. I don’t know if his capabilities were already questionable. But Andrew Weissmann, who had worked with him before, would handle most of the day-to-day oversight. The challenge for Mueller of what could become one of the most consequential investigations in American history was too enticing. Even two years ago, Mueller might have suspected he wasn’t quite up to snuff. He probably didn’t say he wasn’t at his best, but if Weissmann didn’t know Mueller had limitations, he figured out pretty quickly that he basically had carte blanche to run the investigation as he wished.
What “evidence” do I have for my theory? For one, we barely saw Mueller during the past two-plus years. Was he trying to avoid public exposure? Or maintaining the confidentiality of the investigation? When he gave his May 2019 press conference, he appeared awkward, even though he read his presentation. He was adamant that the report would be his testimony, hoping to avoid a committee hearing. He stalled for weeks in agreeing to show up, probably in a panic about appearing, knowing that not only might his mental state be exposed, but his lack of involvement with and oversight of the investigation would be obvious. In addition, AG Barr tried to rescue him on a couple of occasions. He downplayed his disagreements with the final report. He couldn’t figure out why Mueller was writing about his disagreement with Barr’s summary, rather than just calling him. (We can guess that Weissmann was the one who was angry and he wrote the letter.) AG Barr insisted that Mueller could agree to or decline appearing before the committees; it was Mueller’s decision. And finally, at Mueller’s request, he wrote a letter stating that Mueller could only testify about information within the report, so that he couldn’t be drawn into subjects about which he knew little or nothing.
By this time, AG Barr knew that Mueller was in deep trouble.
At the last minute, Mueller had a member of the Special Counsel team attend with him. Perhaps he came for moral support; perhaps he was there to bail out Mueller if he was about to bury himself.
But he was unable to stop the calamity.
I think Mueller’s testimony reflected not only his age, but his mental deterioration, as well as his lack of familiarity with some of the most basic parts of the investigation and the report. He had trouble understanding several of the questions. He contradicted himself. He asked for sections of the report to be read rather than read them himself. The list goes on.
Some people will ignore Mueller’s performance. Our local newspaper had as the headline, “Mueller did not exonerate Trump.” Today, do people really care?
From my viewpoint, I see only tragedy. I believe Mueller was used and abused by political operatives. I believe they knew he could be manipulated by appealing to his long-standing commitment to the country. Millions of dollars have been spent. People’s lives have been damaged, even destroyed, emotionally and financially. The country has experienced enormous upheaval.
But the President has survived.
And I have no way of knowing how much of my theory is true.
Let’s hope that the promised investigations by AG Barr and the Inspector General will shine some light on this entire, ugly process.
And let’s say a prayer for Robert Mueller.
Published in Politics
Same here. Of course, it’s an AP article, but I was irritated that our paper (usually conservative-leaning) didn’t have better sense than that.
Our paper is a mix. Most of the articles (that aren’t local) are over-the-top AP articles. I’m almost embarrassed for them. Fortunately the op-ed page is more balanced with more sanity. I hear they are getting a new editor. I sure hope they keep the mostly conservative bent on opinions.
Wow, @susanquinn, your beautifully written analysis rings so true to me! I think you may have hit the nail on the head as to what happened here.
My high-IQ mother has dementia that for the first several years only affected slivers of her brain but made her appear functional in many ways. There were small hints, as she drove too slowly even on local highways, and went to several doctors about abdominal pain that she insisted came from red tide exposure. But even five years after her diagnosis I have to go to every doctor appointment with her because she can give such a good, convincing medical history that she leads even her longtime doctors in the wrong direction. If this is really the case someone in Mueller’s family knows the truth, and they should step up immediately to defend him.
I honestly don’t care about Mueller or his motives. Let’s keep the facts in focus. If investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election was at all part of his purview then his investigation (one which ignored the origins of the imbroglio – i.e. Steele and Mifsud) was incompetent at best. The appalling incuriosity regarding the only known instance of foreign interference in our election – the Steele Dossier – and the possible setup that was Mifsud, Halper, and the rest leads me to my own speculation about Mueller’s motives. As I say, though, no speculation is required. It was grossly incompetent at best and that is bad enough.
Regarding AG Barr, I want to emphasize that he might have had no idea of Mueller’s mental state until recently. At that point, the damage had been done, although AG Barr will be rectifying a great deal. My guess is that Barr saw no reason to add to Mueller’s misery and threw him a couple of lifesavers. But it was too late.
Coming from the other side of the equation — How much did Rod Rosenstein know about Mueller’s mental capabilities from the time he was appointed Special Counsel to the time William Barr took over as Attorney General? Part of the parameters the Special Counsel’s office had here was due to the fact that Jeff Sessions was sidelined from doing any oversight because of his recusing himself prior to the start of the probe — even if he knew Mueller wasn’t up to the job, there was nothing he could do about it.
Once Barr becomes AG and has full oversight on the probe, that’s when things really started falling apart. Barr probably didn’t (and doesn’t) want to embarrass Mueller if he truly is suffering from failing mental capabilities, but the new AG started forcing the Special Counsel’s office to show their work on the Russia probe, and that’s when it became clear it was a big bag of nothing, and the only indictments were going to be on matters that pre-dated the people accused having joined the Trump campaign. (the fact that nothing came out directly hitting Trump prior to that was a pretty good sign there was no there there, but Weissman & Co. could drag things out because they were getting little if any oversight from Rosenstein).
Whether or not there’s any action that can be taken here against anyone in the Counsel’s office is a different question. There’s no rule that says you have to appoint a competent leader, and as much of a partisan as Weissman might be, in the end he opted not to go the indict-a-ham-sandwich route and push for charges against Trump to please partisan Democrats, at the potential future cost of his reputation. But Rosenstein might get this added to his permanent record, if he appointed Mueller in the knowledge that he was merely there as a fig-leaf to bipartisanship, and Weissman and the other partisan lawyers would really be running the show.
Yes, dementia can manifest in many different ways. You know only too well, @theotherdiane.
If you read my post carefully, I don’t deal with his motives much. The work was grossly incompetent, and he should be held accountable. I would say that lots of people should be tossed in jail, including those who covered for him. The point I’m making (and you don’t have to care, @edg) is that if he was used in this way, the situation is even more despicable.
Good questions and points, @jon1979. I don’t know if Rosenstein knew about Mueller’s mental issues; I don’t even know how much he interfaced with him. But I have strong suspicions he knew a great deal. I would love for Weissmann and his people to pay some kind of price. I also wonder if Weissmann kept Mueller isolated enough that he was the only one who knew how serious Mueller’s condition was? After all, Mueller seemed to know very little about the evidence and almost never was in on interviews. Ugly, ugly.
Mueller authorizes early morning FBI raid on Paul Manafort’s home.
General Michael Flynn Is Threatened By Mueller Using His Son
Author/Investigative Reporter Jerome Corsi Sues Robert Mueller
Let’s ask Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn and Jerome Corsi if they have any sympathy for this devil.
Prosecutors do not exonerate. They prosecute or they decline to do so.
Dad and I talked about this last night. Both of us are familiar with ongoing engineering projects that had someone assigned to “oversee” when the projects appeared to be in trouble. The added level of oversight rarely helps and occasionally hinders progress.
I don’t know that Mueller did either. I also don’t think that he was actually running things, much like the vice-president that shows up for the once-monthly status meetings. (If the veep remembers what the acronym of the project stands for, that counts as “fully engaged.”)
But one thing that such projects usually do share is that they are in existence before the “oversight” starts overseeing.
When did this investigation begin, and what was the predicate?
You did notice, @columbo, that I mentioned all the lives who had been damaged or destroyed. I’d suggest that Weissmann was behind all of it and he used Mueller as his front. I realize for a lot of people it may seem impossible to hold the paradox–to feel enraged at him and compassion for him–but that’s what I feel called to do.
Absolutely necessary to expose. And soon! I have no doubt that it was a conspiracy like we’ve never seen.
I posted, half-jokingly, over at Roger Simon’s PJMedia article yesterday, that you could go with the “Star Trek Nazi Planet Theory” of what happened here, based on the show’s episode where a respected-but-aging historian who is an observer on a planet gains power but becomes a figurehead shell of a man, while the No. 2 in the system is the real totalitarian power behind the operation.
That would make Robert Mueller the John Gill of this story — used only as a name to gain respect — while Andrew Weissman gets the Melakon role, while trying to incite their followers into war with their enemies.
(For it to have been a completely accurate analogy, Mueller would have had to have woken up at Wednesday’s hearing after being coaxed by William Barr and told the committee they had all been victims of a horrible criminal hoax, and that there never was any proof of Russian collusion from the start. After which, Andrew Weissman would have had to have burst into the hearing room with a machine gun and blasted Mueller before he could say anything more.)
I did. But I also note that each of these three wronged subjects have directed their ire at Mueller, not Weissman.
I would love to hear from the subjects of these interrogations by the Special Counsel’s office exactly how engaged Mueller was. I perceive it to be highly engaged and certainly the signing off approval of the gestapo-like tactics of early morning raids, intimidation and extortion for desired testimony. It is why Jerome Corsi his suing Mueller.
He did not seem so befuddled or used in 2017.
If I were them (or any of the others who were terribly treated), I would never forgive him. But I have the benefit of trying to be dispassionate, and I agree they should feel that way. I still hold to my own ideas.
I agree! It would be extremely helpful to know the level of his involvement.
I suppose so. It’s just that Mueller possibly having been used is just a stubbed toe in comparison to the massive bleeding we’re experiencing from the failed coup. I didn’t mean to come off so harsh.
Interesting theory.
My beef with the special counsel’s performance leading to the report was the many innocents he destroyed emotionally and financially. Even if he was slipping into dementia, he had a reputation of being the kind of guy who did not care who he destroyed as he pursued his ends. Harvey Silverglade wrote an article about his experience with Mr. Mueller in an unrelated case that did not reflect well on Mr. Mueller.
There has been the claim that Mr. Mueller’s integrity was unquestioned. To the extent integrity means truthfulness, that may be so. But to the extent that it means always doing the right thing, that appears to be a different story. Early dementia or no.
I am perfectly willing to believe that Rosenstein knew exactly what was going on, and was in fact part of the cabal trying to bring down the president.
Mr. Rosenstein has not been much in the news since he and the new AG (Barr) determined that there was no basis for an obstruction of justice charge. I wonder if Barr made him some kind of offer that he could not refuse, one that may have us hearing much more from him in the near future.
My goodness, @edg, you weren’t harsh at all! It is all so ugly!! And bizarre! And impossible to believe! We have waited years to have the truth come out. I’m putting a lot of faith in Bill Barr to blow it all up, and I will cheer, even if Mueller goes down with the ship. And I will want Weissmann to finally, after all the ugly things he’s done, to suffer, greatly.
@jon1979, thanks for making me laugh! How crazy to laugh at that image! That’s where we are, though. And a little humor and light helps us through.
I found yesterday’s spectacle quite depressing and disheartening. Mueller looked feeble, out of the loop, and old. I was, actually, hoping that the second session would simply be cancelled. The Left has gained nothing that I can see, beyond the opportunity to restate the tired old headlines they’ve been retreading for the last three years (perhaps that will advance their narrative, or at least keep it in the news), and I didn’t enjoy the spectacle of Mueller’s uncertainty and dithering in the glare of the Republicans’ headlights, either. So few useful answers to important questions; and someone who was once (I believe) an capable, upright and decent man made to look like a dupe.
I prefer the term “figurehead.” I think it’s entirely likely that Mueller was chosen as a “figurehead” on the strength of his reputation as a straight-shooter, and for his bipartisanship and probity. I expect he agreed on the premise that he wouldn’t really have to do very much, and I expect he trusted his subordinates to do a decent job. (Perhaps that’s true.) Then, his minions did what they did, and when, after two years of intense investigation (and some finegling of the facts and rules of evidence), even they couldn’t come up with anything really dispositive, they published their nothingburger, making the best case for “obstruction” they could without actually doing anything about it, and while inventing a new legal hurdle for Trump to navigate in the meantime.
At that point, the Left couldn’t quite believe that Trump wasn’t being frogmarched out of the White House in ankle chains, and that all his children hadn’t been put in jail and left to rot, and they’ve been having tantrums of one sort or another ever since. The farce yesterday was just another one of them which, unfortunately, put an old man in the spotlight, and showed us all what many of us have to look forward to at some point in our lives. For that reason alone, I have some pity for the man. And contempt for his interlocutors.
And I look forward to the full story coming out at some point.
Very insightful comment, @arthurbeare. The more evidence we can get to take these people down, the better.
Beautiful, thoughtful comment, @she. I also suspect that I might be identifying with your comment here more than I want to admit.
An interesting article, @davidcarroll. I never believed he was as pure as people made him out to be. After all, he worked with Andrew Weissmann. But he at least acted somewhat sheepish in the situation described in the article. It doesn’t make it all better, but I doubt he wore the “bulldog” label, either.
Man with substantial reputation agrees to put his legacy as a legal eagle at risk, by neglecting to exercise oversight of consequential investigation of President of the United States?
@susanquinn, you nailed it. He probably deteriorated somewhat since the start of the investigation, but it seems undeniable that he was chosen precisely due to his diminished capacity, in order to allow the ongoing coverup of the abuses I refer to as Spygate.
I don’t know if Mr. Mueller forgot, or if he really never knew, the basic details of the report and its formation and findings, but no matter how you cut it, yesterday he had far less knowledge and understanding of the whole mess than your average Ricochet reader. He was the namesake and leadership, yet seems entirely unaware of the most basic conclusions of the report!
In the end, it does not matter how bad he was when he started vs the shell of a man we witnessed yesterday. The more important point is that at no time was the fact that he was unable to engage intelligently on the investigation noted, or addressed. It was covered up and allowed to continue, and the only reason I can see to do that is to leverage his reputation to provide camouflage for a blatant abuse of power and obstruction of justice by the counsel and investigation. (as usual, while the left commits an outrageous act, they are busy pointing fingers at their opponents claiming it is they who are doing it. Obstruction? None by Trump. Plenty by Clinton, Comey, Brennan, and now the Mueller team. )
I doubt that he went into the situation thinking he’d be a “figurehead”; if he wasn’t “all there,” he might not have realized what the intent of his “handlers” was. Just sayin’ . . .
To the contrary, his family should have alerted officials to his decayed mental state and pushed to have him removed from such consequential responsibilities. But it’s possible they did so and informed only the vile manipulators who already knew.
Having witnessed dementia/Alzheimer’s progression a few times, I also find it hard to believe that his family didn’t discuss the problem with Mueller himself. In the beginning, at least, Mueller would have been capable of understanding his shortcoming and admitting to politicians that he needed to be recused.
Maybe his mental health is okay and he was just exhausted or terrified of being watched on TV by millions. But if he does have dementia, there is absolutely no excuse for his continued participation and the hiding of his malady.