Robert Mueller has ticked off a lot of people.
It wasn’t enough for Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) that he gave them the gift of what was essentially a 200- page “addendum” to the report on Trump/Russia collusion to allow for more investigation into so-called obstruction. Those who hate the President wouldn’t have been satisfied with anything less than a vicious, scathing, total condemnation of Trump as an agent of Vladimir Putin, a traitor to the United States who should be immediately impeached, convicted and hung out to dry.
As Piers Morgan has said, Mueller was supposed to be “the savior, the man on the white horse, riding into town to take down President Trump.” The left can’t forgive him for essentially letting Trump off the hook on “collusion,” even though he didn’t have the evidence to indict. (Some of them are in such denial that they’re pretending he DID find collusion.) So now Mueller is getting a taste of the very wrath that led to his appointment as special counsel in the first place.
Of course, we conservatives have been able to control our emotions because we weren’t taken by surprise. The outcome was just as we expected: 1) Mueller had no case against Trump. 2) He tried to come up with something as damaging as possible anyway.
As Mueller was getting into his car after church on Easter Sunday, a reporter for MSNBC came up behind him, brandishing a microphone. It played like this...
“Sir...could I ask you a couple of questions?” says the ambushing reporter. “Will you testify before Congress, sir?” (Mueller, stone-faced and looking away, declines to comment.) “Are you sure about that, sir?” (silence) “If he were anybody but the President, would Mr. Trump be indicted?” (long silence) “Sir, why didn’t you make a recommendation to Congress one way or the other, sir?” (silence) “Did the attorney general accurately characterize your positions on conspiracy and obstruction, sir?” (slam of car door)
This may be a new low for reporting, in an age of many new journalistic lows. Really, now, coming out of church on Easter Sunday? The only thing more inappropriate I can think of would be if he were coming out of a funeral, and no doubt the reporters at MSNBC and CNN would have had no problem with accosting him there, either. They didn’t get enough of what they wanted from him in the report, and now they’re really impatient and don’t care if they interrupt him coming out of church. He may even be left off the invitation list for a few cocktail parties over the next few weeks.
What would Miss Mannerly say?
Mueller, I’m sure, will simply ignore the questions, knowing he doesn’t have to answer until he testifies before Congress. (At this writing, no date has been set, but they’re reportedly negotiating for late May. Attorney General Bill Barr is scheduled to testify on May 2.) Mueller is in an unusual position, in that he’ll be grilled by people on both sides of the aisle who are fed up with him for completely different reasons. Trump’s opponents are upset that he wasn’t more conclusive about wrongdoing by the President. Trump’s supporters are disgusted that he continued with his Trump/Russia “investigation” long after he had to know the dossier was fake, for no other conceivable reason than to try to get a witness to “compose” or else to trap the President into perjury or obstruction over NOTHING he actually did wrong.
Few in the room will to be on his side. (Boo-hoo.) That’s what he gets for trying to appease the bloodthirsty Trump-haters, who refuse to settle.
Actually, the questions that were put to Mueller were pretty good. We probably know the answer to the first one: Mueller, as far as we know, will be testifying before Congress, probably about a month from now As for Trump being indicted if he weren’t the President, Mueller has made the point repeatedly that the fact that a sitting President can’t be indicted was not a factor. (“Journalists” are going crazy after cherry-picking a statement in his report that appears to contradict that.) Next question: why didn’t he make a recommendation to Congress one way or the other? Well, assuming the reporter was referring to “obstruction,” Mueller simply should have said he lacked evidence to bring a case and let it go at that. That’s because –- news flash –- it’s not his job to “exonerate.” Next question: Did the AG accurately characterize his positions on collusion and obstruction? Not sure what Mueller would say, but it really shouldn’t matter considering Barr released the full report so soon thereafter (when he wasn’t obligated to release it at all).
Whenever we have these open congressional hearings, I like to offer my own list of “for fun” questions, and I’ll probably do that for Mueller a day or two before he’s sworn in. But for now, John Solomon, in “collaboration” with his sources, has come up with a list of ten questions –- the real ones –- that need to be answered in this next phase of investigation. Here are his questions, pared down to their essentials:
1. When did the FBI first learn that the Steele “dossier” was funded by the Clinton campaign and the DNC and written by a partisan who had admitted he was desperate to defeat Trump?
2. How much exculpatory evidence did the FBI have against Carter Page and George Papadopoulos?
3. Why was the Steele dossier used as primary evidence in the FISA warrant against Carter Page when it had not been corroborated?
4. Why were Steele’s biases and his ties to the Clinton campaign --- as well as evidence of innocence and flaws in the FISA evidence --- never disclosed to the FISA court as legally required?
5. Why did FBI and US intelligence officials leak stories about evidence in the emerging Russia probe before they corroborated collusion, and were any of those leaks designed to “create” evidence to use to justify continuing a flawed investigation?
6. Did Comey improperly handle classified information when he distributed memos of his private conversations with Trump to his lawyers and a friend and ordered a leak for the purpose of getting a special counsel appointed?
7. Did the CIA, FBI or Obama White House engage in intelligence activities before opening their official counterintelligence investigation against Trump (July 31, 2016)?
8. Did US intelligence, the FBI or Obama administration use or encourage spy agencies in Britain, Australia, Ukraine, Italy or elsewhere to gather information on the Trump campaign, leak evidence or get around US restrictions on spying on Americans?
9. Did the CIA or Obama intelligence apparatus try to lure or pressure the FBI into launching a collusion probe or acknowledge its existence before the election? (Strzok/Page texts implied as much.)
10. Did any FBI agents, intelligence officials or other key players in the probe provide false testimony to Congress?
Of course, there are more; I’ll add another one: Why did Rosenstein include in Mueller’s “scoping” memo information about Carter Page that came from the Steele “dossier,” which the FBI knew was oppo research paid for by the Clinton campaign?
The tables really are turning. Bill Barr, Michael Horowitz and Lindsay Graham will all be working to fill in the gaps in our understanding of the phony Trump/Russia narrative. IG Horowitz reportedly has already interviewed somewhere between 50 and 100 witnesses, so he might already have at least some of the answers. According to Alan Dershowitz, the FISA court may appoint someone to determine if there was contempt of court when they were deliberately misled. And according to a report by James Rosen, President Trump is getting ready to do some serious declassifying –- particularly of documents relating to the FISA court –- now that he can no longer be accused of “interfering with the Russia probe.” It’s about time, because we need to know if this really was what it SURE looks like: a deliberate weaponizing of the US intelligence community.
Here’s a link to the Solomon piece, with additional detail relating to each of the questions:
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