Donald Trump has reportedly said that Special Counsel Robert Mueller acted honorably in the course of his nearly two-year probe into Russian collusion. Unfortunately, his minions didn’t get the memo.
For reasons that are still unclear to me, “Doctor” Seb Gorka is comparing Robert Mueller to mob boss Whitey Bulger. Meanwhile, in recent days, the Mueller investigation has been compared to missing WMDs, while its coverage has been compared to the Jussie Smollett hoax case and the Covington Catholic rush to judgment.
Consider this tweet fired off by Fox News’ Laura Ingraham in the immediate aftermath of the summary’s publication: “Those responsible for starting this travesty, wasting taxpayers’ money, harming the presidency, now must be fully investigated, and people should probably be going to jail.”
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You’re going to hear numerous people bemoaning the wasting of taxpayers’ money. But the last I heard, we actually made money off the Mueller investigation. But more to the point, I’m not sure why Gorka and Ingraham aren’t doing what Trump is (for now, at least) doing: They should be talking about how this two-year investigation, headed by a credible and respected investigator, turned up nothing.
Put another way, Gorka and Ingraham should shut up and dribble. Or—more appropriately—they should shut up and smile.
Just as liberals shouldn’t be so hysterically upset that Mueller didn’t find any collusion with Russia, it’s even more absurd for Trump fans to be upset for the same reason.
Actually, there are numerous reasons that all Americans should view the last couple of days not as a reason to gripe or complain, but rather as a reason to celebrate.
Both sides should be celebrating the fact that we live in a nation where even the president can be thoroughly investigated for suspected wrongdoing. What is more, we should appreciate that we live in a nation where the intelligence community can throw its resources behind such an investigation, and—after nearly two years of digging into things—admit they didn’t find any evidence of collusion.
Do you think there were any examples where the KGB decided to investigate someone, only to come up empty-handed?
Have you ever heard of a witch hunt that didn’t find any witches? Only in America.
Having said that, this investigation was far from a waste of time. Mueller found no witches, but he nabbed some pretty big fish, and getting the deeply compromised Mike Flynn out of the National Security Council was of massive importance. The various indictments publicly laid out in detail how Russia tried to meddle in the election.
Even if all the Russians involved can't be extradited, that's of public service. We also learned that Michael Cohen’s negotiations regarding a Trump Tower in Moscow continued well into the 2016 campaign. Again, Americans have the right to know about this. It’s a public service.
Shady things did happen, including the Trump Tower meeting. It’s also fair to say that Trump’s behavior (including firing James Comey and sucking up to Vladimir Putin in Helsinki) consistently made him look guilty. Frankly, if he were trying to act guilty he couldn’t have done much better.
The truth is that this uproar is crazy. This investigation wasn’t a hoax or even a wild goose chase. Mueller uncovered some things we have a right to know about, and he did it without partisanship. He followed the facts and, at least apparently, where he thought he didn't have enough facts, he didn't get overzealous and restrained himself. That's what you would want in a prosecutor.
I admit that I was deliberately hard on Democrats and the mainstream media in my initial post-Mueller summary column. There’s no doubt that coverage was hyped by people who had succumbed to confirmation bias (in some cases, this included former high-ranking intelligence officials). The rush to judgment and presumption of guilt was wrong. But that doesn’t negate the legitimately appropriate reasons for this very professional investigation.
In any event, we should be celebrating! The system worked. Our president isn’t above the law. The deep state didn’t stage a coup. The rule of law prevailed. The president did not collude with Russia.
This would seem to disprove any “deep state” conspiracy secretly pulling the strings and working to frame the president and bring about a coup.
The republic endures. We should be happy about that—at least, for a few days.
