RUTHFULLY YOURS

“Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many.”

That’s a compelling verse – call it a proverb – from the New Testament. It’s a great admonition for all of us. It’s one the left will pay for not knowing.

During the early days of the Clinton impeachment, then-“journalist” George Stephanopoulos gave an insider threat to the world, clearly from the Clintons. He said that if Republicans continued their attempts against them, the earth would be scorched. If they went down, everyone else would, too.

Here is the exchange, from 1998.

Sam Donaldson: “Are you suggesting for a moment that what they’re beginning to say is that if you investigate this too much, we’ll put all your dirty linen right on the table? Every member of the Senate? Every member of the press corps?”

George Stephanopoulos: “Absolutely. The president said he would never resign, and I think some around him are willing to take everybody down with him.”

It is now safe to say the Democrats have followed that scorched earth promise, that they now fully embrace the Clinton bitterness and corruption. It’s beyond anything we have witnessed.

Take a look around. This absurd quest to dehumanize Trump, to form narrative after narrative fabricated on lies to try to destroy him, to destroy his ability to govern, to make him into a criminal, comes from the bitter wells of the Clintons. After all, he ended Hillary’s (and Bill’s) dream of regaining the Clintons’ glory. Make no mistake: the Clintons and their team are ravaging everything in a concerted effort to punish anything or anyone that took them down. Trump is the symbol, but anyone moderate, or right of center, is now the target. We, all of us on the right, are the target as well. Just like in Stephy’s quote.

Look at the poisoned fruit they have grown. Any celebrity that dared even hint to give Trump a chance was destroyed by the liberal Twitter-verse, having to grovel at the feet of the left. Multiple episodes of violence have erupted against non-leftist speakers on campus. Any attempt by any congressional Democrats to help Trump is seen as treason to the cause, provoking virtually all of their party members to ever angrier statements and over-the-top efforts to bring Trump down. Kathy Griffin feigns cutting off the head of Trump as a comedy act, and it took 24 whole hours (rather than minutes) to fire her. Violence from the left is condoned and encouraged, and no Democrat adult has come against it until today.

The New York City Council is the distilled political essence of modern progressivism, which means it can be dangerous to public health and safety. This summer tourists can see more New Yorkers relieving their bladders in public thanks to the council’s reduction in penalties for crimes against public order, and now the council wants to expose the city’s antiterror secrets.

A new bill would require the New York Police Department to disclose and describe all “surveillance technology,” which it defines as “equipment, software, or system capable of, or used or designed for, collecting, retaining, processing, or sharing audio, video, location, thermal, biometric, or similar information.” The cops would have to post this information online annually and respond to public comments.

The effort is backed by such anti-antiterror stalwarts as the New York Civil Liberties Union and the Brennan Center. Manhattan Democrat Daniel Garodnick, a co-sponsor, says the measure would enhance public trust by giving citizens more knowledge about policing techniques.

We’ll see how long that trust lasts if the bill makes it easier for terrorists to thwart or evade the NYPD’s antiterror methods. That’s the legitimate worry of police who rely on technology and surveillance to prevent mass murder. A jihadist bombed Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood as recently as September and the department maintains on average three or four active terrorist investigations at any one time. John Miller, the NYPD’s counterterror chief, says police have foiled at least 25 major terror attacks since 9/11.

New York’s cops are as respectful of privacy as any in the country, and they need a court order to conduct searches or track a cellphone. They also comply with the court-ordered Handschu guidelines that impose additional due-process burdens.

An NYPD internal committee reviews these cases along with an external, civilian representative, who is currently former federal Judge Stephen Robinson. As if this weren’t enough, in 2014 the city council established an inspector general for the NYPD. The miracle is that the cops have been able to keep America safe despite all of this bureaucratic oversight and political second-guessing.

New York remains a pre-eminent terror target because of its size and importance as a symbol of American culture and commerce. The recent attacks in Britain show the jihadist threat to open societies hasn’t abated, and democracies need tools to defend themselves without offering terrorists a road map to thwart them.

The attack on congressmen last week illustrates the realities of sudden violence. There’s a saying among gun-carry permit advocates: “When seconds count, police are minutes away.”

That was not the case last week but only because Majority Whip Steve Scalise’s Capitol Police detail was on hand and courageously engaged the shooter. Had Rep. Scalise and his security team not been present, congressmen and their aides would have been easy pickings until local police arrived. That took three minutes—but that’s a long time to spend taking cover in a baseball dugout under armed assault. “It would have been a bloodbath,” said Texas Republican Joe Barton.

In largely rural states like Indiana, where I live, response times can be 30 minutes or more. Maybe that’s why nearly a million Hoosiers hold active gun permits, as per state records, out of an adult population of 4.5 million.

I’ve been one of them for decades. I’ve gone Christmas shopping armed, carried at family outings, sporting events and movie theaters. I was fired from a job with the gun tucked in an ankle holster. Aside from the indignity of being fired, the only person in danger was me, when I broke the news to my wife.

Indiana assumes—in the absence of evidence to the contrary—that people will protect themselves without reflexive, wanton violence. It works. A gun-use Venn diagram would show a mere sliver of overlap between those who lawfully carry weapons and those who use guns in the commission of crimes. You don’t find National Rifle Association stickers on getaway cars.

The inconvenient fact that laws aimed at restraining criminals are only obeyed by non-criminals was vividly demonstrated in this case. Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R., Ga.) reported that his aide “back in Georgia, carries a 9mm (pistol) in his car. . . . He had a clear shot at him, but here we’re not allowed to carry any weapons.”

Bad news for New York Republican Chris Collins, who said, “I can assure you from this day forth—I have a carry permit—I will be carrying when out and about.” Well, when he’s out and about on Capitol Hill he won’t be allowed to carry. He might be permitted to have a gun in his desk—unloaded. It will make a fine paperweight.

Mr. Collins’s New York state carry permit is recognized in Virginia, under expanding reciprocity laws that have extended permit rights beyond state lines. He could also carry in Indiana; our reciprocity rules are very liberal, in the least bossy sense of the term. But relying on his New York permit in Maryland or the District of Columbia would get Mr. Collins one phone call and a court date. CONTINUE AT SITE

Remember when Obama and Hillary cozied up to Putin? And recall when the media rejoiced at surveillance leaks about Team Trump?

The American Left used to lecture the nation about its supposedly paranoid suspicions of Russia. The World War II alliance with Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union had led many leftists to envision a continuing post-war friendship with Russia.

During the subsequent Cold War, American liberals felt that the Right had unnecessarily become paranoid about Soviet Russia, logically culminating in the career of the demagogic Senator Joe McCarthy. Later, in movies such as Seven Days in May, Doctor Strangelove, and The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, Hollywood focused on American neuroses as much as Russian hostility for strained relations.

In the great chess rivalry of 1972 known as “The Match of the Century,” American liberals favored Russian grandmaster Boris Spassky over fellow countryman Bobby Fischer, who embarrassed them by winning.

In the same manner, Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev was often portrayed in the media as the urbane, suave, and reasonable conciliator, while President Ronald Reagan was depicted as the uncouth disrupter of what could have been improved Russian–American relations.

Senator Ted Kennedy reportedly reached out to Soviet leader Yuri Andropov in 1984 to gain his help in denying Reagan his reelection.

In sum, the American Left always felt that Russia was unduly demonized by the American Right and was a natural friend, if not potential ally, of the United States. That tradition no doubt influenced the decision of the incoming Obama administration to immediately reach out to Vladimir Putin’s Russia, despite is recent aggressions in Georgia and steady crackdown on internal dissent, and despite Russia’s estrangement from the prior Bush administration.

Obama’s Entreaty to the Russians

In March 2012, in a meeting with President Dimitri Medvedev of Russia, President Barack Obama thought his microphone was either off or could not pick up the eerie assurances that he gave the Russian president:

“On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved, but it’s important for him [Vladimir Putin] to give me space.”

Medvedev answered: “Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you . . . ”

Obama agreed and elaborated, “This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility.”

Medvedev finished the hot-mic conversation with, “I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir, and I stand with you.”

A fair interpretation of this stealthy conversation would run as follows:

Barack Obama naturally wanted to continue a fourth year of his reset and outreach to Vladimir Putin, the same way that he was reaching out to other former American enemies such as the Iranians and the Cubans. Yet Obama was uneasy that his opponent, Mitt Romney, might attack him during his reelection campaign as an appeaser of Putin. Thus, to preempt any such attack, Obama might be forced to appear less flexible (offer less “space”) toward Putin than he otherwise would be in a non-election year. In other words, he couldn’t publicly assure Putin that he would be “flexible” about implementing missile defense in Eastern Europe (“all these issues”) until after he was reelected.

An apprehensive Obama, in his hot-mic moment, was signaling that after his anticipated victory, he would revert to his earlier reset with Putin. And most significantly, Obama wished Putin to appreciate in advance the motives for Obama’s campaign-year behavior. Or he at least hoped that Putin would not embarrass him by making international moves that would reflect poorly on Obama’s reset policy.

“After 7 months of investigations & committee hearings about my ‘collusion with the Russians,’ nobody has been able to show any proof. Sad!,” tweeted President Donald Trump this morning. Mr. Trump isn’t known for understatement, but in this case his argument is stronger than he suggests, because then-Director Jim Comey’s FBI began looking for evidence of collusion nearly a full year ago. It still hasn’t appeared, which means that Department of Justice Special Counsel Robert Mueller is conducting an investigation in search of a premise. But if this is starting to look like the Seinfeld of federal productions—a show about nothing—recent events suggest it could end up being about something worse.

Mr. Mueller has a sterling reputation and a long record of service to the United States, including as a decorated Marine in Vietnam and as Mr. Comey’s predecessor atop the FBI. He is known for his independence and professionalism, which makes recent media reports about his burgeoning investigation rather puzzling.

CNN reports today that Mr. Mueller has already hired 13 lawyers and plans to hire more. The network describes the investigative team:

Among them are James Quarles and Jeannie Rhee, both of whom Mueller brought over from his old firm, WilmerHale. He’s also hired Andrew Weissmann, who led the Enron investigation.

“That is a great, great team of complete professionals, so let’s let him do his job,” former independent counsel Kenneth Starr, who investigated President Bill Clinton in the 1990s, told ABC News.

While only five attorneys have been identified, concerns have come up over the political leanings of Quarles, Rhee and Weissmann. They have donated overwhelmingly to Democrats, totaling more than $53,000 since 1988, according to a CNN analysis of Federal Election Commission records.

If Mr. Mueller promptly exonerates the President, the presence of partisan Democrats on the investigative team will certainly lend credibility to Mr. Mueller’s findings. In a similar way, the presence of Trump donors on the team would bolster Mr. Mueller’s case if he ended up claiming that the President did something wrong.

Conscientious people—and even attorneys—can put their politics aside and perform honest service. But rather than deciding which political partisans to engage in this work, shouldn’t Mr. Mueller be seeking people who don’t have a particular rooting interest in the outcome? For both the appearance and the reality of a fair inquiry, an independent staff would seem to be an obvious objective when assembling the team.

Is it hard to find good lawyers who aren’t political activists? Mr. Mueller is obviously comfortable hiring former WilmerHale colleagues, and it turns out it’s not so easy finding attorneys there who aren’t partisans. The firm’s investigative and criminal litigation practice group is one obvious place to look for lawyers to join the Russia investigation. Both co-chairs of this group at WilmerHale are Democratic donors, according to OpenSecrets.org. This group is part of a larger “Litigation/Controversy Department,” and its chair and all four vice chairs are also Democratic check-writers, though a couple of them have also contributed to Republicans. Many of the more junior attorneys are also active in politics, which means Mr. Mueller may need to get outside his comfort zone if he wants more independent thinkers.

Again, just because Mr. Mueller hired people who gave hefty donations to Democrats doesn’t mean these lawyers can’t do a professional job searching for the long-sought evidence of collusion. But then what are we to make of the Washington Post report this week with various anonymous sources saying Mr. Mueller’s team is investigating if the President obstructed justice—and then another Post report based on leaks saying Team Mueller is looking into presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner’s business dealings?

As for the idea that Mr. Trump might have obstructed justice, Andy McCarthy and Alan Dershowitz and Michael McConnell have separately explained why this is a big stretch, and Richard Epstein makes the case that if anyone in this drama is vulnerable to a possible obstruction charge, it’s Mr. Comey. CONTINUE AT SITE

WASHINGTON—U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise (R., La.) was upgraded from critical to serious condition on Saturday after he was wounded in a shooting at a Republican baseball practice outside Washington, D.C.

Medstar Washington Hospital Center released the update Saturday on behalf of the Scalise family. The congressman underwent another surgery Saturday, and the hospital said he is more responsive and speaking with family.

Mr. Scalise, the House majority whip, was one of five people shot when a gunman opened fire Wednesday as the Republican team practiced in Alexandria, Va.

The assailant, James Hodgkinson, had lashed out at President Donald Trump and other Republicans over social media and last year volunteered for Sen. Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign.

Mr. Scalise, 51 years old, was shot as he stood by second base, and he dragged himself into the outfield in a bid to reach safety, witnesses said. He has required surgery several times since the shooting.

Matt Mika, a lobbyist for Tyson Foods who was among those shot, also underwent additional surgery and doctors expect a full recovery.

Mr. Mika’s family said in a statement Saturday that he would remain in the intensive care unit at George Washington University Hospital at least through the weekend. They said he is able to communicate through notes and signed the game ball from Friday’s congressional baseball game.

YOKOSUKA, Japan—A deadly collision with a cargo ship crushed the captain’s cabin of a U.S. destroyer and other sleeping quarters, giving sailors almost no time to save themselves as seawater flooded in, the commander of the U.S. Seventh Fleet said Sunday.

The bodies of seven U.S. sailors missing after the USS Fitzgerald collided with the Philippines-registered ACX Crystal early Saturday have been recovered from inside the destroyer, U.S. defense officials said.

Vice Admiral Joseph Aucoin said the impact crushed berthing cabins below the waterline and ripped open a large hole in the vessel. Bodies of the missing sailors were found in the berthing cabins, the Navy said.

The cabin of the ship’s captain, Bryce Benson, was also badly damaged.

“He’s lucky to be alive,” Vice Adm. Aucoin said, adding that Commander Benson, who was airlifted from the Fitzgerald, is in a stable condition in a nearby hospital.

Two berthing areas were crushed, housing more than 100 sailors. Many were asleep at the time of the collision.

Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin, U.S. Seventh Fleet Commander, said there wasn’t a lot of time for sailor’s to react to the collision. Photo: toru hanai/Reuters

“The water inflow was tremendous” after the collision, Vice Adm. Aucoin said. “There wasn’t a lot of time” for sailors to react. “The crew had to work very hard to keep the ship afloat”

Vice Adm. Aucoin said he had ordered a full investigation into the cause of the collision, and would also cooperate with Japanese investigators looking into the incident.

A spokesman for the Japanese coast guard said its investigation was continuing, and Filipino crew members of the ACX Crystal had been questioned. He declined to discuss further details of the probe.

Nippon Yusen K.K . , the Japanese shipping company that operates the 728-foot-long ACX Crystal cargo ship, said all of the 20 crew members were unharmed. The company said it would fully cooperate with an investigation into the cause of the collision.

The region where the two ships collided is often busy with marine traffic.

Collisions at sea for the U.S. Navy are extremely uncommon, said Bryan McGrath, a former destroyer captain, who said they occur only once or twice a decade, if that. He said he couldn’t remember a recent collision that was this consequential. CONTINUE AT SITE

‘Pretty soon, all of this assassination talk will get someone shot,” I told my Fox News colleague Tucker Carlson on Tuesday afternoon.

And on Wednesday morning, it happened.

James T. Hodgkinson, 66, opened fire on an Alexandria, Va., baseball diamond where Republican lawmakers practiced for their annual charity face-off against Democratic colleagues. Hodgkinson, a registered Democrat, shot House Republican whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana, Capitol Police officers David Bailey and Crystal Griner, congressional staffer Zach Barth, and Tyson Foods lobbyist Matt Mika.

The would-be assassin, whom Officers Bailey and Griner fatally struck, was a far-left campaign volunteer for Senator Bernie Sanders (Socialist., Vt.). To his credit, Sanders swiftly and forcefully declared: “I am sickened by this despicable act . . . and I condemn this action in the strongest possible terms.”

As the Daily Caller detailed, Hodgkinson clearly and explicitly hated President Donald J. Trump and other Republicans.

Via Facebook, Hodgkinson said of Scalise: “Here’s a Republican that [sic] should Lose His Job, but they Gave Him a Raise.”

Hodgkinson called Trump “Truly the Biggest Ass Hole We Have Ever Had in the Oval Office.”

“Trump is a traitor,” Hodgkinson wrote. “Trump Has Destroyed Our Democracy. It’s Time to Destroy Trump & Co.”

The shooter belonged to a Facebook group called “The Road to Hell is Paved with Republicans” and another named “Terminate the Republican Party.” After Hodgkinson’s attack, members of the “Terminate” online forum rejoiced. “Lol . . . this was no surprise,” Darryl W. Riley cracked. “We all knew this was gonna happen.” An even more depraved Mari-Ellen Cain cheered: “And it’s one, two, three shots you’re out at the old ball game!!!”

Represenative Jeff Duncan (R., S.C.) said that as he left the ballfield on Tuesday, Hodgkinson “asked me if this team was the Republican or Democratic team practicing. He proceeded to shoot Republicans.” According to the Washington Examiner, Duncan added: “I’m going to take it he was targeting Republicans this morning.”

News accounts, led by the Daily Caller, indicate that law-enforcement officials found a hit list in Hodgkinson’s pocket. It specifically named GOP representatives Mo Brooks of Alabama, Jeff Duncan of South Carolina, and Trent Franks of Arizona, all members of the House Freedom Caucus. Brooks and Duncan attended Tuesday’s practice. The list strongly suggests that Hodgkinson deliberately targeted his prey.

While Hodgkinson’s behavior exceeded that of other liberals, his brutality built upon the Left’s statements and actions since Election Day 2016.

Liberals and Democrats have spewed toxic anti-GOP rhetoric, excreted assassination-chic “art” that celebrates the ritual murder of President Trump, physically beaten Trump supporters, and perpetrated anti-Republican riots, anti-Trump vandalism, and even “anti-Fascist” arson. For the Left, “Love trumps hate” is less than a punchline. It’s a cruel, vicious lie.

Hodgkinson’s roughly 50 pulls on the trigger of his SKS 7.62 rifle likely were eased by the constant drumbeat of left-wing violence, blood-soaked imagery, and hateful rhetoric about Trump. This venom did not ooze from obscure, fringe sources. Rather it cascaded from the mainstream: platinum-record-earning musicians, TV stars, and a taxpayer-funded drama company operating in the heart of Central Park.

Madonna, the world-wide pop sensation, told the January 21 Women’s March in Washington, D.C.: “Yes, I’m angry. Yes, I am outraged. Yes, I have thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House.”

Rapper Snoop Dogg produced a video in which he fires a gun beside the head of a clown dressed like Trump. Out pops a flag that reads: “BANG!”

“Can you imagine what the outcry would be if SnoopDogg, failing career and all, had aimed and fired the gun at President Obama,” President Trump replied via Twitter. “Jail time!”

Adam Pally, star of Fox TV’s Making History, told TMZ that if he could take a time machine and spend an hour with anyone, “I’d have to kill Trump or Hitler.”

Former CNN personality Kathy Griffin notoriously posed with a blood-drenched, mock-up of a severed head of Trump.

Lea DeLaria, a cast member of Netflix’s Emmy-award-winning Orange Is the New Black series explained how she would express herself politically: “Pick up a baseball bat and take out every fucking republican and independent I see.”

The Public Theater’s current production of Julius Caesar features a Trump-look-alike emperor being stabbed to death by Roman senators. As Polizette’s Edmund Kozak noted, “The play has reportedly received standing ovations when Trump/Caesar is assassinated.”

The Left tries to defend itself by claiming that “both sides do this.”

Nonsense.

President Donald Trump’s missteps have intensified the scandal that is consuming his administration.

One is tempted to put scandal in scare quotes. Trump is somehow enmeshed in a scandal based on actions that a president is fully entitled to take — such as dismissing the FBI director and weighing in on the merits of continuing an investigation of his former national-security adviser. It is, in addition, a scandal born of Trump’s desperation to publicize information that is true and that a president is fully entitled to publicize — such as the facts that the president had been assured by the FBI director on multiple occasions that he is not a criminal suspect, that the FBI director made the same representation to members of Congress, and that a months-long investigation had turned up no evidence of “collusion” between his campaign and the Kremlin.

Yet, a scandal it is: A specter of impropriety is undermining Trump’s administration, tanking his favorability ratings, and stalling his agenda. True, his media-Democrat enemies cast every story in the worst possible light. But there’s always a story, isn’t there?

That is largely Trump’s doing. The tweet-tirades about phantom wiretaps (which undermined his credibility to raise what may be a real Obama-administration abuse of foreign-intelligence powers). The decision to fire FBI director James Comey, not timed to occur when Trump justifiably dismissed dozens of Obama Justice Department appointees at the start of the administration (the new broom that sweeps clean), but triggered by a fit of pique over Comey’s selective public commentary on the “Russia investigation” — thus fueling the “obstruction” narrative. The multiple conflicting explanations for Comey’s removal. The bizarre decision to meet Russian diplomats the day after Comey’s dismissal and, shamefully, to berate the former director in their presence. And, of course, more tweets, such as the self-destructive suggestion of a Watergate-resonant White House taping system (that almost certainly does not exist).

But if Trump is his own worst enemy, his Justice Department is not far behind.

Four key decisions, three of them made after the president was inaugurated and the Justice Department came under his control, at least nominally, have done immense damage to his administration — in conjunction with Trump’s belief that fires are best doused with gasoline.

To understand why, I will reiterate my two-part working theory for why we have a mess, albeit one that, as a matter of law rather than appearances, falls woefully short of obstruction. First, Trump lobbied for the investigation of Michael Flynn to be dropped — something he could lawfully have ordered to be done — because he (a) was feeling remorse over Flynn’s humiliating removal as national-security adviser and (b) thought further investigation and potential prosecution would be overkill. Second, Trump’s decision to fire Comey — something he was lawfully entitled to do — was not an endeavor to influence the FBI’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 campaign; it was the result of exasperation over Comey’s skewed public statements about the investigation, which created the misimpression that Trump was a criminal suspect.

On the latter score, I am not saying that Comey intended to mislead the public, although I imagine Trump probably believes he did. For what it’s worth, I accept the former director’s explanation: After his (self-induced) nightmare over the Hillary Clinton e-mails investigation, Comey was reluctant to announce that Trump was not a suspect; he feared that if Trump’s status later changed, he would have to correct his announcement, thus making matters worse for Trump (as his similar flip-flop did for Clinton).

If that was his fear, though, Comey should have refrained from any public comments at all — which is what law enforcement is supposed to do. Instead, during congressional testimony, he made an unnecessary announcement about the Russia investigation that led the media to report, and much of the public to believe, that Trump was a suspect in possible crimes. Once he did that, it was unreasonable to refuse to correct this misimpression by publicly acknowledging that Trump was not a suspect. It is all well and good to agitate over a “duty to correct,” but Comey glides past the more basic duty not to make gratuitous prejudicial statements in the first place. Trump fired the FBI director because he was being badly hurt by that testimony. He wanted it publicly known that he was not a suspect (which Comey had privately assured him, multiple times).

Trump saw Comey as the obstacle to that disclosure. Whether too uninformed or too paralyzed, the president did not grasp that he was entitled to order Comey to make the disclosure, or to do it himself (as he eventually did, only upon firing the FBI director).

“We relate all this because it shows how Mr. Mueller let his prosecutorial willfulness interfere with proper constitutional and executive-branch procedure. This showed bad judgment. He shares this habit with Mr. Comey.”

That didn’t take long. Barely a week after James Comey admitted leaking a memo to tee up a special counsel against Donald Trump, multiple news reports based on leaks confirm that special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating the President for obstruction of justice. You don’t have to be a Trump partisan to have concerns about where all of this headed.

President Trump has reportedly stepped back this week from his temptation to fire Mr. Mueller, and that’s the right decision. The chief executive has the constitutional power to fire a special counsel through the chain of command at the Justice Department, but doing so would be a political debacle by suggesting he has something to hide.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mr. Mueller, would surely resign, and other officials might resign as well until someone at Justice fulfilled Mr. Trump’s orders. The President’s opponents would think it’s Christmas. The dismissal would put the President’s political allies in a terrible spot and further distract from what are make-or-break months for his agenda on Capitol Hill. His tweets attacking the probe are also counterproductive, but by now we know he won’t stop.
There are nonetheless good reasons to raise questions about Mr. Mueller’s investigation, and those concerns are growing as we learn more about his close ties to Mr. Comey, some of his previous behavior, and the people he has hired for his special counsel staff. The country needs a fair investigation of the facts, not a vendetta to take down Mr. Trump or vindicate the tribe of career prosecutors and FBI agents to which Messrs. Mueller and Comey belong.

Start with the fact that Mr. Comey told the Senate last week that he asked a buddy to leak his memo about Mr. Trump specifically “because I thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel.” Did Mr. Comey then suggest Mr. Mueller’s name to Mr. Rosenstein? He certainly praised Mr. Mueller to the skies at his Senate hearing.

The two former FBI directors are long-time friends who share a similar personal righteousness. Mr. Mueller, then running the FBI, joined Mr. Comey, then Deputy Attorney General, in threatening to resign in 2004 over George W. Bush’s antiterror wiretaps.

Less well known is how Mr. Mueller resisted direction from the White House in 2006 after he sent agents with a warrant to search then Democratic Rep. William Jefferson’s congressional office on a Saturday night without seeking legislative-branch permission. The unprecedented raid failed to distinguish between documents relevant to corruption and those that were part of legislative deliberation. GOP Speaker Dennis Hastert rightly objected to this as an executive violation of the separation of powers and took his concerns to Mr. Bush.

The President asked his chief of staff, Joshua Bolten, to ask Mr. Mueller to return the Jefferson documents that he could seek again through regular channels, but the FBI chief refused. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was also unable to move the FBI director. When Mr. Bolten asked again, Mr. Mueller said he wouldn’t tolerate political interference in a criminal probe, as if the Republican Mr. Bush was trying to protect a corrupt Democrat. Mr. Mueller threatened to resign, and the dispute was settled only after Mr. Bush ordered the seized documents sealed for 45 days until Congress and Mr. Mueller could work out a compromise.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals later ruled that the FBI raid had violated the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause and Mr. Jefferson’s “non-disclosure privilege” as a Member of Congress, though the court let Justice keep the documents citing Supreme Court precedent on the exclusionary rule for collecting evidence.