RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2019/07/25/the-day-

It wasn’t supposed to end this way.

Donald Trump, not Robert Mueller, was supposed to be broken and vanquished at the hands of his political foes. Donald Trump, not Robert Mueller, was supposed to suffer a legacy-ending humiliation on national television that would bury his tough-guy reputation and taint his past achievements. The supporters of Donald Trump, not the supporters of Robert Mueller, were supposed to slink away in embarrassment, desperately searching for any calcified crumb of credibility to salvage their beaten hero.

The climax of #TheResistance’s fantasy to take down Donald Trump wasn’t supposed to end with long faces at MSNBC and CNN, or with reporters at the Washington Post and the New York Times admitting defeat. 

These are the kinds of things Washington Post opinionators write about Donald Trump, not about Mueller.

Panelists on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” were supposed to be ebullient after watching their savior in action, not ranting like lunatics about the need for someone to “punch” President Trump. The Lawfare folks were supposed to be popping champagne corks, not turning on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for refusing to play along with their impeachment crusade. And it was Team Mueller, not Donald Trump, who was supposed to declare victory.

Stumping the Prosecutor
But the dream died on July 24, 2019, when former Special Counsel Robert Mueller not only failed to deliver the goods against Trump but revealed that #TheResistance, once again, had pinned its hopes on a flawed actor not up to the task. Just like the cast of conquerors who came before him—Stormy Daniels, Michael Avenatti, Michael Cohen, and Omarosa, just to name a few—Robert Mueller slouched out of the spotlight after failing to best the Bad Orange Man.

The spectacle in front of the House Judiciary Committee and the House Intelligence Committee was not what the Democrats expected but it was exactly what they deserved. After delaying the scheduled hearing for a week, Mueller reluctantly appeared but only after negotiating a deal that his chief of staff could attend alongside him. Aaron Zebley was sworn in as a witness by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), but Republican members refused to direct any questions to him.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-mueller-was-trying-to-hide-11564094510

Special counsel Robert Mueller testified before two House committees Wednesday, and his performance requires us to look at his investigation and report in a new light. We’ve been told it was solely about Russian electoral interference and obstruction of justice. It’s now clear it was equally about protecting the actual miscreants behind the Russia-collusion hoax.

The most notable aspect of the Mueller report was always what it omitted: the origins of this mess. Christopher Steele’s dossier was central to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s probe, the basis of many of the claims of conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia. Yet the Mueller authors studiously wrote around the dossier, mentioning it only in perfunctory terms. The report ignored Mr. Steele’s paymaster, Fusion GPS, and its own ties to Russians. It also ignored Fusion’s paymaster, the Clinton campaign, and the ugly politics behind the dossier hit job.

Mr. Mueller’s testimony this week put to rest any doubt that this sheltering was deliberate. In his opening statement he declared that he would not “address questions about the opening of the FBI’s Russia investigation, which occurred months before my appointment, or matters related to the so-called Steele Dossier.” The purpose of those omissions was obvious, as those two areas go to the heart of why the nation has been forced to endure years of collusion fantasy.

Mr. Mueller claimed he couldn’t answer questions about the dossier because it “predated” his tenure and is the subject of a Justice Department investigation. These excuses are disingenuous. Nearly everything Mr. Mueller investigated predated his tenure, and there’s no reason the Justice Department probe bars Mr. Mueller from providing a straightforward, factual account of his team’s handling of the dossier. CONTINUE AT SITE

https://www.wsj.com/articles/beyond-muellers-purview-11564097665

Having failed to prove collusion and obstruction of justice, the cheerleaders of the Robert Mueller investigation are now highlighting his claim this week that Russia is still trying to interfere in U.S. elections. No doubt the Russians are. Which makes it all the more important that the Justice Department finish the half of the Russian-meddling probe that Mr. Mueller didn’t.

We’re referring to the areas that Mr. Mueller said this week were not in his “purview.” We counted nine times the former special counsel resorted to that answer, all in response to questions about the origin story of the FBI counterintelligence operation against the Trump campaign.

Was Mr. Mueller familiar with Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that Democrats used to flog dirt about Donald Trump and Russia? “This is outside my purview,” he said.

Did he know that Fusion GPS was also representing a Russian-based company known as Prevezon while it was flogging that dirt? “It’s outside my purview,” Mr. Mueller said.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14595/office-of-special-counsel

Ordinary prosecutors are not allowed to comment about why they decided not to prosecute the subject of an investigation. The Mueller Report, when made public, violated that salutary tradition. It contained negative information about people, including the president, who will have no opportunity to respond in a legal proceeding.

The report and the testimony introduced the novel and dangerous concept into our legal vocabulary: “Not exonerated.”

From day one, I proposed an alternative: namely the appointment of a nonpartisan expert commission whose job it is to investigate the role of Russia in trying to influence American elections and to influence our American democratic processes. Like the 9/11 Commission, this Russia Commission would not be pointing prosecutorial fingers for past derelictions, but would be focused primarily on preventing Russia from continuing to influence our American political processes. Prosecutors, like the Special Counsel, operate behind closed doors and in secret. They hear only one side of the story.

Robert Mueller’s performance in front of Congressional committees should mark the end of special counsels, special prosecutors, independent counsels and the like. These hearings demonstrated, if any further demonstration was required, how dangerous it was to go outside of the normal processes of criminal justice.

Ordinary prosecutors are not allowed to comment about why they decided not to prosecute the subject of an investigation. The Mueller Report, when made public, violated that salutary tradition. It contained negative information about people, including the president, who will have no opportunity to respond in a legal proceeding.

The report and the testimony introduced the novel and dangerous concept into our legal vocabulary: “Not exonerated.” This concept, which finds no basis in the rules of the Justice Department or the Special Counsel, is a variation on the nefarious theme articulated by the disgraced former FBI director, James Comey, when he went beyond announcing that Hillary Clinton would not be prosecuted, and expressed his opinion that she had been extremely careless in her treatment of emails. This statement said, in effect, that Hillary Clinton was not being exonerated.

Mueller’s testimony was confused and confusing on many scores. He couldn’t explain why he had reached a formal decision on conspiracy with Russia but had failed to reach a formal conclusion about obstruction of justice. He had to pull back on his answer to whether the decision not to charge the President was based on a Justice Department policy against indicting a sitting president. There was no explainable pattern as to why he chose to answer some questions while declining to answer others. He seemed not to be familiar with the contents of the Report that bears his name. It was almost as if he had signed his name to the Report without carefully reading or understanding it.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/07/

There’s an old saying in newsrooms: News is stuff that people have forgotten. Robert Mueller’s dramatic appearance before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday morning was a striking reminder of this adage. The former special counsel did not drop any new revelations about the Trump-Russia affair. Yet in a simple but important manner, he reiterated the basics of this scandal—perhaps the most consequential political scandal in American history. These are the fundamentals that have often been subsumed by all the never-ending partisan squabbling and by the ongoing crusade mounted by Donald Trump and his defenders to distract from his perfidy. These are the facts that Trump has refused to acknowledge, and they are the facts that taint his presidency and undermine its legitimacy.

https://amgreatness.com/2019/07/24/this-was-the-most-powerful-man-in-america-for-two-years

For two years, Robert Mueller was the most powerful man in America. Since May 2017, he has ruled the media, the government, and the public discourse. Elusive by design, Mueller, along with his team of partisan prosecutors, operated in a rarified sphere exempt from the normal political constraints of scrutiny and accountability.

Americans repeatedly were assured that Robert Mueller possessed superhuman faculties. His integrity is unimpeachable, his professional track record is flawless—or so we were told. A war hero and former FBI Director, appointed by Republicans doncha know, Robert Mueller was the man, the patriot, who would get to the bottom of how Donald Trump and his corrupt campaign associates colluded with the Russians to throw the 2016 election in Trump’s favor.

Leaders on both sides of the aisle assured us that Mueller would act in a fair manner, that he would oversee every detail, and that any case against the president would be rock solid. Any tepid criticism of the special counsel was the equivalence of treachery, an attempt to subvert the rule of law; any Trump tweet aimed at the man in charge of a politically-motivated investigation intended to take down his presidency was proof of his criminality.

For two years, Congress, mostly led by Republicans during that time, cowered in the powerful shadow of Robert Mueller. Governance ground to a halt as our country’s legitimate challenges, including a porous southern border, were ignored. Conservative commentators piled on, working with the Left to attack anyone who dared to challenge Mueller’s power. Americans repeatedly were warned that “the end is near,” “the walls are closing in,” “Trump’s days are numbered,” as Mueller’s team notched one indictment after another, although none was related to election collusion. Americans braced for the worst, or the best depending on one’s political affiliation, as we became convinced Donald Trump would be hauled out of the Oval Office by the Messianic Mueller.

https://spectator.us/democrats-events-mueller-trump-2020/

Lights! Camera! Inaction!

The hearing, pushed hard by House Democrats, was supposed to be a major public event, designed to highlight allegations against President Trump in the report by special counsel Robert Mueller. It was always about convincing the public that the report was far more damning than the public initially thought. It was never about new evidence — only about putting the existing report up in lights.

It failed in that theatrical goal. The phrase of the day is a stumbling Mueller asking, time and again, ‘Can you repeat that?’

For Democrats: the hearing was all about revving up public support for impeachment. That meant building enthusiasm well beyond their base. The key was to highlight President Trump’s alleged obstruction of justice in a convincing, gripping fashion.

For Republicans, the hearing was all about stopping that and defending the president. Their party cannot retake the House and retain the Senate if the top of the ticket is badly damaged.

Given these political stakes, the Democrats needed to ‘win’ the hearing outright, to show that they need to keep investigating the president, even if that prevents them from advancing other legislation. The Republicans had an easier task. They merely had to stop the Democrats from using the Mueller report to fuel impeachment. That’s exactly what they did. They succeeded not by winning outright but by blocking a Democratic victory.

As political theater, the hearing was a dud. The five-minute question periods, alternating between parties, made it hard for Democrats to build a convincing narrative. Even worse, the Democrats’ star witness was a visibly aged special prosecutor. Robert Mueller capped a distinguished career of public service with an undistinguished performance. He looked weak and sometimes befuddled, repeatedly asking for questions to be repeated. He refused the Democrats’ invitation to do a ‘show and tell,’ in which he would read his report aloud and embellish its findings. He essentially told the country, ‘I have nothing to say beyond the report itself. Please move along.’

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/07/24/

How big a nothingburger was Robert Mueller’s testimony on Wednesday? Within thirty minutes of the end of his sad, near-senile performance lasting over six hours, MSNBC’s out-for-Trump’s-blood commentators had turned to asking defeated Missouri Democrat ex-Sen. Claire McCaskill to describe to viewers how the Russians are promoting the anti-vaccine movement.

Americans wouldn’t read the book, i.e,. Mueller’s report, but they’ll watch the movie. That was the Democrats’ bet in forcing Mueller to appear before the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees. But they lost big, and Mueller’s appearance on screen is a shoe-in for the Golden Raspberry Award, right down there with the very worst investments Hollywood has ever made, like “Heaven’s Gate,” “Ishtar,” and “Leonard Part 6.”

Mueller was “exactly the right kind of individual for this job,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said when he was appointed special counsel in 2017. We’ve been told for over two years now that the former FBI director is a lion, a dogged crusader for the truth, a national treasure within the law enforcement establishment. But on Wednesday he was a shell of a man; he stammered, sat open-mouthed, gawking, endlessly asked for questions to be repeated and rephrased, and failed to remember what was contained in his own 448-page report — strongly indicating that it was not Mueller, but his team of left-leaning, Democrat-contributing prosecutors, like Andrew Weissman, who actually penned the document bearing his name.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/death-of-the-impeachment-dream-11563999203?mod=cx_picks&cx_navSource=cx_picks&cx_tag=collabctx&cx_artPos=1#cxrecs_s

House Democrats hoped that Wednesday’s hearings would allow them to highlight their favorite portions of the Mueller report for people who haven’t read it. Democrats didn’t expect this segment of Americans to include the author.

Largely unwilling to promote, defend or elaborate on a document with which he seemed strangely unfamiliar, former Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller let stand the report’s finding of no Trump-Russia collusion and, intentionally or not, ensured that his work will not be used to drive a duly-elected President from office.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-mueller-show-goes-bust-11564003715

The only person in Washington happier than Donald Trump about Robert Mueller’s Wednesday appearance before Congress is Nancy Pelosi. The House Speaker’s impeachment caucus had hoped the hearing would mobilize new public support despite her opposition, but it was more likely their last gasp.

Mr. Mueller provided little news during his many hours before the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees. Democrats strained to place their obstruction of justice and Russia collusion theories in his mouth, but Mr. Mueller stuck to the script of his 448-page report. He even refused to read aloud from that document—denying Democrats an audio version for their TV ads.

Democrat Ted Lieu (California) sought to lure Mr. Mueller into saying he would have indicted Mr. Trump for obstruction if he weren’t a sitting President. “That is not the correct way to say it,” Mr. Mueller said. “As we say in the report and as I said at the opening, we did not reach a determination as to whether the President committed a crime.”

Mr. Mueller also refused to answer Republican queries about why he didn’t fully explore the origins of the Russia-Trump conspiracy story, including the Steele dossier that was used to gain a warrant to spy on a Trump campaign adviser. Mr. Mueller said those issues were “beyond” his “purview,” though Russia’s election interference was central to his mandate. Mr. Mueller probably didn’t want to question the performance of the FBI he led for more than a decade.