Fire Mueller
Two words describe the Russian collusion accusations and investigation of President Trump: Sham and injustice. Robert Mueller, the special prosecutor, knows it. Rod Rosenstein, the Obama holdover Deputy Attorney General who appointed Mueller, knows it. Jeff Sessions, a decent man and attorney general who recused himself, knows it.
The Democrats know it. The left knows it. The mainstream media knows it. DC-owned and spine-free Republicans know it. Paul Ryan knows it.
Everybody knows it. But everyday Americans should really know this: the farce continues because powerful establishment interests are invested in destroying Donald Trump and his presidency.
That’s why the president should fire Mueller. It’s why Jeff Sessions needs to unrecuse himself. The president should shelve special prosecutions during his presidency. The law permits him to do so. Let U.S. district attorneys earn their keep.
Note “…Trump and his presidency,” not “Trump’s presidency,” because the witch-hunting and attempted railroading of the president is every bit as much about destroying the man. Trump leads a counterrevolution, a rising up of Heartland Americans -- Americans everywhere with Heartland blood coursing through their veins. His leadership transcends office. He poses an existential threat to interests and people deeply invested in a worldview or ways that practically benefits them somehow. The presidency is a powerful means, to be sure, and denying its powers to Trump -- somehow -- is critical to reasserting the establishment’s control.
Yes, it’s that seedy. And, yes, it crosses the aisle, as they say in DC.
One’s tempted to say that the Putin-Trump collusion tinfoil hat gambit is the pinnacle of years of efforts to criminalize politics. You remember the Scooter Libby and Tom Delay railroads? But here, in the narrowest sense, there aren’t any politics to criminalize. Russian collusion is pure fiction, utter disinformation. The scheme here is to criminalize fiction; to give legal license to Mueller’s investigation based on fraudulent accusations.
There won’t be an impeachment of the president and/or prosecutions of anyone around him for colluding with the Russians. No such thing occurred. If impeachment and/or prosecutions happen, it will be for “gotcha” technicalities when under oath. That’s how the feds sandbagged Scooter Libby. Or because Mueller’s far-ranging investigations found other unrelated grounds to get Trump.
Mueller has license to fish -- as in conducting a fishing expedition. Word is that Mueller will probe Trump’s business affairs and whatever else. The president is attempting to warn off Mueller. Leviathan government, with thousands of pages of obscure rules and laws to reference, can cite any of us at any time for violations of some law or regulation. This is one of the fruits of a century of “progressive” government: its tentacles reach everywhere and are strong enough to lay low any honest citizen.
Mueller intends to lay low a president, however. Trump enjoys massive grassroots followings that threaten the nation’s establishment as nothing has in recent memory.
Mueller is leading an inquisition. He’s the Grand Inquisitor. If permitted to continue his misbegotten enterprise, he will find something -- anything -- to hang around President Trump’s neck. He’ll protract his investigations if required. At minimum, ongoing investigations throw a monkey wrench into the president’s agenda. It helps cloud his initiatives and accomplishments publicly. It drives down his approval ratings. That gives cover to hostile and cowardly Republicans who oppose parts or all of Trump’s agenda.
The unspoken charge to Mueller is to get something on Trump. Coming up empty-handed is a nonstarter. Concluding after, say, a six-month investigation that accusations against the president and his family and associates of Russian collusion are baseless isn’t what Mueller’s establishment cohorts want. Range far, snag anything to use against Trump is the mandate. The establishment wants blood, and that’s what Mueller will aim to produce.
On Monday, in a Tweet, the president suggested:
Drain the Swamp should be changed to Drain the Sewer -- it's actually much worse than anyone ever thought, and it begins with the Fake News!
Trump is right and wrong. DC has become a sewer, but, it doesn’t begin with “Fake News.” It gives far too much credit to the MSM, which have become open propagandists for the left and Democratic Party. The latter two, in varying ways and degrees, are integral to the establishment.
It’s the establishment, with its interests and factions, who fill the DC sewer. It’s the establishment that is Trump’s greatest nemesis -- and foe of the movement he leads. It’s a fight for supremacy against it.
The president would be wise to end Mueller’s tenure and simply decline to replace him. Misusing and degrading the law needs to stop. Let President Trump set a precedent, a dramatic course change for the nation’s civic and governmental wellbeing.
Halt abuses of law -- against this president and in politics, generally. Years of manipulating the law and employing the power of prosecutors as political weapons contributes to the erosion of trust in law and law enforcement (we’re not talking about beat cops). It drives good men and women away from politics and public service. Why risk reputations and loss of liberty because one champions an agenda that runs counter to powerful interests that have no compunction about criminalizing its opponents?
The Washington Post writes that there are certain grounds for firing a special prosecutor. The analysis can be found here. A takeaway from the Post article reads:
Either they’d [the president and DOJ] have to throw out the regulations binding the firing of Mueller (see Goldsmith’s post for a lot of detail on this) or they’d have to establish cause for firing him.
President Trump should dispose of the regulations for firing Mueller. He doesn’t have to cite misconduct or conflicts of interest, etc., in sending Mueller packing. His justification: Mueller’s appointment was premised, in large part, on false accusation -- a complete lie arising from malicious political intent. That position is simple to substantiate and argue for.
Mueller’s appointment only fuels the entire squalid affair to gain politically through legal shenanigans what the establishment couldn’t gain at ballot boxes. The Russian collusion campaign -- Mueller’s now center ring -- has the feel of banana republic and Soviet setups of powerful opponents and dissenters. It’s flatly anti-American.
Major political blowback awaits Trump if he fires Mueller? Is that something new for this president? Trump can’t smile and say, “Good morning,” without his enemies spinning it as sinister. Dumping Mueller would be a test of new White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci’s mettle. It’s a test the president and he should welcome.