Now that the news is out that there will be no indictments at all related to the actual mission of the Mueller special counsel appointment, those of us who criticized him (including President Trump) are being told we should suddenly reverse ourselves and praise him as a man of integrity.  Some even ask whether we owe him an apology.

Robert Mueller visits Barack Obama and Joe Biden in the Oval Office, July 20, 2012.
Official White House photo by Pete Souza.

Jonah Goldberg, one of the smartest NeverTrumps, tweeted out, even before the Mueller Report was delivered, an ironic speculation that the Left would turn on Mueller, while the right would suddenly discover his many virtues:

So, if Mueller in effect clears Trump, I expect to see a lot of folks who insisted Mueller was a dirty cop, deep state, witch hunter to suddenly discover Mueller’s integrity. And a lot of folks who insisted Mueller was the Last Honest Man to vilify him as a cover up artist.

— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahNRO) March 22, 2019

I don't think so.

The Left will not turn on him because he has made criminal referrals to the Southern District of New York, upon which the Left now pins its hopes.  They also hope for the Report to indicate some dirt on Trump for which he cannot be indicted while in office, but which he may have to face after he leaves the presidency.

And as for conservative critics of Mueller, I will speak for myself.

First of all, he should never have hired Andrew Weissmann to be his lead investigator, who, it has been suggested by many, was the actual boss of the investigation, as Mueller withdrew from active, day-to-day management.  Weissmann had disgraced himself in the prosecution of Arthur Anderson's work for Enron, where the guilty verdicts were thrown out by the Supreme Court, after that firm had been utterly destroyed, costing thousands of people their jobs and the partners their fortunes.

Second, the prosecutors included no Republican donors but many Hillary donors, and the team initially included Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, whose fanatic hatred for Trump, disdain for his supporters, and determination to act as an "insurance policy" in case he was elected, should have disqualified them.  A prosecutor interested in the truth should not assemble such a lopsided crew of fanatics.

Third, once it became clear that the Steele dossier — the very basis for the appointment of Mueller — was a Hillary-generated oppo research fantasy, Mueller should have announced that he would not pursue what the law calls the "fruit of a poisonous tree," resigned, and disbanded his investigation.

Fourth, so far as we know, though I would be delighted to learn otherwise when the Report is released, Mueller pursued no investigation of Democrats and Hillary for colluding with Russia.  We know that after laundering their money through the law firm of Perkins Coie and Fusion GPS, a foreign intelligence agent named Christopher Steele was employed by the Hillary campaign and DNC to collude with Russian intelligence sources and influence our election.  So far as we know, Mueller was not told to investigate only Republicans.

Fifth, the aggressive prosecutors ruined many innocent lives with the costs of lawyers, including the destruction of professional careers.  We now know that an abusive threat to prosecute him was made against author Jerome Corsi unless he signed a "confession" he claims was untrue.

Special counsel Robert Mueller's team offered Corsi a proposed plea agreement, which would have required him to admit to one criminal charge with two components: lying to investigators and obstruction of justice before congressional or grand jury proceedings.

Corsi refused to sign the plea deal.  He then released drafts of his plea agreement and indictment, went on a media tour slamming Mueller's team, and published a book detailing his experiences with the special counsel.

In the end, Mueller concluded his investigation without ever bringing charges against Corsi.

On Friday, Corsi accused Mueller's team of trying to push him to plead guilty to a crime he didn't commit.

"I went in there to cooperate with them. They treated me as a criminal," Corsi said.

"I consider this entire investigation to be fraudulent," he said.  "I'm glad it's over."

Because Corsi was never prosecuted, we know that this was a false threat, that there was no substantial case.  Had Dr. Corsi (he is a Harvard Ph.D. in history) possessed fewer resources (including especially guts), he might well have lied and given the false evidence demanded in order to spare himself the ordeal of prosecution before a District of Columbia jury composed overwhelmingly of Hillary voters, cognizant that federal prosecutors obtain guilty verdicts about 98% of the time.

I do commend Robert Mueller and his team for not faking enough evidence to obtain a phony indictment, but I still hold them responsible for the five types of abuses I just outlined.