At this point they have been exposed as lying charlatans over Trump Russia collusion. But can they stop?
Democrats had such high hopes for Mueller. Remember the early days? Dems sold T-shirts saying "Thank God for Robert Mueller." Odd since so few of them believe in God. One woman even named her dog Mueller. Hero worship like this was common:
The media loved him too:
PHIL MUDD: If you have a kid and you’ve despaired that there’s not a hero in America, Robert Mueller’s it.
BARNEY FRANK: Bob Mueller was a wonderful appointment.
GLORIA BORGER: Mueller is an impeccable choice.
JEFFREY TOOBIN: There is literally no more respected person in American law enforcement than Bob Mueller.
SCOTT PELLEY: (noise) Mueller is a well-respected former FBI director.
DAN ABRAMS: …well respected, well regarded…
BOB BECKEL: The guy’s got an enormous amount of strength among Democrats.
LEONARD LANCE: (noise) Mr. Mueller will be thorough in his investigation.
JOHN GARAMENDI: (noise) Mueller is highly competent, highly capable.
MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT: Bob Mueller is a man that’s respected by both parties.
MIKE BARNICLE: Bob Mueller is the definition of honesty, integrity, character, discipline.
NICOLLE WALLACE: Bob Mueller is a national treasure!
TIM NAFTALI: Mueller understands the law.
MOHAMAD ELLEITHEE: Mueller is the right choice ’cause he will take it where it leads him.
PAUL BEGALA: Mr. Mueller (snickers) is a credible law enforcement official. He [Trump] may be perfectly, pristinely innocent, and I will accept that if that’s what we find.
In the days before the hearing Dems were still trying to resurrect the Mueller god myth:
The media anticipation was
breathless:
The day before Mueller’s trip to the Hill, MSNBC’s Brian Williams intoned on The 11th Hour that the stakes were “extremely high.” He elaborated that many Democrats were “hoping that this testimony in front of the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees will ignite public outrage somehow, and public interest in the investigations into the President.”
Over on CNN, New Day co-host Alisyn Camerota likened the upcoming hearings to now-CNN contributor John Dean’s testimony during the Nixon years. “Not many people know the pressure of testifying before Congress with the Presidency at stake,” she intoned with a grin.
Broadcast networks were, if anything, more excited than their cable counterparts. Hours before the back-to-back hearings, ABC’s Mary Bruce on Good Morning America dubbed Mueller’s testimony Democrats’ “last, best chance to convince the public to support impeachment.” Meanwhile co-host and Democratic donor Gayle King informed viewers of CBS This Morning: “It could mark a key moment in the Trump presidency.”
By the end of the day, most of this excitement had been hopelessly dashed.
“Did this move the ball at all?” ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asked senior national correspondent Terry Moran after the Judiciary hearing. “No,” Moran spat. “Impeachment’s over.”
NBC political director Chuck Todd deemed the event “a complete failure.” He added: “As they were using him for clarity, he’d somehow fog it up, and how he would do certain things. So look, on optics, this was a disaster.”
MSNBC’s coverage was similarly dour, with a depressed-looking Brian Williams remarking: “A lot of Democrats in particular used the D-word and branded this a disaster early on.”
That inspirational hero, that "national treasure" of capability and competence let them all down again on Wednesday. The report that bears his name was released at the end of March to a giant scream of disappointment. But this hearing, this final public performance was far worse. Mueller's appearance raised more questions about the investigation and how fairly it was conducted and further undermined, if not entirely obliterated Democrats political strategy to attack Trump.
In the words of Democrat spin master David Axelrod "
this is very painful." Well, don't say we didn't warn you. Everyone paying close attention these last few years KNEW there was "
no there there" when it came to Trump and Russia. Those were the private words of FBI Agent Peter Strzok, an admitted Trump hater. Strzok went on to plan the "insurance policy" in case Trump won and that's how we ended up with this farce.
What's really interesting in this week's disaster is that both
Democrats and
Republicans had more than an inkling that the beloved Mueller wasn't up to the job. But Democrats used the man anyway hoping to pull off a public spectacle. They got the spectacle but it slapped them in the face.
Senator Lindsey Graham noted that every Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee he heads demanded that Mueller testify. Those requests have evaporated.
Dems did manage to get one sound bite from the hearings when Mueller was asked if his report was an exoneration of President Trump. That lead balloon didn't sail far before Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) questioned Mueller and
pointed out that no prosecutor EVER issues a statement of exoneration. You either charge someone with a crime or not.
Even more disturbing than Mueller's condition at the hearings was his admission that his office did not investigate Russian attempts to influence our elections through the Steele Dossier. Mueller insisted that such matters were outside his purview which brings one to wonder why he found it inside his purview to pursue tax evasions charges against Paul Manafort that had nothing to do with Russia.
More questions about Mueller's competence were raised when he admitted that he wasn't even aware of the anti-Trump pro-Clinton bias among his staff. His lifelong practice was never to ask such questions. Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND)
said:
"It's simply not enough you vouch for your team. No perceived bias can exist. I can't imagine a single prosecutor or judge that I have ever appeared in front of would be comfortable with these circumstances where over half of the prosecutorial team had a direct relationship to the opponent of the person being investigated," Mr. Armstrong said.
Clearly Mueller was not aware, nor apparently bothered that many of his top lawyers were closely associated with helping Hillary Clinton avoid jail over her email fiasco. Any fair minded person would question how and why such a team would even be considered.
Imagine for a moment the media reaction if lawyers currently defending Trump were later hired by the government to investigate Democrats!
It was obvious from the Mueller report and from Robert Mueller's testimony that the focus of the investigation was not on Russian interference but on finding a way to get Trump. We will have to wait for Department of Justice Office of Inspector General Report to see how corrupted the investigation into Trump had become. And we may never uncover the full extent of Russian interference.
In Mueller's second appearance later Wednesday before the House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) hit the nail on the head:
There is collusion in plain sight. Collusion between Russia and the Democratic Party. The Democrats colluded with Russian sources to develop the Steele dossier and Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya colluded with the dossier's key architect, Fusion GPS head Glenn Simpson.
Read Nunes
entire statement. It's a brief summation of the entire spectacle.
Democrats In a Corner of Lies
Democrats have painted themselves into a corner with the repeated lies about Trump and they are still doing it. You would think that after this week's disaster they might get back to doing the people's business but no. Chairman Nadler, the ringmaster for the House Judiciary hearing farce went out the next day to
insist that Trump was the beneficiary of Russian effort and somehow they're going to get him. Evidence doesn't matter. Reality doesn't matter.
That theme is being repeated on Dem cable channels like MSNBC which is desperate to hang onto what little audience they have left. Contributor Donny Deutsch
promised the kooks:
DEUTSCH:"We may not have won the battle of impeachment, but we're going to win the war of putting him in jail. Whatever we have to do. And we're not going to necessarily play fair."
This echoes similar reasoning from a friend who may be one of the last viewers of MSNBC. It doesn't matter if Trump didn't do anything wrong, we just don't like him. Any lie is good enough if it gets the job done. Democrats are openly admitting not that they will say or do anything, no matter what. Are we surprised? After the last two plus years of a daily barrage of Trump-Russia lies no one is surprised.
Will a mountain of more lies and hate be enough for Dems to win in 2020? I strongly doubt there are enough MSNBC addled kooks in the country to pull that off. Certainly, fair minded independent voters looking at this Dem farce cannot think it's worthy of being rewarded. But Dems can't help themselves. They sold their soul to hate and lies and now must live with the consequences!
