By Victor
Davis Hanson
Robert Mueller was appointed special
counsel in May 2017 in reaction to a media still gripped by near hysteria
over the inexplicable defeat of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential
election.
For nearly a year before Mueller's
appointment, leaks had spread about collusion between Russia and the Donald
Trump campaign that supposedly cost Clinton a sure victory.
Most of these collusion stories, as
we now know, originated with Christopher Steele and his now-discredited
anti-Trump opposition file.
After almost a year,
Mueller has offered no evidence that Trump colluded with the Russians.
Aside from former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, a
few minor and transitory campaign officials have been indicted or have pleaded
guilty to a variety of transgressions other than collusion.
Ironically, the United States has
often interfered in foreign elections to massage the result.
Recently, Bill
Clinton joked about his own efforts as president to collude in the 1996 Israeli
election to ensure the defeat of Benjamin Netanyahu. "I tried to do it in
a way that didn't overtly involve me," Clinton said.
The Obama administration did the
same in 2015, when it used State Department funds to support an anti-Netanyahu
political action group.
Since Mueller's investigation began,
a number of top FBI and Department of Justice officials have either retired, or
were reassigned or fired.
With the exception of former FBI
Director James Comey, all left their jobs due to investigations of improper
conduct that took place during the 2016 election cycle. Most were under a cloud
of suspicion for lying, having conflicts of interest or misleading
investigators.
Mueller is reaching the crossroads
of his investigation and faces at least four critical decisions.
One, Mueller can wind up his
investigations now. He can write a report affirming
that he has found no evidence while conducting his originally assigned inquiry:
Donald Trump did not collude with the Russians to throw the election his way.
Two, Mueller might pause and await
Inspector General Michael Horowitz's report concerning
possible Department of Justice and FBI abuses pertaining to the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court.
If Horowitz finds credible evidence
of lawbreaking, then Mueller might seek indictments based on the IG's likely
actionable evidence.
Three, Mueller could continue to
investigate anyone close to the Trump campaign for another year.
If he did that, he would confirm that his inquiry has
descended into a political cause. If Mueller calibrates the release of
his findings to the fall midterm elections, he will be hailed by Trump
opponents as a crusading prosecutor -- despite finding nothing related to collusion.
A Democratic takeover of Congress would shut down congressional investigations of FBI and DOJ wrongdoing and further empower Mueller.
A Democratic takeover of Congress would shut down congressional investigations of FBI and DOJ wrongdoing and further empower Mueller.
Four, Mueller could more evenly
apply his investigations of lying, obstruction of justice and collusion during
the 2016 campaign. That way, he would reassure the country of equal treatment
of all under the law.
For example, in his search for
instances of lying, Mueller might also re-examine the false testimonies given
to investigators by McCabe and by Clinton aides Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin.
In his search for Russian collusion,
Mueller might also investigate Steele, Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS and the
Clinton campaign. All used Russian sources to leak unproven gossip and smears
to the press in an effort to warp the 2016 election.
In his search for obstruction of
justice, Mueller might also investigate whether top DOJ and FBI officials
deliberately misled the FISA Court before and during after the 2016 election
cycle by withholding evidence that the Steele dossier was flawed.
Did Justice
Department officials inform the FISA Court that Steele's dossier was hired
research paid for by the Clinton campaign?
Did they tell the court that the FBI
had stopped using Steele as a source for purportedly leaking information to the
media? Did they tell the court that Comey was on record as saying the Steele
dossier might not have been credible?
In his search for felonious behavior
concerning the leaking of classified documents, Mueller might determine:
1) Whether the memos regarding
presidential conversations that Comey leaked to the press were classified;
2) Whether former top national
security and intelligence officials -- among them John Brennan, James Clapper,
Samantha Power, Ben Rhodes and Susan Rice -- requested that the redacted names
of surveilled Americans be unmasked, and whether officials then illegally
leaked those names to the media;
3) Whether FBI officials such as
Comey and McCabe leaked confidential findings from their investigations
to the press during the 2016 campaign and lied to investigators about it.
If the special counsel's
investigation has turned into a political cause, Mueller will no doubt prefer
the third option. That is, Mueller's report (and
possibly more indictments of minor campaign aides) would likely appear shortly
before the midterm elections.
If Democrats win the House, then they will
probably shut down all congressional investigations of the FBI and the DOJ --
and perhaps all reviews of the actions of Mueller himself.
