Slimy Group Therapy for the Trump Haters

The Mueller Report is a 448 page-long primal scream of rage by the frustrated Hillary Clinton acolytes who wrote it and who utterly failed in their anointed mission to (a) lure President Trump into a General Flynn-style perjury trap and/or (b) goad him into obstructing their faux investigation of non-existent Trump campaign collusion with Russia.

Unable to find any evidence of actual criminality by the president, Team Mueller resorted to dirtying him up as much as possible for the benefit of their mainstream media and Democrat party fan clubs. This extra-prosecutorial exercise in character assassination was undoubtedly good group therapy for them and most likely will help them retain their social acceptability in progressive circles. But it had nothing to do with law enforcement as that term is understood in America.

In order to lay the predicate for criticizing the president, Team Mueller invented a whole new standard of criminal liability. In a real criminal investigation, the prosecutor makes an up or down decision. If there’s sufficient evidence supporting criminal charges, charges are brought. If the evidence is insufficient, none are filed, and the prosecutor keeps his or her mouth shut. That’s how the adults do it in real prosecutors’ offices. But with Team Mueller traditional adult ethical and legal standards of conduct appear not to apply.

When they couldn’t by hook, crook, trickery, or megathreats drum up enough evidence to justify charging the president with obstruction of justice, they saw fit to include this bit of creative writing in their report:

[I]f we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment. The evidence we obtained about the President’s actions and intent presents difficult issues that prevent us from conclusively determining that no criminal conduct occurred. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.

Apparently these Clinton sycophants believe that, unlike normal prosecutors, they have been endowed with super powers not only to decide whether or not a crime was committed, but also to exonerate the president if they so elect. Say what? Just who do they think they are and what body of law — including the special counsel statute — confers on them either the duty or power to exonerate anyone? Frankly, this arrogation of unprecedented extra-legal authority smacks of megalomaniacal insanity. Or maybe it’s just part of Team Mueller’s grieving process as they sift the ashes of their failed effort to destroy the hated Trump.

In any event, they report in excruciating detail the “evidence” that they say justified their withholding of exoneration. As they spell it out, Trump was very angry about being investigated and privately and publicly complained about it. Although he made it clear that he believed the investigation to be a witch hunt and that he wanted it to be curtailed, the investigation was not shut down and never obstructed. In fact, just the opposite happened. The White House completely cooperated with the investigation by not asserting executive privilege, allowing staff to speak with the special counsel’s office, and by producing over one million documents including memoranda that put the president in an unflattering light. In short, there were no steps taken to impede or interfere with Team Mueller’s efforts.

Now plug that unprecedented voluntary cooperation into the context of what was supposedly being investigated, i.e., Trump-Russia collusion. According to Team Mueller, there was no evidence of such collusion. So what was Trump supposedly obstructing? Was he obstructing an investigation into something that never happened?

So, there was no evidence of an underlying crime and no evidence of material acts taken to obstruct the investigation of that non-existent crime. But that’s not enough for Team Mueller to exonerate the president of obstruction of justice. To do that, Trump would have to achieve the logically impossible by proving a negative, i.e., that no obstruction occurred.

The Mueller report is not the work of real prosecutors. It is the work of political operatives. Indeed, some congressional Democrats are even touting the report as a roadmap for impeachment. But what high crime or misdemeanor has the president committed? We know that it wasn’t obstruction of justice. So what exactly did he do?

For almost a full year before the appointment of the Special Counsel, Trump-Russia collusion had been investigated by James Comey’s FBI and Loretta Lynch’s Justice Department. In May 2017, when he was debating whether to join Team Mueller, FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok (who had participated in that investigation) texted FBI lawyer Lisa Page that, when it came to Trump-Russia collusion, “my gut sense and concern is there’s no big there there.” Nevertheless, Strzok and Page joined Team Mueller to continue the previous collusion investigation.

This, of course, raises the question of why Team Mueller took so long to re-investigate what had already been investigated for a year by the FBI and DOJ. Was it because they wanted to draw out their investigation in the hope that, under the barrage of baseless media and Democrat accusations of treason, Trump would crack and close down their investigation? Were they hoping to goad the president into taking the fatal step of blocking or shutting down their interminable investigation that could justify obstruction charges?

If so, they failed. And that failure appears to be one of the motives behind their poison pen report and their speculative musings about the obstruction that could have been if only Trump had taken the bait.

Moreover, in looking at the composition of Mueller’s handpicked team — which included Strzok, Page, a lawyer who previously represented the Clinton Foundation, lawyers who had contributed to Clinton’s presidential campaign, and a host of other Clintonistas — it appears that Trump correctly concluded that the special counsel’s investigation was a slanted, politically motivated continuation of the deep state’s efforts to undermine his campaign and, failing that, to remove him from office. This impression would have been further reinforced by the fact that the special counsel was a friend and former colleague of the treacherous James Comey under whom the FBI had launched its effort to clear Hillary Clinton of clearly warranted criminal charges and to frame Trump.

So, when Trump complained bitterly about the Mueller investigation and sought to derail or curtail it, he was, in reality, addressing what we now know was a continuation of the deep state plan to defeat Trump at the polls and, failing that, to undo the result of the 2016 election.

Consequently, as Team Mueller passes the get-Trump baton to the Democrats in Congress, it is fair to ask exactly what was Trump supposedly obstructing? To anyone willing to look at the evidence, the answer is clear. Trump’s anger and efforts were directed at the deep state’s ongoing attempted coup d’état.

So, to all those congressional Democrats threatening impeachment, here’s a news flash:

If you are looking for a high crime and misdemeanor to justify impeachment, there is no such crime as “obstruction of coup”. As a matter of fact, obstruction of coup would seem to be a patriotic act for which the president should be praised not impeached.

That’s the bad news, and, for Democrats, it only gets worse. Now that we have a sentient adult running the Justice Department, the true facts about the state sponsored coup are about to be unearthed. And, when that happens, Team Mueller’s shameful report will become an insignificant albeit sleazy footnote to the exposure and massive cleansing of the deep state that is about to occur.

George Parry is a former federal and state prosecutor who practices law in Philadelphia. He is a regular contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer and blogs at knowledgeisgood.net. He may be reached by email at kignet1@gmail.com.