The Patriot Post® · 'Total Exoneration'
As you know by now, Special Counsel Robert Mueller released his completed report to Attorney General William Barr Friday evening. Barr and top Justice Department officials spent the weekend reviewing the report and he released a summary Sunday afternoon.
The New York Times, which led the charge for the collusion narrative, finally produced a headline that sums up reality: "A Cloud Over Trump’s Presidency Is Lifted.“
Here are some key points you should keep in mind as we go forward.
Only Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Attorney General Barr and a few other people have read the full report. But based on a summary released yesterday, we know that after 675 days of investigation Mueller did not indict the president, any of his family members or any campaign or administration officials for collusion with Russia.
Mueller found that no one on the Trump campaign "conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.” This fact stands in stark contrast to what the media and leading Democrats have told us for the last two years. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders issued a statement last night declaring, “The findings of the Department of Justice are a total and complete exoneration of the President of the United States.”
Not only was there no collusion, but there were multiple attempts by people associated with Russia to solicit support from the Trump campaign and those efforts were rebuffed by Trump associates.
The anti-Trump cartel that has been desperately trying to overturn the results of the 2016 election just suffered another defeat that may be as big as the one they suffered on November 8, 2016.
The Mueller investigation did find evidence that Russia attempted to influence the election in an effort to divide the country. That is why Mueller indicted 25 Russians, including 12 intelligence officers.
It is worth this reminder: Who was in charge of the American government when Russia was attempting to interfere in the election? That would be Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Loretta Lynch, John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey and the rogue gallery of Trump-haters at the Justice Department and the FBI. Donald Trump had no power over any lever of government while Russia was attempting to sabotage the 2016 election.
Some on the left are claiming Mueller’s investigation was incomplete. For example, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews was upset that Robert Mueller was unable to connect all the dots.
But here are the facts: Mueller employed a team of 19 lawyers, many of them staunch Hillary Clinton supporters, and 40 FBI agents, intelligence analysts and forensic accountants. He issued more than 2,800 subpoenas, nearly 500 search warrants. He made 13 requests to foreign governments for evidence and interviewed approximately 500 witnesses. Sorry, Chris, but the dots simply did not connect.
On the issue of obstruction, Mueller left a tiny crack in the door for Democrats to explore, writing that “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” Many legal experts say this is a biased statement that never should have been included in the report. If there is no crime, no collusion, how could the president obstruct justice? Prosecutors don’t exonerate. They either find evidence of a crime or they don’t. They either indict or they don’t indict.
The next phase of the battle started within an hour of Mueller’s delivery of the report. The left and the media are attempting to force the release of the entire Mueller report. But as this debate heats up, many prominent legal experts like Ken Starr and Mark Levin are reminding us that in the United States if an individual is not indicted we do not drag them through the mud by leaking details of an investigation that found no crime.
In addition, Justice Department regulations prohibit Mueller from publicly commenting on the investigation. Mueller is obligated to deliver the report to one individual, the attorney general, and the attorney general is only obligated to summarize the report to Congress.
Attorney General Barr has said that he wants to release as much of the report as he can, consistent with the laws and regulations that govern such reports. There are three areas of information that are protected: Grand jury proceedings, particularly when there is no indictment; information covered by executive privilege, which ensures that the president and his staff are able to speak or write honestly at all times; and information related to national security.
Don’t miss the irony that for the last two years we and many others have been asking for documents to be made public regarding who said what to the FISA courts that set off the unprecedented government monitoring of a presidential campaign. We were told that information was too sensitive to release.
The same left-wing members of Congress, progressive presidential contenders and their media allies who are demanding every word of the Mueller report defended the Justice Department and the FBI when it regularly sent incomplete information and redacted memos to congressional investigators for the past two years. Now, all of a sudden, they want total transparency.
It is infuriating to ponder how this two-year investigation was used by the left to smear Donald Trump, thwart his agenda and undermine his presidency. We were repeatedly told by commentators and elected officials that it was a good bet we would watch Trump family members marched out of their homes in handcuffs and that the president would be impeached.
Senior Obama intelligence officials like James Clapper, John Brennan, and Andrew McCabe suggested that the president of the United States was a Russian agent.
As President Trump said yesterday: “[The Mueller probe] began illegally. And hopefully somebody is going to look at the other side. This was an illegal takedown that failed.”
ABC’s Terry Moran said there would have to be “a reckoning” on the political left, in Congress and in the media if Mueller found no collusion. I agree.
There must be accountability for the individuals who abused the immense powers of the national security apparatus of this country to spy on their political opponents and to smear them as traitors.
Congressional Republicans and Attorney General Barr must not give up on exposing every individual who was responsible for using a Hillary Clinton/DNC-funded dossier to try to destroy a duly elected president of the United States.