The Cult of Russian – Trump Collusion Adopts the Smollett Approach
By Richard Helppie.
May 10, 2021
In a time of rampant partisan division in the United States, with citizens being all but publicly flogged for not joining Team Red or Team Blue, I supposed it isn’t surprising that a former credible news magazine, Time, resorts to beating a long dead horse. As ratings collapse for cable news networks post-Trump, the attempts to pump life back into that narrative are reaching beyond the absurd.
Last week, two respected attorneys lent their byline to a Time piece, “The 11 Mueller Report Myths Just Won’t Die. Here’s Why They’re Wrong”, link here: https://time.com/5610317/mueller-report-myths-breakdown/
To be fair, no one knows who came up with the headline or how the opinion piece was edited, so this is not to cast aspersion on the authors in any way, shape or form. This paper is to sadly, point out yet again the divisive nature of non-objective partisan rhetoric and the reporting industry that adds jet fuel to the national angst.
It is necessary at the beginning and end of this is to say that I have never voted for nor supported Donald Trump as president. I have written and broadcast many times since the 2016 primaries and through to today that he was, and is, unqualified to be president and unfit to be considered our nation’s leader. It is also my personal opinion, published often, that Trump deserved impeachment and perhaps criminal charges for his role in the January 6th mayhem at the Capital. I advocate for full legal reckoning on civil and criminal charges for Donald Trump or any elected or government official accused of misconduct while serving, and I am also published on that topic as well. Readers will know this piece I am writing is not to support Trump but to point out the absurdities of what passes for news these days.
Its also necessary to state that it is a well-known and accepted fact that hostile foreign actors, including and especially Russia, will attempt to interfere and influence our elections. Its not news. We must remain ever vigilant in fighting this undermining, and I take comfort in the words of former president Obama who said the outcome of our elections were not changed by attempted interference. With that basis, let’s discuss the Time piece.
The authors claim, “The fact that the Steele dossier was funded by the Clinton campaign was disclosed in the application to the court in a footnote”, is a patently false statement. The actual footnote said simply that the information came from a report with a “political providence”. Despite knowledge at the time that the information was from a source paid for by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, the application to the FISA court put only a vague statement as to where the false information came from. The authors further fog reality by saying that, “Christopher Steele, who was hired by a research company that was working for a law firm paid first by a conservative website and later by the Clinton campaign.” The referenced research company is Fusion GPS. The Washington Free Beacon did hire Fusion GPS, but ended the contract during the primary season of 2016. Fusion GPS was then hired by the law firm for the DNC, Perkins-Couie, who then hired Steele – long after Washington Free Beacon was out of the picture. All paid for by Clinton. Time’s attempt to pin the now discredited Steele reporting on a source other than the DNC and Clinton is pathetic. Neither DNC nor Clinton are mentioned in the so-called disclosing footnote in the FISA application. The Time piece tries to downplay the Steele reporting with regard to the FISA application. However, the report from Inspector General Horowitz belies that assertion. Moreover, for those who viewed the live testimony of Sally Yates, James Comey and Rod Rosenstein before the Senate Intelligence Committee, the authors and editors would know that all three answered “no” when asked if they would have signed the FISA warrant knowing then what they knew at the time of their testimony.
Another statement that will make your head swivel is the authors, “ [a] statement that the investigation did not establish particular facts does not mean there was no evidence of those facts.” Uh-huh. So, despite an extensive investigation that covered 13 countries, consumed tens of millions of dollars, prosecuted and jailed people, had unlimited access including breach of client-attorney privilege, could not come up with evidence to support facts they wished to be true. I suppose one could accuse Time’s editors of bank robbery and say that the investigation did not establish facts of the robbery does not mean that somehow there is evidence of those facts. This is known as the Jussie Smollett maneuver.
The authors go to great lengths to make the now rehashed Trump Tower meeting sound sinister. A bumbling Donald Trump Jr attempting to get dirt on Hillary Clinton from a person without such dirt. Astute readers will remember the breathless reporting that perhaps young Trump had launched a call to his candidate father at the time of the meeting, but investigation turns out that no such call occurred.
And if you think that it could not get more bizarre, consider this part of the Time’s piece, “Mueller thought that it would be improper to even accuse Trump of committing a crime so as not to “preempt constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct,” meaning impeachment.” Soooo, in a logic that was made famous by Maxwell Smart, one has to believe that Adam Schiff (D-CA) didn’t think the findings worthy of indictment or impeachment. Further, that Jerry Nadler (D-NY) who said on day after 2016 election he would impeach Trump didn’t act on the volumes of evidence Mueller supposedly turned up.
Indeed, the authors confirm that the lower legal standard for impeachment wasn’t met, “Congress has a different and broader responsibility to determine whether the president committed high crimes and misdemeanors for which impeachment is appropriate. Congress is not bound by the high standard of proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt that Mueller used for his criminal inquiry.” That legal opinion is not disputable, and simply begs the question, “Why wouldn’t the same Congress who launched an impeachment over a documented phone call to Ukraine’s president, finally arriving on a charge of Abuse of Power, not take the explosive information in the Mueller report and immediately begin impeachment proceedings?”
Another aspect of the Time piece states, “The report also notes that members of the campaign lied, refused to answer questions, deleted communications and used encrypted applications.” Sounds sinister right? So members of campaign lied, but Mueller didn’t charge them with lying to investigators? Mueller could have bagged more charges ala George Papadopoulos, but didn’t. Encrypted communication? What are we talking about here? An encrypted, free email account can be set up by anyone reading this in about 10 minutes time.
The Obstruction of Justice centers on the true statement that then-president Trump ordered White House counsel Don McGahn to fire Mueller. McGahn has disclosed this and said he refused the order and said he would resign immediately. Apparently in the thirty-some hours that McGahn spent with the Mueller investigation, the case could not be developed further, and the Congress did not use the allegation as a basis for impeachment. We await the legal charges that may come, if any.
And then, in a scene with a dark connection to those opposing the jury findings in the Derek Chauvin case, the authors bring up that “More than 1,000 former federal prosecutors, including us, have signed a letter stating that the evidence establishes multiple counts of obstruction of justice.” Again, the investigators charged with doing the work did not reach the same conclusion over months of investigation means the public should set that judgement aside in favor of the opinions of those, despite being allegedly learned, reached? Like the Chauvin case, the matter has been investigated and litigated and a conclusion reached. At one time or another the words “case closed” meant something.
The authors do connect on the all-important item, the pronunciation of Mr. Mueller’s surname. We can all agree that it is indeed pronounced “Muller”. A public servant with a distinguished track record should be given this respect.
Readers should please revisit the paragraph above regarding my disdain for Donald Trump’s conduct in office. I am happy he is no longer president. Beating the dead horse of re-writing the Mueller report and savaging its findings for a political end will spur ratings and let those elected distract us with nonsense, but it will not help this nation deal with finding policies on healthcare, education, income equality, economic opportunity, infrastructure and a host of the legitimate issues that make a difference to the American people.