Special to WorldTribune.com
Following the release of the much-anticipated Special Counsel report by Robert Mueller, the Democratic Party is in full panic.
The investigation exonerated President Donald Trump and his 2016 election campaign from the charge of conspiring with a foreign power to steal an American election. After an exhaustive and lengthy examination of the president’s activities preceding and following the election, Mueller concluded that Trump did not collude with Russia, nor can he be charged with obstruction of justice.
Thus, the Mueller document is now the third report to draw the same conclusion, following similar, comprehensive investigations by both the House and the Senate. In a column I wrote during the height of the Special Counsel’s investigation, I urged cool heads to prevail [Should President Trump lower the boom on the DOJ? A dissenting view]; I recommended that the president not fire Mueller and instead wait for the end of the process. This, I believed, would give him a strong hand going forward. And indeed, he now towers over the opposition and is in good standing to win re-election in 2020.
His brilliant policy achievements in both domestic and foreign affairs will become increasingly prominent in the public consciousness—especially the powerful economy he has unleashed. He will also be buoyed by the fact that he was innocent and yet was unfairly maligned by a vicious and unscrupulous opposition.
Recognizing this fact, Mueller did not simply pack up his belongings and go home empty-handed. He dangled a carrot in the report for the Trump-hating crowd to chew on by stating that his findings could not “exonerate” the president from obstruction of justice. This is a baffling statement, for, not charging the target of an investigation is a de facto exoneration. Mueller thus planted a seed for the politicos to use as a weapon: they can continue to cast a cloud over the president and launch more congressional investigations. What else do they have?
Democrats are now in the midst of an inter-party debate between those who want to impeach Trump on the basis that he would have obstructed justice if his aides had followed his orders and those who rightly surmise that impeachment proceedings would be a disastrous course for their party. Having just lost their biggest gambit to destroy Trump’s presidency through a Justice Department probe, can they fare any better by embarking on an impeachment debate doomed to fail? Even if Trump were to be impeached in the House, there is no possible road to conviction in a Republican-dominated Senate.
However, common sense is not the strong suit of left-wingers; the wild-eyed among them like Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris, seeking to win the Democratic nomination, have jumped on the impeachment bandwagon. Fellow candidates like Mass. Rep. Seth Moulton, Florida Mayor Wayne Messam and former HUD Secretary Julian Castro have also embraced the impeachment frenzy.
They are meeting resistance by other party members who prefer to assault Trump’s reputation via more investigations instead. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has slammed the breaks on impeachment, stating that he facts uncovered so far do not yet warrant this. In an April 24 Washington Post Op-Ed, former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton writes that although Russian interference in the 2016 election was a “serious crime against all Americans,” Democrats need to proceed with caution, conduct congressional hearings into the president’s behavior and focus on a “sensible agenda” for voters. In other words, even Pelosi and Clinton have faced reality: the attempt to oust Trump has failed and futile impeachment proceedings will only further cast the Democrats as the party that only festers hate for Trump rather than legislates.
The irony of the last two years is that the real investigation has yet to be conducted: how did a climate of the deliberate obstruction of the mandate given to Trump by the people in 2016 emerge? Democrats funded and created a fake dossier, stoked a slanderous interpretation of events, and with the help of their media acolytes, foisted an illegitimate investigation into the election of a legitimate president. Who has been punished for orchestrating these deeds?
It is well to remember that one of Trump’s cardinal appeals in 2016 was that he was the Republican candidate with the courage to demand that Clinton go to jail for her corruption while she served as Secretary of State; she used her public position to enrich her family and was negligent in the handling of classified information. That threat of prosecution no doubt inspired Clinton’s twisted plot to thwart her accuser before he could gain power which would allow the Justice Department to do a thorough investigation of her misconduct. The untold story is that Clinton succeeding in tying up Trump in knots for two years so that he could not fulfill that ominous campaign pledge.
Nonetheless, many voters recall Trump’s solemn vow to hold Clinton accountable. This saga should not end as a stalemate between two oligarchs: Trump remains in power and Clinton is a free citizen. Trump should present the timeline of events to the American people and expose the actions of his opponents. It was not the Russians who interfered with the 2016 election in a significant manner to impact events; it was Hillary Clinton who interfered in order to escape the very real danger of prosecution.
There will be no justice and no end to this chapter in American history until Clinton and her accomplices are fully exposed and convicted.
Grace Vuoto, Ph. D, is a WorldTribune columnist.
Why obstruct Trump? Because as candidate, he vowed to convict Hillary Clinton added by World Tribune on
View all posts by World Tribune →