How many times in the last year and a half have we watched liberals clamor and cheer as if their hero, Robert Mueller, had actually uncovered something important?
This week, rabid anti-Trump voices in the media are giving the “this is it!” treatment to Mueller’s latest “bombshell”: the sentencing memo his Special Counsel’s Office had to submit for Gen. Michael Flynn, the former national security advisor whose family Mueller has harassed and threatened for almost two years.
The sentencing memo is just another complete failure on Mueller’s part to produce anything related to the supposed reason for his appointment: the non-existent “collusion” between the Trump campaign and Russian hackers. It contains evidence of nothing except the fact that Mueller’s entire investigation is a vindictive, partisan farce intended to overturn the legitimate result of the 2016 presidential election that sent Donald Trump to the White House.
The memo recommends that the judge give Flynn a light sentence as a reward for the “substantial assistance” he provided to Mueller’s investigation. Liberals are treating that recommendation as if it could only have been given in exchange for the real goods, the bombshell that’s going to finally take President Trump down.
That’s completely wrong and misleading, just like every other gleeful prediction they’ve made about the President’s impending demise.
The federal sentencing guidelines in Flynn’s case call for 0-6 months -- exactly what Mueller is “graciously” recommending. Mueller did Flynn no favors. Quite to the contrary, the only reason Flynn is facing any threat to his liberty is Mueller’s insistence on prosecuting him -- and more importantly threatening his son with prosecution -- over “crimes” that would have been thrown out by any ethical prosecutor the moment they crossed his desk.
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What are these crimes? False statements about matters that have nothing to do with collusion and would never have become issues if not for the Democrats’ post-election obsession with all things Russia. Flynn has stipulated that he lied about his negotiations with Russian officials after the election and about the exact nature of his contract work for the Turkish government while he was advising the Trump campaign.
We don’t actually know whether Flynn really lied to the FBI. The Washington Post says he did, but Mueller’s successor as FBI director, James Comey, says he thinks he didn’t. All we can be sure of is that Flynn agreed to say he lied after Mueller’s attack dogs started threatening him and his son with years in prison over far-fetched nonsense that would never fly without the “resistance” cheering them on and providing political cover.
First, they trumped up Flynn’s attempt to establish a rapport with the Russian ambassador before he took over as national security advisor into a violation of the Logan Act, an almost certainly unconstitutional law that has never yielded a conviction despite being on the books since 1799. Then, they said the paperwork filed for his work with the Turkish government was a violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, an extraordinarily broad statute famous in Washington for its rare and selective enforcement.
Because the sentencing memo doesn’t actually contain anything damaging against President Trump, the media are focusing on the “criminal investigation” the memo mentions Flynn has cooperated with, even though that section of the memo is completely redacted.
We’ve seen this routine before: Mueller teases an upcoming “bombshell” revelation, and when the disclosure turns out to have nothing whatsoever to do with collusion, the media dutifully contorts the information to fit its predetermined conclusion that Donald Trump could only have won the presidency by cheating.
The latest “major development” from Mueller is just another disingenuous political attack job from the Office of Special Counsel, while there is still no single sign of collusion. It’s time for Mueller to wrap it up and close shop.
Joseph DiGenova was the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia from 1983 to 1988.
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