Donald Trump is dominating the headlines. Cable news hosts on both sides are tossing out preposterous theories lacking germane information. The Twitter echo chamber espouses “we got him this time” rhetoric. You can almost feel former Special Counsel Robert Mueller emerging from the catacombs.
The familiarity is annoying but also means that we should look back at why the so-called Swamp didn’t “get him” during the Russia-gate failure and why common-sense Americans remain suspicious of any investigation into the former president’s behavior.
The Russia investigation that concluded with dud three years ago was foolhardy because its scenarios were implausible.
Trump was supposedly a covert Moscow agent; his inner circle allegedly engaged in a rogue alliance with Russian intelligence; and the Trump campaign was somehow shrewd enough to collaborate with Vladimir Putin’s thugs in hacking the Democratic National Committee’s emails. In the end, Watergate redux it was not.
The inquiry proved none of these far-fetched scenarios, nor did the failed impeachment early in 2020, as COVID-19 was simultaneously hitting the United States.
Mueller’s report did not exonerate Trump from wrongdoing, but the investigation was guilty of process abuses, including how the FBI obtained its FISA warrants. And there was a disingenuous loop between federal overreach and a left-wing commentariat inflating the Steele dossier’s bogus claims, essentially for partisan gain.
When the investigation concluded, the feds and the press had gone too far in search of some fairy tale ending. This nonsense understandably confirmed Trump supporters’ perpetual belief that whatever negativities the 45th president had, the “deep state” is worse.
Fast forward a few years, and with a new administration and midterm congressional elections 11 weeks away, the past decisions of Mueller, disgraced former FBI Director James Comey, and recent decisions from Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland matter.
As a long-time judge, Garland should have had the Russia hoax in mind when he signed off on the Aug. 8 raid in Florida and, as importantly, consider how Mueller’s investigation tarnished his and others’ legacies.
As Garland considers his next move, Washington politics, or the influence of partisan academic hacks should be nowhere.
I am not a blind hyper partisan, so I disagree that Trump or any former commander-in-chief deserves immunity because “we don’t arrest ex-presidents,” as some yell or fear lone-wolf attacks on the FBI. We don’t elect kings, and Trump is now a private citizen.
The better lesson, however, is that if state agents come after Trump, especially representing a rival administration that might face him in the next presidential election, they better have coherent rationale. We've yet to see that.
If Trump pilfered boxes of foreign leaders’ correspondence because he’s feels entitled to White House souvenirs, simply take the documents back for placement in a museum, declare a Pyrrhic victory to assuage the Trump haters, and end the episode. If the 45th president took classified documents for nuclear weapons and showed them to rogue Middle East nations, that’s a serious problem.
But please don’t trap Americans in a banal time loop that becomes redolent of a troubling era. The U.S. has far more pressing issues.
A.J. Kaufman is a senior columnist with Alpha News. He taught school and served as a military historian before beginning his journalism career, where his writing has since appeared in numerous print and digital outlets. The author of three books, he also contributes to Israel National News, The Lid, and is a frequent guest on various radio programs and podcasts. A.J. currently resides in the Upper Midwest.