The assault on the presidency of Donald Trump began when a Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein (nominated by Trump), appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller Special Counsel to investigate unsubstantiated allegations that Trump campaign surrogates colluded with the Russian government to influence American voters ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
Thus began, as commentator Charles Krauthammer eloquently describes it, “an investigation in search of a crime.”
Mueller sees it differently. He has assembled an all-star team of well established Democrats and Hillary Clinton backers to “conduct” the investigation. And he has requested a grand jury, which was approved and will be impaneled. It has thus become much more than an intended counterintelligence investigation.
What this means is mind boggling, a seminal moment in American history, and is evolving as many of our citizens, even ardent Trump and Republican loyalists, focus on summer vacation season. But we soon will enter a season of tremendous upheaval.
Radio host and author Mark Levin correctly accuses Mueller of pursing the “political criminalization of the Trump presidency.” It is apparent that Mueller wants to bring down the Trump presidency, partially owed to his allegiance to fired FBI Director James Comey. In other countries, this would be called a coup in the making. But, even if he fails to remove Trump, Mueller still derails the Republican legislative agenda, or perhaps uncovers criminal behavior by members of the campaign or Trump’s family. Mueller will be a hero of the furious left either way.
Furthermore, Mueller, with his grand jury impaneled, can investigate any aspect of Trump’s past business deals, and can subpoena anyone or any documents he deems relevant. He undoubtedly will target Donald Trump Jr., and seven others who met with a Russian lawyer during the campaign. Trump Jr. already has turned over all of his emails indicating the meeting was not an act of collusion.
The goal will be to “see if they can find any contradictions in their testimony (about the meeting),” Levin explains. “(And) see if they can get somebody on a ‘lie’. Perjury.”
Amid this ominous scenario we learn that certain Republicans on Capitol Hill want to give Mueller cover. One is North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, the same Tillis who was quick to oppose Trump’s limited immigration ban back in January. Tillis is collaborating with Democrat Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware on a bill to protect Mueller’s “unmerited removal” in the event President Trump would take the dramatic step of firing Mueller and shutting down his baseless investigation. (Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina proposes a similar bill. Trump carried both North and South Carolina en route his victory last November).
The Tillis-Coons bill would assign a three-judge panel to review the firing of Mueller or future Special Counsels. If the panel determines the firing unwarranted, the President is overruled.
Make no mistake, this is not some bipartisan gesture to “do the right thing” by protecting our American system of checks and balances. The timing of this Tillis-Coons scheme is a brash, high-profile effort to legitimize Mueller’s investigation, to embolden those who will participate in it. It is our Republican Senator signaling that he has no issue whatsoever with a counterintelligence investigation (the original basis for naming a Special Counsel) devolving into a hyper-partisan, open-ended criminal investigation of Trump and anyone with whom he has ever associated in business or politics.
Author Levin describes the Mueller probe as a “pretext to impeachment” of Donald Trump. It is therefore a betrayal of the American people who voted to elect Trump president, and a betrayal of the American electoral system that has endured since our founding.
By deliberately signaling to Mueller that he has his back, Tillis is complicit in this betrayal.