For two years, I have said there is nothing to this embarrassing, wasteful and farcical Russian collusion investigation. There has been no evidence, but what I did not realize is that "evidence" is no longer needed in our out-of-control, unaccountable and politicized justice system in order to ruin lives.
Absent any workable ideas, Democrats felt the need to destroy Trump by using their henchmen bureaucrat operatives still embedded in the Deep State swamp. The only way to identify a reasonable person in D.C. these days is by his or her out-of-state car tags.
Ron HartA Mueller Probe sounded whimsical, but it ruined a lot of lives: 22 months, 19 activist Democrat lawyers, 40 FBI agents, 2,800 subpoenas, 500 search warrants and 500 witnesses. Everyone who was subpoenaed had to hire a costly attorney ($50,000 minimum) and worry they would be Michael Flynn-ed into some made-up crime. We saw two pre-dawn raids. The one to arrest hapless Roger Stone, an almost octogenarian with no criminal record who wears pinstriped suits and looks like Batman's butler, involved 27 heavily armed feds, more than the Navy SEALs at the bin Laden raid.
Democrats have used this hate-Trump false narrative to raise money for their party. They made us endure an embarrassing $25 million witch hunt for their own political theater. That $25 million could have been better spent on getting about 50 of Hollywood liberals' jake-legged kids into USC.
And the media took hard the no-collusion and no-prosecution of obstruction of justice (how do you obstruct justice when there was no crime?) verdict of the Mueller report and Attorney General Bill Barr. The day the report was released, CNN, NBC and all of the media (sans Fox) ordered all knives and razor blades removed from their newsrooms.
Our republic has, and will, swat away horseflies like Putin, but it may not survive the distrust of our media and justice system that this travesty has revealed. Both have a long road to redemption.
Now they are on to more conspiracy theories. When the Mueller report was released, most Democrats thought it would be redacted, with so much blacked out that they could run it for governor in Virginia. But Barr revealed almost everything. Say what you will about Trump, he is probably the most politically transparent president of modern times. Obama dodged subpoenas and Hillary destroyed evidence, but Trump turned over everything and made his staff available as witnesses.
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He reads the American voters well, and he knows this Washington investigation game is what we hate about D.C. Under the leadership of Democrats and ambulance chaser attorneys like Adam "Shifty" Schiff, D-California, and Jerrold "Lil' Nads" Nadler, D-New York, the House of Representative now opens with a prayer; then its first order of business is an investigation on some legal hunches they have. We want them to legislate, not litigate. Reduce government, lower taxes and let us live our lives.
There needs to be a complete accounting of who lied to obtain FISA warrants to spy on American citizens and who in the administrative state furthered this attempted coup. All fingers point to the Obama administration and its CIA, DOJ and FBI. If we do not expose this for what it was, an inside job based on a DNC/Hillary Clinton-paid-for fake "Steele Dossier," it might happen again. The perps will get what Lois Lerner and all federal employees get: a lateral promotion and full retirement benefits. But at least we will out them as dishonest rats in our federal bureaucracy.
Do not expect the Dems' "investigate, not legislate" mantra to end soon. Remember, it took them 125 years to move past the Civil War defeat, so we have to have patience with them. The Democrats are now led by millennial ex-bartenders who are upset they could not make Trump a White Russian. These socialist "progressive" leaders care about "getting" Trump and global warming. It seems these millennials are just now realizing there are four seasons, and they have to change that.
The socialists who now are at the soul of the Democrat party believe, like their role models Maduro of Venezuela, Castro of Cuba, Hitler of The National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazis), Mussolini, etc., that they must come to power by destroying their political enemies. America has stood firm. Democrats might have to come to the stark realization that to get rid of Trump they might be forced to resort to presenting better ideas - and to democracy - to win.
Contact Ron Hart, an op-ed humorist and author, at Ron@RonaldHart.com or @RonaldHart on Twitter.