Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness<\/p>\n
“The Swamp\u201d usually refers to the vast federal bureaucratic machinery of mostly unelected top officials who exercise influence and power without worry about the appearance of conflicts of interest. They are often exempt from the consequences of the laws and regulations that affect others. The chief characteristics of the swamp are the interlocking friendships, business relationships, marriages and partnerships in Washington, and their immune response against anyone who challenges them.<\/p>\n
Robert Mueller\u2019s investigation into alleged collusion between Russia and Donald Trump\u2019s presidential campaign has proven the\u00a0locus classicus<\/i>\u00a0of a dysfunctional and highly incestuous Washington culture\u2014so much so that it borders on being a caricature of a Washington investigation.<\/p>\n
The Origins of the Robert Mueller Appointment
\n<\/b>How did it come about? Mueller\u2019s acquaintance, former FBI Director James Comey (Mueller and Comey were lauded dating back to the Bush Administration as \u201cbrothers in arms\u201d), has testified that he was so exasperated with the president that he leaked his own confidential and likely classified memos of presidential meetings to the press\u00a0via<\/i>\u00a0a friend in order\u00a0that it \u201cmight prompt the appointment of a special counsel.\u201d It certainly did that. And\u00a0mirabile dictu<\/i>, the special counsel was soon none other than Robert Mueller with whom Comey had had a professional relationship in a variety of contexts for nearly 20 years. At some point, will one of Mueller\u2019s staff have to depose him to ask whether he ever discussed the possibility of a special counsel appointment with Comey prior to Comey\u2019s firing?<\/p>\n
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Will Mueller need to investigate Comey for leaking what may have been a classified memo and thus a likely felonious act? If the investigation touches upon the strange exemptions granted Hillary Clinton in the Uranium One scandal, will Mueller investigate his own prior investigation\u2014a Mueller v. Mueller special counsel probe? Is the U.S. legal community so impoverished in former federal attorneys that we cannot find special counsels without any prior relationships with those knee-deep in the proposed investigations? Is there one former prosecutor in Washington who is not somehow involved in these scandals?<\/p>\n
Lisa Page and Peter Strzok
\n<\/b>The two FBI investigators had a long-concealed amorous relationship characterized by an overriding antipathy for Donald Trump and a desire to ensure that he was not elected president or, barring that, did not prove a successful president. Strzok interviewed Michael Flynn, Huma Abedin, and Cheryl Mills. Both Page and Strzok communicated concerning the \u201cinsurance\u201d idea that might suggest efforts to stop Trump\u2019s election or thwart his presidency, with deputy director Andrew McCabe.<\/p>\n
When the inspector general released evidence of their prejudices and romantic involvement, they were dismissed. But Mueller apparently did not announce exactly why they were taken off his investigation. Their staggered departures were reported in the press as normal reassignments and not as connected, as if to inform the public why they were leaving would somehow not be in the Mueller investigation\u2019s interest.<\/p>\n
Will Page at some point be deposed about Strzok\u2019s behavior or vice versa? Would she or he plead paramour privilege?<\/p>\n
Andrew McCabe
\n<\/b>The former deputy director of the FBI should never have been assigned to the Clinton email scandal and should have had no further assignments into anything tangential to charges of Russian-Trump collusion. His wife was once a candidate for statewide office in Virginia and a recipient of large amounts of money (sometimes reported as $670,000) from a Clinton-related PAC.<\/p>\n
Yet from the Page-Strzok archive, McCabe was a likely anti-Trump partisan. His presence in any investigation involving either his wife\u2019s patron Clinton or Clinton\u2019s campaign rival Trump\u00a0should never have been permitted and should be seen as suspect.<\/p>\n
Rod Rosenstein
\n<\/b>Rosenstein never should have been allowed to appoint the special counsel Robert Mueller. Barring that, he long ago should have recused himself from all matters relating to the Mueller investigation. Rosenstein while in the Obama Department of Justice was once a supervisor of the highly controversial Uranium One investigation headed by then FBI Director Robert Mueller\u2014an investigation that may be revisited by or is currently connected with efforts to find Russian collusion with American elected or appointed officials.<\/p>\n
Rosenstein signed on behalf of the Obama Justice Department at least one of the surveillance requests to a FISA court, an application currently under a cloud for allegedly not disclosing the unverified nature of the Steele dossier, the departure of Steele from FBI associations, or the circular nature of news accounts concerning the dossier. Will Mueller at some point reexamine the nature of the FISA applications and thus the official who appointed him?<\/p>\n
The Team
\n<\/b>At least four of the Mueller team worked as lawyers at the Washington law firm of WilmerHale. Robert Mueller should never have recruited so many of his former associates. Some of them may be investigating\u00a0former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Trump\u2019s daughter Ivanka and Jared Kushner, the president\u2019s son-in-law, who are also supposedly represented by WilmerHale attorneys. Of the initial 15 appointed lawyers, at least seven are known to have contributed money to the Democratic Party or to Hillary Clinton or both.<\/p>\n
In such a politicized investigation, would it have been difficult to find greater diversity, either defined by geography, ideology, or former employment? Will a Clinton cash supporter soon be deposing a former Trump campaign official, or will one former WilmerHale attorney be in court facing another former WilmerHale colleague?<\/p>\n
Andrew Weissmann
\n<\/b>Weissmann should never have been appointed to the Mueller team. He is another former partner at WilmerHale where Mueller worked, and had emailed applause to Obama DOJ holdover Sally Yates, when as an Obama holdover acting attorney general, she tried to block her then boss\u2019s President Trump\u2019s targeted immigration moratorium. Like other Mueller team members, Weissmann was a donor to Democratic causes and a Hillary Clinton partisan. The idea that he can investigate Trump, after donating and patronizing his political opponent and applauding renegade efforts to block his executive orders, is not credible. Sally Yates reportedly cosigned one of the FISA court requests to monitor Trump campaign associates; if the duplicity surrounding those applications becomes an issue, will Weissmann then recalibrate his former high-five for Yates as he investigates her?<\/p>\n
Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce G. Ohr
\n<\/b>He may be the most conflicted of all government attorneys associated with past and present investigations. Ohr had met with the architects of the fusion GPS dossier and likely did not disclose that meeting to his superiors. His wife, a Russian expert, was hired by Fusion\/GPS to help find damaging information about Donald Trump\u2014a fact Ohr deliberately and likely unlawfully hid on a federal disclosure form. Whom did Bruce Ohr talk to about Fusion\/GPS and to what degree did he interact with Rosenstein, Comey, or the authors of the FISA court requests? Almost any interaction with Ohr that pertains to Fusion GPS and the Mueller investigation is now the fruit of a poisoned tree. At some point would Ohr have been consulted about Ohr co-produced research?<\/p>\n