There is a level of familiarity to the bullshit at the heart of the attacks on Mueller. Short version of the current uproar: a lawyer who was involved in the investigation sent some emails talking shit about Trump, although the shit he talked wasn't really that different from the shit that Rex Tillerson and HR McMaster say. He was fired, but obviously this means the whole thing is a witch hunt, so investigate the investigators, or something like that.
Remember the bullshit IRS scandal? The Republicans will never forget it, and can never get the facts straight. Here's the real story. In order for non-profit organizations to get tax-exempt status, they cannot be primarily involved in partisan political activities. So, the IRS is supposed to decide whether or not organizations are engaged, primarily, in partisan political activities. If they are, no tax-exempt status for you. Soup, maybe, but no tax exemptions.
Modern conservatives, though, love their bullshit conspiracy theories, and love to think that everyone is out to get them. They also think the IRS is satanic. So, a bunch of their non-profits decided that the IRS was out to get them for being conservative. They went to a particularly feeble-minded Member of Congress, who happened to chair the Government Oversight Committee at the time-- Darrell Issa, and asked him to do something about what they knew, just knew was happening.
Issa rubbed his two brain cells together and figured out what to do. He made a formal request to the IRS for the procedures they used to decide which conservative groups were actually partisan Republican groups. Note what he didn't request. He didn't request the procedures that the IRS used to determine which liberal groups were partisan Democratic organizations.
As it turned out, the IRS had vaguely, kinda, not-too-stupid guidelines, given how stupid the laws were at the time. If a group applied for tax-exempt status with words like "tea party" or "patriot" in their titles, the IRS would give them extra scrutiny. Not deny them tax-exempt status, just give them extra scrutiny to try to figure out if they should be denied tax-exempt status. And, if a group had words like, "progressive," or, "occupy," the IRS would give them extra scrutiny too. Why? Those words indicated political leanings, and suggested that the group in question might be involved in partisan politics above all else.
How many conservative groups were denied tax-exempt status?
Zero.
But, that didn't matter to the right-wing wackos, just as it didn't matter that left-wing groups were getting scrutiny too. (They didn't even know that second part because Issa didn't ask.) They were being persecuted for their beliefs!!!
MORE EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!
And to this day, conservatives are convinced that the IRS was/is targeting conservative groups for their political beliefs. Total fucking bullshit. I could keep going with the fallout of this fake scandal, but my point in bringing it up is to note the problem of failure to ask the reverse question-- what about scrutiny of liberal groups? The fact that it happened makes a mockery of conservative groups' persecution complex.
And that brings me to the fake attacks on the Mueller investigation and the FBI. Let's remember that Trump's original, and obviously bullshit reason for firing Comey, was that he was too hard on Clinton. Now the FBI is biased against Trump. It doesn't work like that.
The Director of the FBI violated DoJ policy to make a statement less than two weeks before an election about "re-opening" an investigation, swinging an election for Trump, even though the reason for "re-opening" the investigation was obviously bullshit all along, and Trump is now the subject of a witch hunt because the organization is biased against him.
Of course, one might say, that was Comey, not Mueller, but there was a time when Comey was a Republican hero. Like, when he handed the election to Donny-boy! And, right after the election, Trump said he didn't give a shit about "locking her up" because he won. Remember that Trump is nothing more than a pathological liar and a psychopathic idiot child. "Lock her up," means nothing to him. His interest in attacking Clinton is nothing more than a dodge. When he is in trouble, he just deflects by attacking Clinton. Praise him and he stops caring about Clinton. So, when he won, he was fine with Comey, and fine with the fact that Clinton didn't actually commit a crime, and hence didn't get prosecuted.
Trump, and hence the GOP, turned on Comey because Comey wasn't a Trump loyalist. So, the GOP now treats him like a Democratic operative even though he handed the White House to Trump. Mueller is facing the same thing. All that matters to the GOP is that he is going after Trump. The facts of the case don't matter. Whatever Trump has done or will do won't matter. Whatever happens as part of the investigation won't matter. All that matters is that the GOP must defend Trump at all costs. And they will do that.
Let me be clear, as I have been all along. There could be video of Trump handing all of our nuclear secrets, the identity of every undercover CIA agent, and every NSA code to Vladimir Putin personally, and the Republican Party would still defend him.
Roy Moore lost. But remember that Mitch McConnell was ready to seat him in the Senate.
Nothing will ever get the Republican Party to turn on Donald Trump.
All they need is one personal email or text from one member of Mueller's investigation indicating that he holds Trump in the same regard as Tillerson and McMaster do, and that's all the excuse they need.
After all, they still believe that bullshit about the IRS.
What would it take for there to be something real to discount Mueller's work? Does anyone remember former Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK)? I do. That dude was pretty fucking corrupt. He was a longtime member of the Appropriations Committee, and he used it. People threw money at him left and right. The case that got him into a lot of trouble was back around 2008. He... had some work done on his summer house. On the cheap. Suspiciously cheap. As in... no fucking way was it that cheap. And the people who did the work... had business before the Appropriations Committee.
Yup. You see where this is going. This isn't about campaign contributions. This is straight-up bribery. Here's the thing, though. The prosecutors in the case had some contacts from Stevens to the contractor, saying that he needed to be billed properly to avoid trouble. Now, there could still have been shenanigans, even with that communication, but the prosecutor was legally required to share that with the defense. Not doing so was serious prosecutorial misconduct. The prosecutor hid those communications from the defense, Stevens got convicted, lost his reelection campaign to Mark Begich in 2008, and then the prosecutorial misconduct came out, and Stevens had his conviction overturned.
But, you can't just undo an election. Begich was in the Senate because of that. He had that term.
That's what it looks like when the prosecution actually does something wrong. That's not a personal email talking trash about Stevens, or whatever else the Republicans are throwing a fit about today. That's misconduct. That isn't what's going on.
It doesn't matter, though. The Republican Party doesn't care. Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell truly don't care if Donald Trump is leaking national security secrets to Russia. You know, like he did in the Oval Office already. They truly don't care if he and other members of his administration are compromised. They are happy to have the Russians help them win elections. They. Don't. Care.
And they will never turn on Trump. Attacks on Mueller? Just easier than defending Trump directly.
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