AMAC Exclusive – By Andrew Abbott
Last week marked the three-year anniversary of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s submission of his final report in his “Trump-Russia Collusion” investigation—an event followed two days later by the release of then-Attorney General Bill Barr’s summary of the findings. With the release of Barr’s summary, the fantastical story constructed by the media and Democrats about alleged collusion between Russia and President Trump crumbled into pieces. Over the ensuing three years, not only has the left’s narrative been entirely discredited, but the Durham probe into the origins of the Mueller report appears to be revealing previously unimagined lies and corruption at the highest levels of the Clinton campaign, the Democratic and media establishment, and perhaps the U.S. government itself.
In light of these allegations, it may turn out that the Mueller Report will be remembered by history less for its revelations about President Trump, and more for what the Mueller team appears to have conspicuously ignored: the criminal conspiracy to frame Trump as a Russian agent.
Three years on, it is hard to fully remember just how hyped the Mueller Report’s release was at the time. For the mainstream media and elected Democrats, it was supposed to be the day that Trump was forcibly removed from the White House and led straight to prison in handcuffs and chains. Networks covered the investigation with such ferocity that, at one point, it was considered breaking news when Mueller didn’t leave his office for lunch. The phrases “dead to rights,” “smoking gun,” and “worse than Watergate” were on the lips of every pundit eagerly awaiting the day when they would finally be rid of Donald Trump.
Of course, the reality was nowhere near as dramatic, as the accusations against Trump were entirely baseless. As one summary succinctly put it, the report “did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
The American people now know that, at every level, the accusations and investigations into Trump-Russia collusion were fundamentally flawed. While much has been made about the media and the disgraceful bias it demonstrated in covering the laughably false allegations, most notably the Steele Dossier, many conservatives are now pressing for answers as to how the American people were so badly misled by government officials as well—including, perhaps, the Mueller team.
For years, the official narrative of the report (as well as the FBI, CIA, media, and Democratic Party) was that 2016 Trump Campaign Advisor George Papadopoulos was approached by a Russian agent who “claimed the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton.” They long claimed this interaction was the catalyst for Crossfire Hurricane, a massive FBI investigation that targeted Trump campaign advisors. They also claimed that the Steele Dossier, a now-discredited cache of documents that contained salacious (and false) claims about then-candidate Donald Trump, played little to no part in the investigation.
Then the truth came out.
Several of the FBI’s FISA applications were found to be improperly filed. Two agents working on the investigation were fired for political bias. The FBI’s Deputy Director was fired for leaking information to the press. And these concerns were just a drop in the bucket compared to what the Durham probe appears to be uncovered regarding the Steele Dossier and other facets of the effort to frame Trump—including an effort by Democrat lawyers and the Clinton campaign to make it appear that a “server in Trump Tower” was “secretly” communicating with a Russian bank, as well as an alleged conspiracy to spy on the internet traffic of the Trump White House.
While these revelations form a searing indictment of the Democratic National Committee, the media, and perhaps members of the U.S. government, they also raise serious questions about the Mueller investigation itself. Mueller’s team confirmed that they thoroughly reviewed the evidence. Yet it is hard to fathom how, if Mueller indeed vetted the Steele Dossier and the other reporting the FBI received from the Clinton operation, his team would not have uncovered the very crimes that Durham appears to be gearing up to prosecute.
Mueller was appointed to investigate potential ties between Russia and the Trump Campaign and “any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation.” He was duty-bound to explore “all matters,” not simply the ones that Democrats wanted him to. Three years after the report was released, one of the most crucial lingering questions is this: how or why was Mueller completely silent on the crimes of the hoaxers themselves?
Andrew Abbott is the pen name of a writer and public affairs consultant with over a decade of experience in DC at the intersection of politics and culture.