Essentially, they found "no collusion" and then tied blindfolds around their own eyes, stuck their fingers into their ears, and started singing loudly and off-key LALALALALAA in order to pretend they didn't see or hear anything.
As Adam L. Silverman notes over at Balloon-Juice, this is all kinda BS:
...The one page summary is as well written as the infamous Nunes memo and the Republican members of the committee can’t keep their talking points, let alone their stories, straight in their news media appearances trying to explain what they’ve done, why they did it, and what it means. There is a simple reason for this, which is that several pieces of information regarding what Special Counselor Mueller is doing have broken since the end of last week and over the weekend. And it clearly spooked them...
Silverman proceeds to highlight each development of Mueller's investigation - go to that link and read his stuff, please and thank you, and concludes:
...They are clearly scared and felt the need to change the narrative. This won’t stop Special Counsel Mueller and his investigation. It will, however, provide the Fox News talking heads, the talk radio folks, the Republicans and conservatives on contributor contracts for the broadcast and cable news networks, conservative media outlets ranging from the mainstream (whatever that means anymore) all the way out to the extreme, authoritarian right with a new narrative to pitch. That Congress found no collusion, so it is well passed time for Bob Mueller to wrap it up...
Nunes and his Congressional buddies are trying to give trump the excuse to force the FBI and the DOJ to shut down their own investigation. Not because Mueller and his team are wasting money, or pursuing any political agenda. It's because Mueller is getting close to uncovering enough proof that can stand up in court that trump is guilty at the very least on Obstruction, which would place Republicans in Congress on the hook for pursuing that as required by their Oaths of office to uphold and defend the Constitution. Which is something Republicans do not want to do.
What is happening here are two elements of our current political dilemma.
We have a civil service running our National Security / Intelligence Community who have come across a long-running effort (since 2014 as publicly confirmed) by a foreign power (Russia) to meddle in our nation's electoral process, and to help a useful ally in trump into the White House to serve Russia's interests (above all ending Obama-issued sanctions). These are the ones who kept insisting on a full investigation leading up to Mueller's appointment as Special Counsel, and are the ones bringing before grand juries more proof of Russian ties to select trump campaign members.
But we also have a political party (Republicans) in control of all three major branches of Federal Government, who have garnered their majority controls despite the fact they're a minority (that is, fewer people voted for) party keeping control through gerrymandering, voter suppression, and questionable tactics. The Republicans do not want any investigating because the facts will disrupt their grand Narrative that they won on the merits. They also don't want to get forced to decide on the facts to go directly against trump, because their angry voter base is clearly on trump's side and will shred them in these upcoming Midterms.
In short, where Mueller is working with intelligence in his investigations, the Republican Congress preferred to run interference and cover their own party's collective (and trump-owned) ass.
How is this going to play out?
Right now, trump has a weapon he can use to justify going after Deputy AG Rosenstein and shut down Mueller before his grand juries can indict more of trump's people (including his own family and himself).
But trump does so at the risk of alienating the entire Federal government tasked with our nation's protection. Every Intel agency from the FBI to the CIA and the NSA (about 17 in all) are going to know trump is only doing this to cover his own ass, because they're already finding that Russia did mess with our elections and that trump profits from dealing with Russia in ways that would point to money laundering, fraud, and mayhaps treason. Our nation's Intel people have already found evidence for grand juries to indict the likes of Manafort and Gates (enough to get Gates to flip and plead out).
What do you think the FBI and CIA and NSA and the other Intel people are going to do if the main suspect in their ongoing investigations tries to shut down said investigations?
Any argument trump and his enablers dream up - and some they've already floated, that there's a conspiracy among the Intelligence Community to get revenge in Hillary or Obama's name - would run into the simple proof that most agents and investigators are sworn to their jobs, not to any party affiliation (granted, there are exceptions but they are few). If an FBI agent is investigating the activities of a Russian hacker, then that agent is going to dig as far as he can to find enough evidence to make arrests or otherwise stop the hacker's criminal acts. If the CIA is getting intel from friendly nations like the Dutch that Russia is hacking into our shit, they are going to treat that intel seriously.
If there is any bias in this story, it's entirely on the side of the Republicans who do not want evidence that their "great victories and moral leadership" are all propped up by Russian-backed crimes.
If the Republicans think they can silence our entire Intelligence branch of Federal government, they are going to end up crushing a vital part of our government: the part that's working 24/7 to stop the next terror strike, the part that's trying to prevent foreign powers from corrupting or destroying our nation.
Today's move proves that the Republican Party will rather protect trump and his Russian puppetmaster instead of standing for the United States.
Not an intelligent move at all.
1 comment:
Well, generally speaking, the very last folks you ever want with a hard-on for you are the FBI, CIA, NSA, and the military intelligence services. Fergus has managed to offend all of them and more, all while having some very shady shit hidden in his campaign's closet.
He probably thinks he can run his all-distractions-all-the-time reality show white house and avoid any harsh consequences for his behavior, but as Malcolm Nance put it: He's not up against an assistant DA in Manhattan this time, where he can distract, fire off a brace of mob lawyers, and finally settle for some of daddy's money. This time he's facing down the Wood Chipper of Justice, which is Bob Mueller and his team of investigators.
So now, of course, we find out whether this whole cabinet shake up is his ground work for an attempt at firing Mueller and ending the investigation.
If so, the USA needs to call a general strike the minute he does it, and stay in the goddamn streets until he resigns.
-Doug in Oakland
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