I have been reading up on the basic perspectives regarding Robert Mueller’s investigation of President Trump, and I see four general perspectives:
Perspective A: Robert Mueller is a hard-working, honest law enforcement professional, who has found evidence of wrongdoing by Trump, and will report so to Congress. His interview with Trump is to finish his investigation with the same follow-through he has shown since beginning the investigation. This is the default position of liberals and Democrats;
Perspective B: Robert Mueller is a flawed man with lots of botched investigations (the Anthrax case, the Bulger case, etc.) and a thin skin. He found no evidence Trump did anything wrong, but is unwilling to admit it. The proposed interview with Trump is a desperate attempt to find something he can use to indict the President. This is the default position of Trump supporters and leading GOP members of Congress;
Perspective C: Robert Mueller is a mixed bag, a career FBI man with both big successes (Gotti) and bad failures (the Anthrax false accusation) on his record. Mueller has found evidence of wrongdoing by some of Trump’s associates but not Trump himself. Mueller has not been able to make a clear determination either way, so the interview with the President may be the decisive action to resolve the matter. This is the default position of much of the media and independents;
Perspective Q: Robert Mueller is only pretending to be investigating Donald Trump. In reality Mueller is digging into crimes committed by Comey, Clinton, McCabe and other Democrats. Support for this theory includes the fact that Mueller had a private meeting with Trump the day before Mueller was named Special Counsel (the official version was that Mueller interviewed for the post of FBI Director, but Mueller was not eligible for that job, so the meeting was for a different purpose), Mueller allowed Strzok and Page and others to stay on the team so he could gain access to their private texts and information. Mueller is either compromised (Mueller has been linked to the Uranium One scandal and could be facing criminal charges) and working to get a deal to stay out of prison, or he was actively recruited to dig into Democrat misbehavior while pretending to investigate Trump. This is a position not held by any official in the White House or Congress, but it has gained a lot of support on a number of Internet forums.
From where I sit, here are the relevant milestones:
- Mueller’s commission was to investigate collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian entities to influence votes in the 2016 Presidential election. Absolutely nothing produced to date by the Mueller investigation supports any claim that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia;
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Mueller’s appointment as Special Counsel was initially supported by a lot of Republicans, implying that Trump initially did not enjoy support from his party. Trump is enjoying more support now, but it’s difficult to ascertain how many members of the House would support Mueller’s removal for misconduct;
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Mueller’s staff was overwhelmingly hostile to Trump, and included several Clinton supporters and donors, while no openly pro-Trump member exists on Mueller’s team. Mueller not only waited to take action until the media revealed the outrageous bias by Strzok, Page and McCabe, he fired none of the people involved, settling for reassignment;
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None of the forty-nine questions leaked as Mueller’s interview questions is directly pertinent to a collusion investigation;
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Mueller’s body language and word choice suggests a personal dislike of President Trump;
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The media insistence that the ‘Stormy Daniels’ matter is relevant to the election suggests a sense of desperation by the media that there is no evidence against Trump.
With that, I open the floor to discussion.
