Mueller’s good work
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into connections between the Trump campaign and Russia, which turns one year old today, has already done invaluable work. He and his team must continue to patiently go wherever the facts lead, tuning out the shrill shrieks of a President who cries “witch hunt” and the threats of congressional Republicans who do his bidding.
It was on May 17, 2017, that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, in his role as acting attorney general after Attorney General Jeff Sessions properly recused himself, tapped former FBI Director Robert Mueller to conduct an independent probe.
Since then, Mueller has: l Indicted former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort for being an unregistered foreign agent, making false statements to federal investigators and running a money-laundering scheme; l Charged Manafort’s business partner Rick Gates with assisting in one of those fraudulent schemes; l Secured a guilty plea from ex-national security adviser Michael Flynn for lying to the feds about contacts with the Russian ambassador to the United States. l Gotten a guilty plea from campaign aide George Papadopoulos, who lied to FBI agents about several Kremlin-linked meetings. l Indicted 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities for unleashing social media posts, online ads and rallies that fomented racial and political divisions amid the 2016 presidential campaign. l Passed off information to the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York enabling pursuit of suspicious behavior connected to President Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen.
Even as Mueller has methodically probed, reporters have connected dots — learning, in one case, of a meeting in Trump Tower in which Don Trump Jr. and other top campaign associates sat down with what they believed to be officials close to the Kremlin, for the express purpose of collecting dirt on Hillary.
Candidate Trump subsequently dictated a deceptive cover story about the meeting.
All of which is to say: Mueller by any honest reckoning has led a remarkably productive investigation, one that hews to the constraints laid out in the letter establishing the special counsel.
And through the year, he has by all accounts refused to play the tired prosecutorial game of leaking innuendo or evidence to the media.
Trump makes no secret of his desire for the special counsel to go the hell away; every now and then, he threatens “to use the powers granted to the presidency” to remove Mueller, despite there being no clear way for him to do that. Meantime, a bill to protect the special counsel shamefully languishes in the Congress.
Mueller is doing the nation a service, shining light on a shameful attempt by a foreign government to meddle in an American election. He must finish the job.