USA TODAY International Edition
Democrats lose, but America wins
Mueller findings prove our government works
Attorney General William Barr has delivered a four-page summary of special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings, and it could not have turned out better for President Donald Trump. Here are my principal takeaways:
1This is an unequivocal win for the country. That the president of the United States appears to have been exonerated of treason — collusion with a hostile foreign power to win an election — should make every American happy.
Unfortunately, Democrats had taken it as an article of faith that Mueller would end their nightmare and frogmarch Trump out of the White House in handcuffs. Not only did that dream shatter, but Mueller also appears to have absolved Trump of collusion.
On the issue of obstruction, Mueller, finding it too complicated to draw a conclusion, allowed Barr to make the call. He did, and Trump seems to be clear of that, too. Our nation will be spared what would have been certain impeachment had Mueller and Barr found otherwise.
While some Democrats probably still want to go down that road, Mueller’s report makes it highly inadvisable.
2Everyday Democrats should be furious with their party leaders. There’s a scene near the end of the “The Wizard of Oz” in which the curtain is pulled back and everyone realizes there is no wizard, just a manic man frantically pulling levers to intimidate people and create an illusion. That’s what Democrats did for the past two years, and now Mueller has pulled back the curtain to reveal the true hoax. Democrats now must choose to accept the outcome of this investigation, or simply put the curtain back in place and keep pretending we all didn’t see what we just saw. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff will proclaim!
I understand that many Democrats are disillusioned in the wake of this report, but focus your anger on the real culprits — Schiff and the other Democratic members of Congress who took you for a ride. Without them, you wouldn’t have become so emotionally invested in the idea that Trump’s presidency was illegitimate.
Honestly, I have sympathy for rankand-file Democrats who are demoralized today. Their entire party leadership, aided and abetted by a liberal news media establishment, fed them a steady diet of baloney that just didn’t pan out. I’d be angry, too.
Democrats put their trust in a group of snake oil salesmen and wound up ripped off. As an electoral matter, voters should turn away from a Democratic Party that just tore the country apart on a lie.
3Americans should demand action to prevent election interference. Now that this investigation is behind us, we need a plan to stop Russia and other hostile foreign powers from interfering again.
Let’s face it — President Barack Obama’s administration failed us in 2016, and we must learn from its mistakes, as the electoral interference happened on his watch. Hopefully, Mueller’s full report will give us a road map to safeguarding our democracy in the future.
4Trump deserves the benefit of the doubt for the next two years. The president was robbed of that because collusion mania set in immediately, never allowing his administration to function under the usual sunshine instead of clouds. His decisions have been deemed illegitimate by many Democrats who couldn’t accept the election outcome and needed to salve their emotional wounds by inventing this Russian collusion story.
Further, the 2018 midterm elections were run with the overlay of what is now a proven falsehood — that voters had to rebalance the political landscape to make up for Trump colluding with Russia to win in 2016. The entire freshman Democratic class in the House is there, at least in part, because of a bill of goods sold to the American people that whipped Democratic turnout into a frenzy.
5Hooray for government functioning properly. Mueller is a great American who deserves our thanks for a job well done. I didn’t agree with Trump’s attacks on Mueller, and the special counsel weathered that storm and completed his task by the book. No leaks, no interference and no funny business here, just a comprehensive look that found the president was not guilty of treason, as the Democrats claimed.
Surely, we can all celebrate the fact that our government and its underlying institutions held fast — this investigation was legal, conducted properly, and produced outcomes according to all of our laws and regulations.
The information was not weaponized at any time during the investigation, and the final conclusions have been transmitted properly to Congress.
I agree that the full report should be made public, but that innocent people who were interviewed should not be dragged through the mud for the amusement of Democrats who must satisfy their bloodthirstiness with someone other than Trump.
Scott Jennings is a CNN contributor and partner at RunSwitch Public Relations. This column first appeared in The (Louisville, Kentucky) Courier-Journal.
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