Let’s face it folks… It’s been over two years since the FBI used real Russian Collusion via Hillary’s Campaign financing, the infamous Trump Dossier through Fusion GPS, and Russian Operatives to start investigating Trump for fake Russian Collusion. And it’s been a year and a half since Mueller started spending millions of dollars trying to prove Russian Collusion… and NOTHING. They used the Hillary-financed fake (or at least unverified) dossier to start surveilling Trump’s associate, Carter Page, and others. And yes, they did ‘tap’ Trump Tower looking for information. They said they did all this to protect poor vulnerable Mr. Trump from the big bad Russians, yet they did not surveil the Hillary campaign who actually did get hacked by the Russians! Hmmm? Seems odd… almost like they had other reasons for doing so?
So after two years and many lives of very decent (Gates, Papadoplous & Flynn) and some not so decent (Manafort & Cohen) people being ruined by this investigation, there have been many indictments. The charges so far include tax evasion and lying to the FBI, but nothing to tie any of these men to Russia and certainly not collusion. Mueller is ruining lives by trying to force these men and others to take plea deals so he can squeeze them for other information on Trump or bury them with legal fees if they don’t falsely admit to lying. It’s a sad time for our Constitution when an individual’s rights and freedoms are violated for political reason or any reason for that matter.
So how is Mueller’s Russia Investigation Trump’s Saving Grace?
It starts with the fact that after 2 years, NO American citizen has been charged with anything even close to collusion with the Russians. Zero. And that is very significant. Trump has tweeted ‘no collusion’ and ‘witch hunt’ with regard to Mueller’s investigation hundreds of times, which in essence established the benchmark Mueller needs to hit to prove that the investigation was worthwhile — proof of Trump working with Russia to influence the election. For many of his supporters, anything short of that mark is indeed a sign that Mueller has come up dry. And that may prove to be Trump’s saving grace.
One of the main issues facing the President is campaign financing. That story alone is exceptional in the history of presidential campaign behavior. Even the idea that a President would be implicated in an illegal payoff to secure an election would be an unusual occurrence in U.S. history, especially one where he won by less than 100,000 votes in 3 key states.
Trump set the high standard of misbehavior at ‘direct collusion’ months before any of this other stuff emerged. For every new revelation about criminal activity by people related to the Trump campaign or for every new development in the campaign finance story, the immediate response from Trump and his base is consistent: “Where’s the collusion? Show me the collusion.”
Imagine if this Russia investigation or these campaign finance allegations didn’t exist? Imagine if Trump’s evolving lies about what happened were the most significant issue the President faced? The direct pressure he faced would probably be more significant. The Russian Collusion ‘Witch Hunt’ will never implicate Trump in any criminal activity. The fact that it occupies the public’s minds right now instead of the campaign finance issue gives Trump cover. So, for all of his dislike of the Mueller Russia Investigation, it just might end up being his Saving Grace.