Yesterday, the New York Times reported, “Robert Mueller, Former FBI Director Who Led Trump Inquiry, Dies at 81.” Mueller may be more responsible for President Trump’s persecution for made-up national security crimes than any single person. The Times said Mueller “brought politically explosive indictments” and labeled him a “liberal Republican.” President Trump —who the Times described as “remaining unforgiving”— netted a news cycle of performative outrage when he tweeted, “Good, I’m glad he’s dead.”
Like much else about the man, Mueller’s death remains shrouded in mystery. His obituary “did not say where he died or specify the cause.” Our only hint was that the former FBI Director was diagnosed with Parkinson’s during the year of the jab (2021), but didn’t announce it till last year. Of course, he was also 81, so.
Nine years ago, on May 17, 2017, which was eight days after Mr. Trump dismissed FBI Director James Comey —who this week received fresh subpoenas— the deep-state’s DOJ excreted Robert Swan Mueller, III, as special counsel to investigate the newly elected president. Mueller’s reputation was broadcast as unimpeachable: Republican, former Marine, decorated Vietnam veteran, and longest-serving FBI Director (2001-2013) since J. Edgar Hoover.
The appointment made Mueller the figurehead for the most expensive, most hyped, and most catastrophically unsuccessful political investigation in modern American history.
In May 2017, after cowardly Jeff Sessions inexplicably recused himself from anything Russia-related, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Mueller as Special Counsel to investigate “Russian government efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election.” What followed was 22 months and roughly $32 million of taxpayer-funded political theater, fueled by the now-discredited Steele dossier, which itself had been funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign.
Mueller’s team was really Andrew Weissmann’s team, since the aging Mueller increasingly appeared to be just a creaky figurehead. The team ultimately secured 37 indictments. Trad-media loves to trumpet that figure, but even a quick glance at the details shows how fruitless it all really was:
Mueller indicted Paul Manafort for tax and bank fraud from years before he joined the Trump campaign— but nothing to do with Russia.
Mueller indicted Michael Flynn for lying to FBI investigators during an interview in which the agents themselves said they didn’t believe he was lying. Later pardoned.
Mueller gave George Papadopoulos 14 days in prison for making a false statement about the date of a meeting.
Mueller indicted Roger Stone for obstruction and witness tampering related to the investigation itself— process crimes having nothing to do with Russia.
Mueller indicted thirteen Russian nationals and three Russian companies for social media trolling. No arrests, no convictions. When one indicted Russian company actually arrived to fight the charges, Mueller’s team delayed as long as it could and then finally dismissed the case. More cowards.
Not one American was ever charged for conspiring with Russia to “influence” the election. Zero. Zilch. The investigation’s central premise was a dry hole. It wasn’t a justice system; it was a drunken lynch mob that strung up some innocent cowboys and then got lost in the desert.
The eponymous Mueller Report, released in April 2019, found —in Mueller’s own carefully lawyered language— that “the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government.” Now you tell us. After two years, 2,800 subpoenas, 500 search warrants, 500 witness interviews, four men jailed or ruined over process crimes, and tens of millions spent on lawyers and investigators, the answer was: never mind.
Even on the obstruction charge —another process crime— Mueller punted, saying he couldn’t charge Trump but also couldn’t exonerate him— an unprecedented legal non-conclusion that satisfied nobody and violated the basic prosecutorial principle that you either charge someone or you don’t. In reality, it was Schrödinger’s Indictment; a way to permanently smear the President, leaving an open question for Democrats and their op-ed authors to drive a fleet of defamatory trucks through.
A few months later, Mueller’s July 2019 Congressional testimony was supposed to be the Democrats’ made-for-TV moment. Watching it was like having gravel slowly picked out of your face after a road rash accident. Mueller pulled a Biden. He seemed dazed and confused. He repeatedly asked lawmakers to repeat their questions. He couldn’t recall key details of his own report. And he deflected with “that’s not within my purview” so often that it became a meme.
Mueller’s inability to answer simple questions raised serious concerns about who had actually been running the investigation— further evidence that Mueller had just lent his name to help the deep-state manufacture some institutional credibility.
Mueller was a serial killer. Trump’s persecution was Mueller’s worst case of character assassination-disguised-as-justice, but it wasn’t Mueller’s first. As FBI Director, he oversaw the catastrophic anthrax investigation after 9/11, in which the Bureau hounded an innocent man, scientist Steven Hatfill, for years, destroying his career and reputation, before the government was forced to pay Hatfill $5.8 million to settle his lawsuit. (The New York Times also had to cough up a settlement.) The suspected real anthrax killer, Bruce Ivins, committed suicide in 2008 after the FBI finally turned its attention toward him (and even that conclusion remains disputed).
In one cartoonish incident, FBI agents tailing Dr. Hatfill in a car literally ran over his foot when he approached them. The cops cited Hatfill for “walking to create a hazard”— not the agent who squashed his toes. The DOJ debarred him from government grants. LSU fired him. He became unemployable, and his stellar scientific reputation as a biodefense researcher was annihilated.
Either way, Mueller wasted years slaughtering Dr. Hatfill’s career and never caught the real killer.
At the end of the long day, Mueller’s final, deplorable legacy was RussiaGate itself: the most corrosive, destructive, and ultimately baseless political conspiracy theory of the 21st century. For three years, half the country was assured —by trad-media, by Congress, by 51 former intelligence officials chattering on cable news channels— that the President of the United States was a Russian asset.
That sinister theory consumed the national conversation, paralyzed governance, sparked impeachments, and poisoned public trust in failing institutions already on life support.
Mueller didn’t create RussiaGate by himself. But he was its willing tool. At a critical moment, he handed the conspirators the one thing they needed most to transform a completely made-up fantasy into a reality that hamstrung a president and turned the country inside-out: the appearance of legitimacy. RussiaGate could never have happened without Robert Swan Mueller. He was an evil man who immeasurably injured America on purpose.
And then, when Mueller’s RussiaGate operation finally imploded in shame and disgrace, covid magically appeared. That one worked. (But I digress.)
Like just about everyone else, I was initially shocked at the bare-knuckled hostility of Trump’s mean tweet when it sprang into my social media feed. Predictably, Democrats —who cackled like mental patients after Charlie Kirk was assassinated— piled on with their daily dose of political outrage. But so did some squishy Republicans. For instance, Fox’s Brit Hume:
It forced me to take a moment and reflect. Did Brit have a point? How should I write about Trump’s comments in an intellectually honest way after criticizing progressives for celebrating Charlie Kirk’s killing? Did President Trump breach a moral duty not to speak ill of the dead? Should he have stayed silent, saying nothing since he had nothing good to say?
I quickly worked it out. Brit does not have a point. He’s lost the plot. Mueller’s mysterious death at 81 was nothing like Charlie Kirk’s appalling assassination.
Firstly, President Trump didn’t speak ill of Mueller for any cheap political thrill, like gleeful Democrats did after Kirk was killed. Trump and Mueller knew each other. They had a relationship. Trump was Mueller’s victim.
Take Trump out of it and consider a different hypothetical. What would you say if a woman who survived a brutal rape assault tweeted her satisfaction after the rapist died in prison? Good, I’m glad he’s dead. Like the Times, would you shake your head and say she “remained unforgiving?” Like Brit Hume, would you insist that “saying that kind of stuff makes people hate her?”
Probably not.
In other words, it’s not like Trump didn’t even know Mueller. Mueller persecuted Trump. And not just the President— his friends, his family, and arguably half of the country that voted for him. While we might hope the rape survivor would learn to forgive her attacker, we do not morally require her to do so. And we certainly do not condemn her for expressing her anger as a victim, lest we ourselves morally fail to show sympathy for the victim.
How about Steven Hatfill? What if Dr. Hatfill had said he was glad his persecutor, Mueller, was dead? Would we condemn him for it? Or would we uneasily understand?
The truth is, I have no idea how I would feel in Trump’s place. I would like to think that I would handle it more gracefully than he did. But how can any of us really know until we’ve walked the president’s path? That’s the point; we refrain from judging victims because, with our cheap criticism, we only condemn ourselves.
Brit Hume condemned himself. He failed to recognize Trump’s victimhood and righteous anger, because Brit doesn’t think Mueller did anything wrong (except maybe fail to get the goods). The Times was more right than Brit was— Trump’s transgression, if any, was not speaking ill of the dead. It’s only that he hasn’t yet forgiven Mueller. While President Trump draws breath, there remains time. Maybe after Trump has beaten the deep state for good, he’ll have more free time to reflect on forgiveness.
Second and finally, just switch out the characters, and you’ll see how hollow the Democrat and RINO criticism is. Let’s use their favorite historical figure! If Hitler had died and then Biden stammered, “Good, I’m glad he’s, you know, the thing,” then “liberal Republicans” would all nod in approving agreement like a warehouse full of bobblehead dolls.
So, while I won’t say I’m glad Mueller is dead, neither will I criticize Mueller’s victims for having strong feelings about it, either. I sympathize with Mueller’s victims. Brit, you should apologize.
Yesterday, the New York Times reported, “Robert Mueller, Former FBI Director Who Led Trump Inquiry, Dies at 81.” Mueller may be more responsible for President Trump’s persecution for made-up national security crimes than any single person. The Times said Mueller “brought politically explosive indictments” and labeled him a “liberal Republican.” President Trump —who the Times described as “remaining unforgiving”— netted a news cycle of performative outrage when he tweeted, “Good, I’m glad he’s dead.”
Like much else about the man, Mueller’s death remains shrouded in mystery. His obituary “did not say where he died or specify the cause.” Our only hint was that the former FBI Director was diagnosed with Parkinson’s during the year of the jab (2021), but didn’t announce it till last year. Of course, he was also 81, so.
Nine years ago, on May 17, 2017, which was eight days after Mr. Trump dismissed FBI Director James Comey —who this week received fresh subpoenas— the deep-state’s DOJ excreted Robert Swan Mueller, III, as special counsel to investigate the newly elected president. Mueller’s reputation was broadcast as unimpeachable: Republican, former Marine, decorated Vietnam veteran, and longest-serving FBI Director (2001-2013) since J. Edgar Hoover.
The appointment made Mueller the figurehead for the most expensive, most hyped, and most catastrophically unsuccessful political investigation in modern American history.
In May 2017, after cowardly Jeff Sessions inexplicably recused himself from anything Russia-related, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Mueller as Special Counsel to investigate “Russian government efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election.” What followed was 22 months and roughly $32 million of taxpayer-funded political theater, fueled by the now-discredited Steele dossier, which itself had been funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign.
Mueller’s team was really Andrew Weissmann’s team, since the aging Mueller increasingly appeared to be just a creaky figurehead. The team ultimately secured 37 indictments. Trad-media loves to trumpet that figure, but even a quick glance at the details shows how fruitless it all really was:
Mueller indicted Paul Manafort for tax and bank fraud from years before he joined the Trump campaign— but nothing to do with Russia.
Mueller indicted Michael Flynn for lying to FBI investigators during an interview in which the agents themselves said they didn’t believe he was lying. Later pardoned.
Mueller gave George Papadopoulos 14 days in prison for making a false statement about the date of a meeting.
Mueller indicted Roger Stone for obstruction and witness tampering related to the investigation itself— process crimes having nothing to do with Russia.
Mueller indicted thirteen Russian nationals and three Russian companies for social media trolling. No arrests, no convictions. When one indicted Russian company actually arrived to fight the charges, Mueller’s team delayed as long as it could and then finally dismissed the case. More cowards.
Not one American was ever charged for conspiring with Russia to “influence” the election. Zero. Zilch. The investigation’s central premise was a dry hole. It wasn’t a justice system; it was a drunken lynch mob that strung up some innocent cowboys and then got lost in the desert.
The eponymous Mueller Report, released in April 2019, found —in Mueller’s own carefully lawyered language— that “the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government.” Now you tell us. After two years, 2,800 subpoenas, 500 search warrants, 500 witness interviews, four men jailed or ruined over process crimes, and tens of millions spent on lawyers and investigators, the answer was: never mind.
Even on the obstruction charge —another process crime— Mueller punted, saying he couldn’t charge Trump but also couldn’t exonerate him— an unprecedented legal non-conclusion that satisfied nobody and violated the basic prosecutorial principle that you either charge someone or you don’t. In reality, it was Schrödinger’s Indictment; a way to permanently smear the President, leaving an open question for Democrats and their op-ed authors to drive a fleet of defamatory trucks through.
A few months later, Mueller’s July 2019 Congressional testimony was supposed to be the Democrats’ made-for-TV moment. Watching it was like having gravel slowly picked out of your face after a road rash accident. Mueller pulled a Biden. He seemed dazed and confused. He repeatedly asked lawmakers to repeat their questions. He couldn’t recall key details of his own report. And he deflected with “that’s not within my purview” so often that it became a meme.
Mueller’s inability to answer simple questions raised serious concerns about who had actually been running the investigation— further evidence that Mueller had just lent his name to help the deep-state manufacture some institutional credibility.
Mueller was a serial killer. Trump’s persecution was Mueller’s worst case of character assassination-disguised-as-justice, but it wasn’t Mueller’s first. As FBI Director, he oversaw the catastrophic anthrax investigation after 9/11, in which the Bureau hounded an innocent man, scientist Steven Hatfill, for years, destroying his career and reputation, before the government was forced to pay Hatfill $5.8 million to settle his lawsuit. (The New York Times also had to cough up a settlement.) The suspected real anthrax killer, Bruce Ivins, committed suicide in 2008 after the FBI finally turned its attention toward him (and even that conclusion remains disputed).
In one cartoonish incident, FBI agents tailing Dr. Hatfill in a car literally ran over his foot when he approached them. The cops cited Hatfill for “walking to create a hazard”— not the agent who squashed his toes. The DOJ debarred him from government grants. LSU fired him. He became unemployable, and his stellar scientific reputation as a biodefense researcher was annihilated.
Either way, Mueller wasted years slaughtering Dr. Hatfill’s career and never caught the real killer.
At the end of the long day, Mueller’s final, deplorable legacy was RussiaGate itself: the most corrosive, destructive, and ultimately baseless political conspiracy theory of the 21st century. For three years, half the country was assured —by trad-media, by Congress, by 51 former intelligence officials chattering on cable news channels— that the President of the United States was a Russian asset.
That sinister theory consumed the national conversation, paralyzed governance, sparked impeachments, and poisoned public trust in failing institutions already on life support.
Mueller didn’t create RussiaGate by himself. But he was its willing tool. At a critical moment, he handed the conspirators the one thing they needed most to transform a completely made-up fantasy into a reality that hamstrung a president and turned the country inside-out: the appearance of legitimacy. RussiaGate could never have happened without Robert Swan Mueller. He was an evil man who immeasurably injured America on purpose.
And then, when Mueller’s RussiaGate operation finally imploded in shame and disgrace, covid magically appeared. That one worked. (But I digress.)
Like just about everyone else, I was initially shocked at the bare-knuckled hostility of Trump’s mean tweet when it sprang into my social media feed. Predictably, Democrats —who cackled like mental patients after Charlie Kirk was assassinated— piled on with their daily dose of political outrage. But so did some squishy Republicans. For instance, Fox’s Brit Hume:
It forced me to take a moment and reflect. Did Brit have a point? How should I write about Trump’s comments in an intellectually honest way after criticizing progressives for celebrating Charlie Kirk’s killing? Did President Trump breach a moral duty not to speak ill of the dead? Should he have stayed silent, saying nothing since he had nothing good to say?
I quickly worked it out. Brit does not have a point. He’s lost the plot. Mueller’s mysterious death at 81 was nothing like Charlie Kirk’s appalling assassination.
Firstly, President Trump didn’t speak ill of Mueller for any cheap political thrill, like gleeful Democrats did after Kirk was killed. Trump and Mueller knew each other. They had a relationship. Trump was Mueller’s victim.
Take Trump out of it and consider a different hypothetical. What would you say if a woman who survived a brutal rape assault tweeted her satisfaction after the rapist died in prison? Good, I’m glad he’s dead. Like the Times, would you shake your head and say she “remained unforgiving?” Like Brit Hume, would you insist that “saying that kind of stuff makes people hate her?”
Probably not.
In other words, it’s not like Trump didn’t even know Mueller. Mueller persecuted Trump. And not just the President— his friends, his family, and arguably half of the country that voted for him. While we might hope the rape survivor would learn to forgive her attacker, we do not morally require her to do so. And we certainly do not condemn her for expressing her anger as a victim, lest we ourselves morally fail to show sympathy for the victim.
How about Steven Hatfill? What if Dr. Hatfill had said he was glad his persecutor, Mueller, was dead? Would we condemn him for it? Or would we uneasily understand?
The truth is, I have no idea how I would feel in Trump’s place. I would like to think that I would handle it more gracefully than he did. But how can any of us really know until we’ve walked the president’s path? That’s the point; we refrain from judging victims because, with our cheap criticism, we only condemn ourselves.
Brit Hume condemned himself. He failed to recognize Trump’s victimhood and righteous anger, because Brit doesn’t think Mueller did anything wrong (except maybe fail to get the goods). The Times was more right than Brit was— Trump’s transgression, if any, was not speaking ill of the dead. It’s only that he hasn’t yet forgiven Mueller. While President Trump draws breath, there remains time. Maybe after Trump has beaten the deep state for good, he’ll have more free time to reflect on forgiveness.
Second and finally, just switch out the characters, and you’ll see how hollow the Democrat and RINO criticism is. Let’s use their favorite historical figure! If Hitler had died and then Biden stammered, “Good, I’m glad he’s, you know, the thing,” then “liberal Republicans” would all nod in approving agreement like a warehouse full of bobblehead dolls.
So, while I won’t say I’m glad Mueller is dead, neither will I criticize Mueller’s victims for having strong feelings about it, either. I sympathize with Mueller’s victims. Brit, you should apologize.