Mueller report proves that it’s time to investigate the investigators

Now that President Trump has been exonerated of the false accusations of collusion and obstruction, it is time to investigate the investigators.

The White House has justly praised the outcome of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation for clearing the president of the odious charges that have hung over his presidency since even before his inauguration. The Mueller report overall was favorable to the president, but it also should be remembered as the Mueller special counsel’s final abuse of power. There were nearly 200 pages of irrelevancies about Russia collusion, but it couldn’t disguise the fact that all of those alleged contacts between the Russians and the Trump campaign amounted to nothing, legally or substantively. And the fact remains that the institutional climate in the Justice Department has been so hostile to the president that we can be certain that, if there had been even a scintilla of evidence supporting a criminal indictment, it would have been pursued.

{mosads}Liberal members of Congress and their media allies are furious with Attorney General William Barr because he blew up the Mueller report smear job before it was out of the box. The Mueller team wanted to drop its 448-page bomb on the American people, who then would have had to sort through the innuendo and fake legal analysis without context. To his great credit, the attorney general imposed necessary discipline on the release, explaining to Congress and the American people in stark terms that there was no collusion and no obstruction. For this truth-telling, he faces impeachment threats, not plaudits, from the Democratic-media swamp.

The continuing argument over “obstruction” fits with the evident agenda of the anti-Trump Mueller team to create lingering political difficulties for the president, even though he has been cleared of legal jeopardy. Some of the Mueller operation’s so-called obstruction theories are ridiculous, such as that the president could not object to being targeted for investigation. Is it now a crime for someone falsely accused to be upset about it? Mueller presumes guilt and then refuses to “exonerate” President Trump. This turns our legal system upside down and shows the rule of law is no bar to smearing President Trump.

What is missing from the Mueller report is an honest discussion about the origins of the unverified hearsay in the “Steele dossier” that formed the underpinning of the unprecedented spying effort against Trump and his campaign. But looking ahead, the Steele dossier, its genesis and the actions of members of the Obama administration who exploited it to target the Trump campaign, are very much in the crosshairs. Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s investigation of the abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act process will soon conclude, and may result in criminal referrals. Attorney General Barr also promises an even broader investigation of “Spygate” abuses.

And the abuses were not limited to the Justice Department. The U.S. intelligence community was politicized to an extent never seen in history; the State Department played a role in pushing the sham collusion story. And President Obama almost certainly knew about and approved the spying being conducted on the Trump campaign.

Judicial Watch is not waiting for government investigators, however. We have pending approximately 50 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits seeking information on the anti-Trump coup.

Judicial Watch has, to date, pursued more than 40 FOIA lawsuits in an effort to get to the bottom of the “Russiagate” hoax, including dozens explicitly dealing with the illicit targeting and other abuses of power against President Trump. We also have 10 lawsuits dealing with the Mueller investigation specifically — because this assault on the rule of law is a dire threat to our republican form of government.

Tom Fitton is president of Judicial Watch, a conservative nonprofit educational foundation.