The Fix Is In

flickr photo

By

Ed Meek

There were two problems with the Mueller investigation from the get go. 1) It was obvious that Trump was not the mastermind of some grand international conspiracy with Putin to make Trump President. 2) Mueller was never going to indict Trump for obstruction or anything else.

Neither Trump nor the incompetent fools who worked for him were capable of coordinating a plan to work with Russia (or the Saudis) to put Trump in office. That the Russians wanted to destabilize the United States (and England) has been well established. It is also clear that the Trump team would take any help they could get from foreign sources. As far as obstruction goes, Mueller saw his role as one of gathering evidence that could then be used by Congress to go after Trump should they decide to do so.

What has also become clear during Mueller’s investigation is that Trump, Kushner, Ivanka and friends were involved in myriad instances of selling access, laundering money, sharing state secrets for personal profit, and so on. For a while, it appeared that Mueller was widening his investigation to follow those leads, but it seems obvious now that while he brought those issues to light, he did not see going after Ivanka and Kushner as his job.

Investigating Trump’s campaign violations, misuse of inauguration funds, abuse of the emolument’s clause, nonpayment of taxes, etc., are all the domain of other parties, especially Congress who should have been investigating Trump all along rather than waiting for Mueller. Because they waited for Mueller, all of us, including the media, were drawn into that waiting game.

Meanwhile, the Trump team has slowly pushed those threatening Trump out of power: Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Kelly, McMaster, Tillerson, etc.. At the same time Rosenstein has been threatened and compromised. Then they put the Trump lackeys in place, first Whitaker then Barr. With Barr confirmed, the fix was in. The Trump team didn’t realize these moves were unnecessary because Mueller has something people like Dershowitz and Giuliani lack—integrity. Yet Mueller is a conservative Republican and a company man. He did not want to overreach as Comey had by editorializing publicly and intervening in the election. Comey hurt the FBI brand. As in his handling of the post 9/11 probe, Mueller wanted the FBI to look good at the end of the day.

What is playing out now is exactly what Trump and friends planned. Barr spins the report as supporting Trump. Trump claims victory and uses the investigation as a way to attack Democrats and members of the press who went after him.

In addition, as Matt Taibbi points out, the already eroded credibility of the liberal press who were all in for Russiagate is in tatters. The Trump regime is right out of Game of Thrones. We all forgot who the DOJ works for.

Nonetheless, although Trump and the Republicans are doing the victory dance now, anyone who is not wearing rose-colored Trump goggles knows because of Cohen, Manafort, The SDNY and Mueller that Trump is and has always been a corrupt, immoral con man.

Ed Meek

Ed Meek writes poetry, fiction, articles and book reviews. His most recent books are Spy Pond (poems) and Luck (short stories). You can follow him @emeek on Twitter.