Editor’s note: Not surprisingly, the audience of The Daily Signal isn’t shy about sounding off regarding special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian election interference. Here’s a sampling. Don’t forget to write us at [email protected].—Ken McIntyre
Dear Daily Signal: So there were 10 allegations that could be interpreted as obstruction, Fred Lucas notes in his coverage of the Mueller report (“Attorney General Says Mueller Found No Collusion, but 10 Instances of Possible Obstruction”). What nonsense! The president did not interfere in the Mueller investigation in any way.
President Trump didn’t fire anybody, or tell lies to anybody, or do anything obstructive. He clearly stayed out of the way and let the investigation take its course.
Attorney General William Barr is a good guy, but he needs to be more firm on this issue.—Ken Marx
***
If House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff has proof of anything, why does he not present it?
Of course if it is the recorded phone call from two comedians in Russia telling Schiff in 2017 about Trump being with a Russian call girl in 2013, then that story already has been debunked.
But if, as Schiff keeps saying, he has proof, where is it, what is it, and why isn’t he showing it?—Karin Callaway, Florida
***
First, you can’t obstruct a bogus investigation into what is not a crime.
Second, Trump knows he’s innocent, so there was no motive to obstruct the illegal and contrived investigation.—Harold Bortner
Words have meanings. We know now that there was plenty of evidence about Trump’s obstruction of justice, not “collusion,” which is not a legal term and was not investigated.
That evidence was not sufficient to indict as lawbreaking in Mueller’s opinion, but it shows clear immoral, illegal, unethical, and wrong actions by Trump allies.
That’s troubling to Americans who want an independent country, uninfluenced by Russian or other bad actors and undivided by race and other factors the Russian hackers used to influence us in 2016.
By the way, “obstruction” is a collateral crime that Mueller was authorized to pursue and is inseparable from the Trump campaign and presidency over the hacking and social media manipulation of Russia.
Let’s start using the proper terms as Attorney General William Barr did not, in order to cloud and obscure the case against Trump. Barr’s credibility is nil today because nearly every statement he has made was contradicted in the Mueller report.
Nothing is included in the report that is not founded on law; Barr is shown to be nothing more than a political hack for Trump, like Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Rudy Giuliani, and his kids.—Bill Lemoine
Mueller’s investigation was predicated on the possibility (shown to be a total hoax) of “collusion.” How would there even be obstruction of justice without an underlying crime?
Furthermore, there is no legal basis to Volume 2 of Mueller’s report, which covers the “possibility” of obstruction. It is full of innuendo and hearsay, with no legal basis. The only one left in Washington with any credibility is Barr.—C.K. Andersen
***
Barr must investigate the political corruption that has been going on for the past few years. Hillary Clinton’s obvious violations of national security and destruction of evidence would be a good start.
The upper management of the FBI and Justice Department also must be brought to justice for protecting Hillary, lying to a FISA court, spying on Trump’s campaign, running a coup d’état against Trump to try to remove him from office, as well as other crimes.
If this does not happen, we will acknowledge having a two-tier scale of justice, which will result in a loss of respect for the rule of law, leading to anarchy.
I used to jokingly refer to the need to refurbish Alcatraz as a repository for all of those corrupt officials in the Obama administration, but it looks like that is no longer a joking matter. This just might be a project that is well worth the money.—Randy Leyendecker, Kerrville, Texas
Dear Daily Signal: This was quite simply an effort to find something, no matter what it was, that they could try President Trump on (“Key Takeaways From the Mueller Report on Trump and Russia”).
Special counsel Robert Mueller spent two years and millions of dollars and still had nothing that would stand on its own.
Believe me, if there had been something substantial I believe that Mike Pence would be president now. The alleged conspiracy was fraud and remains so.
Mueller didn’t exonerate Trump. His report was carefully worded to cause a call for further investigation.
He’d spent two years and people were beginning to see that he had nothing, so Mueller submitted a carefully worded report that could be thought of in several different ways.
Mueller never said outright this didn’t happen. He only said he couldn’t find anything, which indicates he still believed there was something that he couldn’t find. It never occurred to him that there wasn’t anything there.—Rex Whitmer
***
Mr. Mueller, I want my tax money back.
I had thought Mueller’s task was to investigate collusion based on a false, salacious Steele dossier. His job was to establish fact and indict if appropriate.
The investigation found no facts to support any collusion, but Mueller could not stop there at the facts. He had to assemble a potpourri of investigator interpretations about the president’s statements and intent as collected from third party interviews.
Instead of saying honestly that no definitive facts indicating obstruction were found, like the dossier, Mueller leaves a trail of innuendo and commentary on the president’s behavior and motivation that neither were observed by them nor corroborated with the president.
A dossier with no facts started off this whole nonsense. Now Mueller produces a report with innuendo and unsubstantiated opinion.—Tony Cosenza, Philadelphia
***
The real investigation needs to be the one that probes the use of foreign assets by the Clinton campaign to construct the Steele dossier against Trump.
There was the true “collusion,” and the congressional Democrats’ screaming fit over the proposal to investigate the investigators is a far more emphatic case of obstruction than any of Trump’s venting of outrage at the injustices being done to him.—William James
***
Three thoughts.
One, the entire affair was based on a lie (the Steele dossier).
Two, the report contains a lot of he said, she said.
Three, is it obstruction when a person protests as he is being punched over and over again?
I see a lot of nonsense and little substance in this Mueller report.—Ken Marx
***
The core issue was to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election. The exact wording of the authorizing order for the special counsel is “to ensure a full and thorough investigation of the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.”
People on both sides have attributed motivations and tried to spin the investigation one way or another for their own political purposes, but that is all that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s authorizing order said to do.
It’s exactly what Mueller did, and he did it well. As we have heard more than once, he found no collusion. He did find and report multiple ways that Russia tried to influence our election.
Most of the indictments handed down were about exactly that, and we now have a roadmap of what the Russians did and how and who was involved.
It will be interesting to see what (if anything) is done with that knowledge to keep the Russians from doing the same thing again next year.
Maybe some think it was a waste of time and money to find out how Russian intelligence tried to manipulate our democracy, but I think keeping our elections free of foreign influence is important.—Alan Turner
***
No underlying crime, so no obstruction. You cannot obstruct what isn’t. You cannot cover up something that doesn’t exist.
What you can do is watch as the Democrats twist themselves into pretzels. What we should be watching is many heads rolling at the networks. But we won’t get to see that, since they still are wholly invested.—Timothy Dayton
***
I think the key takeaway from this farce is that Mueller purposely left it open for the Democrats to question certain parts of it.
He has way too much of his own personal opinion in the report instead of sticking to facts and evidence. This is 448 pages of bull written by Trump haters who couldn’t find any evidence of wrongdoing except by the Democrats. Which was totally ignored, so they left questionable opinions open.
The same report could have been cut to three pages in three days, saying no evidence of collusion and no evidence of obstruction and then sent to the attorney general.
Instead, after two and a half years and over $30 million of taxpayer money, we get what most of us knew years ago.—Gerry Costa
***
Volume 2 of Mueller’s report is pure op-ed, riddled with speculation that unverified comments and intended, but not taken, actions of the president could be construed by “others” (nearly every Democrat in Congress and every Democrat running for president) to be obstruction of justice.
Dependent of course on further investigation by members of Congress, if they were so inclined to pursue.
In simple English, Mueller is saying: “We couldn’t prove obstruction of justice, but if anyone else wants to try, go for it.”—Drew Page
Dear Daily Signal: The problem is the word “potential” before the word “consequences” in the headline of Fred Lucas’s story (“Potential Consequences of Spying on the Trump Campaign”).
The one thing that would make a complete difference in this world would be applying the words “full accountability” to everything.
Especially when it comes to committing crimes. I suppose it’s impossible for justice ever to be carried out due to the sharks watching the seal tank. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange = hero.—Ben Willard
***
Fred Lucas reports: “Actions by Justice Department officials in spying on a Donald Trump campaign adviser in 2016 could be a crime or merely an administrative offense, legal experts say.”
I guess I might try that line when the IRS comes a-calling, saying, “I didn’t purposely (intentionally) leave out the $139,209 in consulting salary. It is just an ‘administrative’ issue; I forgot.”
Case dismissed? I think not.—Marty Miller
***
Am I the only one who thinks President Trump should tweet a connection to Pat Benatar’s song “Hit Me With Your Best Shot”?—Jerry Putman
***
Let’s not even pretend, since it was President Obama who did the spying. There will be no consequences. In fact, they will probably erect a statue in his dishonor.—Larry Larson, Pensacola, Fla.
***
Seems the FISA court rubber-stamped a request to spy on a presidential campaign. If this is the level of intelligence on the bench of the FISA courts, they need to be shut down.
There is way too much leniency when it comes to judging the performance of the bureaucrats who were part of the Obama administration: Eric Holder, Loretta Lynch, Tim Geithner, Alan Greenspan, John Brennan, Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton, and John Kerry are just a few who come to mind.—Jason Traxler
***
I am taking a wait-and-see approach. Probably nothing will happen because there is a lack of political will to do so.
Trump will be advised not to pursue an investigation especially if the trail leads to Obama, Rice, and Lynch. We’ll see, but I’m not confident anything will happen.—Jason Unwin
***
Gee, I would have thought the attempted overthrow of a government would be the crime. Good to know it is only the lying necessary to overthrow a government that is a crime … and possibly disbarment for the offender.
If I shoot someone in the head, would I face only a misdemeanor charge for unlawfully discharging a firearm?—Jerry Brickley
***
We witnessed the worst government corruption in American history used to spy on a political opponent. And they thought they would get away with it because they rigged the election for a Hillary Clinton win.
But apparently Obama’s intelligence officials, like Obama himself, weren’t too intelligent. Their conspiracy as obvious.—Ron Hussey, New Jersey
***
WikiLeaks spied on the Clinton campaign, and Trump was delighted. He actually did a little dance at a rally.
So, how seriously are we supposed to take this?
The Mueller investigation was not charged with investigating Trump, but with investigating exactly how Russia influenced our election, how deep it went, and who might have been involved.
Despite this, Trump acted like the investigation was about him from Day One.
If the cops set up a checkpoint at the end of your block and your neighbor freaks out about how unfair it is and it’s all about him … I’d keep an eye on that guy.—Edward Buatois
***
Clearly, some bureaucrats, holding positions of power and prestige, fell in love with Barack Obama. It certainly was not love of country or a deep respect for our rule book, the Constitution.
So clouded was their judgment that the Fourth Amendment became something to get around rather than follow faithfully.
All this pagan zeal transferred to Hillary Clinton, whose ascension to the White House was political and historical matrimony, a ceremony not to be crashed by the likes of Donald Trump, the ruffians in the tea party, or those unclean voters at rallies chanting “Lock her up.”
So, they lost their bearing, but not their loyalty. The election was traumatic, an aberration. “We must fix this.”
Well, boys and girls, it didn’t work. The cover-up didn’t work, either. It’s time to account for your conduct.—Gary Grimm
***
There is a saying: If you try to kill the king, you had better succeed. Well, they tried to get rid of Trump and they failed.—Lew Williams
***
This will ultimately get swept under the rug. The deep state will remain.
The swamp will drop a few inches in level, but won’t be drained. It’s depressing, but most people aren’t listening.—Drew Bates
