"I suppose the most pressing question is how many more lives that evil fanatic will be allowed to ruin before he is cashiered and dismissed with some portion of the obloquy he deserves."

Roger Kimball writes in PJ Media about the Obama intelligence community's collusion with Hillary to get Trump.

It really is hard to keep the story straight —I mean the real story, what actually happened, not “the Narrative.” Saturday’s document dump was a help here because it showed that the FISA court warrant to spy against Carter Page was authorized, against FBI rules, on the basis of unverified information (gossip, really). Carter Page, remember, is an American citizen against whom no criminal charges have been brought. Why, then, was the full power of the “intelligence community” mobilized against him? Because, having been named part of Trump’s foreign policy team in March 2016, he was an entry point to the Trump campaign.

I am not, by the way, suggesting that the Russians did not work to meddle in the 2016 election. Indeed, I am confident that they did, just as they always seek to meddle in our elections. (And just as, by the way, we seek to meddle in the elections of other countries—just ask Benjamin Netanyahu.) It’s not mentioned in any of Mueller’s indictments, but the Russians endeavored to hack GOP servers as well as those maintained by the DNC. But here’s the thing to bear in mind. What the Russians sought to do was not influence the outcome of the election. They knew, or thought they knew, what the outcome was going to be. It would be Hillary Clinton by a mile. What the Russians sought to do was sow discord and distrust among the electorate, to undermine the people’s faith in their institutions. With a large helping hand from the American media, they succeeded brilliantly in that task.

...When did the alleged Russian collusion take place?
2016.

Who was President then?

Barack Obama.

Who was Director of the CIA?

John Brennan.

Who was Director of National Intelligence?

James Clapper.

Who was Director of the FBI?

Robert Mueller, then James Comey.

Who is to blame in 2018?

Donald Trump! Really?

Are we finally nearing the end of the road in this emergency defensive maneuver by the deep state? I think so. Gertrude Stein once rudely observed of Oakland, California, that “there is no there there.” More and more people are waking up to the fact that the same thing is true of Muellerville. I suppose the most pressing question is how many more lives that evil fanatic will be allowed to ruin before he is cashiered and dismissed with some portion of the obloquy he deserves.

Read more here.

Protecting the office of the presidency

Andrew McCarthy writes in National Review, what we are now witnessing is

...a thinly veiled political scheme, enabling the losers to relitigate the election and obstruct the president from pursuing the agenda on which he ran.

...The Democrats did not want a special counsel in order to investigate a crime; they wanted a special counsel (a) to promote a political narrative that Hillary Clinton lost because of something other than her lack of appeal and (b) to frustrate Trump’s ability to govern — to mollify their “Resist!” base, to stop Trump from implementing policies they oppose, and to enhance their electoral hopes in the 2018 and 2020 cycles.

...Trump would be foolish to answer questions from Mueller, who has made a habit of turning witness interviews into false-statements prosecutions. More important, absent concrete evidence of his complicity in a serious crime, a president should not be put in the position of being pressured to answer a prosecutor’s questions. When Trump complains that the Obama Justice Department would never have permitted President Obama to be treated this way, he is right.

Put the president aside for a second. A Justice Department prosecutor would not be permitted to subpoena, say, a journalist or a lawyer, unless doing so was vital to the investigation of a serious crime — to the acquisition of critical information that was unavailable from any alternative source. The firewall that would prevent a heedless prosecutor from running roughshod over free-press principles or the attorney–client privilege is Justice Department leadership. It is astonishing that current Justice Department leadership apparently believes that the president of the United States, despite his responsibilities for our governance and security, is entitled to less deference.

Unless Mueller can demonstrate that a serious crime has been committed, that Trump was complicit in it, and that Trump is in possession of evidence that is essential to the prosecution, Rosenstein should bar him from seeking an interview, let alone issuing a subpoena demanding grand-jury testimony. This is not merely about protecting Trump; it is about protecting the office of the presidency.

Read more here.

Clinton-Mueller coup

Daniel Greenfield reports at Front Page Magazine,

This isn't just an attack on Trump. It's an attack on the Constitution.

4 Republican senators voted to protect the Clinton-Mueller coup effort. The bill would prevent Mueller or a special prosecutor from being fired without, effectively, the approval, passive or active, of a Federal judge.

With every committee Democrat backing the legislation, only one Republican was needed to secure passage.

But they got four.

In the end, four Republicans voted for the bill: Sens. Thom Tillis (N.C.), Lindsey Graham(S.C.), Chuck Grassley (Iowa) and Jeff Flake (Ariz.).

Read more here.