In the wake of the House Intelligence Committee’s release of a one-page summary concluding its year-long investigation of allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, John Dowd (shown), says it is time to shut down the Mueller probe which is investigating those same claims.
The House Intelligence Committee announced that it “found no evidence of collusion, coordination, or conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russians.” Dowd says it is time to “bring an end” to the Mueller probe. His comments were made to the Daily Beast in response to a request for a statement about the firing of former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe. McCabe was fired two days before his resignation was to take effect. He was fired for “lack of candor” (read: lying) and conflicts of interest in the Clinton e-mail investigation in which he played a pivotal role in protecting Clinton. While the message of “You can’t quit; you’re fired” must have been a disappointment, it was likely not a surprise.
Responding to the Daily Beast’s request for a comment on the McCabe firing, Dowd sent the text of President Trump’s tweet on the subject. That tweet from Friday said:
Andrew McCabe FIRED, a great day for the hard working men and women of the FBI — A great day for Democracy. Sanctimonious James Comey was his boss and made McCabe look like a choirboy. He knew all about the lies and corruption going on at the highest levels of the FBI!
Dowd added his own commentary, writing:
I pray that Acting Attorney General Rosenstein will follow the brilliant and courageous example of the FBI Office of Professional Responsibility and Attorney General Jeff Sessions and bring an end to alleged Russia Collusion investigation manufactured by McCabe’s boss James Comey based upon a fraudulent and corrupt Dossier.
The probe headed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller — since Sessions, unlike McCabe, recognized conclicts of interest and recused himself from anything related to the probe — has been going since May and has not produced any evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. And while Dowd’s call for the probe to end is both reasonable and logical, Rosenstein has not shown any signs of shutting down the Mueller probe. In fact, last week he told USA Today that he does not believe “there is any justification at this point for terminating the special counsel.”
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Rosenstein’s imprimatur of the Mueller probe is unsurprising and needs to be taken with a grain of salt. After all, he — along with Mueller and McCabe — participated in a cover-up of the Uranium One scandal and the fact that in the build-up to that deal, the Kremlin had 10 Russian spies assigned to Hillary Clinton. If Rosenstein wanted to find evidence of collusion, he wouldn’t need to look much further than the nearest mirror.
While Trump has repeatedly referred to the Mueller probe as a “witch hunt,” the White House has — so far — stopped short of cutting it off. However, with the House Intelligence Committee’s findings that there is no evidence of collusion, it is a clear sign that there are no witches to justify the continued hunt.
Trump has made several tweets since Friday’s firing of McCabe that put the Mueller probe’s continued existence in a dim light. On Saturday, he tweeted:
As the House Intelligence Committee has concluded, there was no collusion between Russia and the Trump Campaign. As many are now finding out, however, there was tremendous leaking, lying and corruption at the highest levels of the FBI, Justice & State. #DrainTheSwamp
Followed by:
The Fake News is beside themselves that McCabe was caught, called out and fired. How many hundreds of thousands of dollars was given to wife’s campaign by Crooked H friend, Terry M, who was also under investigation? How many lies? How many leaks? Comey knew it all, and much more!
And, echoing the words of his lawyer:
The Mueller probe should never have been started in that there was no collusion and there was no crime. It was based on fraudulent activities and a Fake Dossier paid for by Crooked Hillary and the DNC, and improperly used in FISA COURT for surveillance of my campaign. WITCH HUNT!
Then on Sunday, the president was even more specific in condemning the probe, tweeting:
Why does the Mueller team have 13 hardened Democrats, some big Crooked Hillary supporters, and Zero Republicans? Another Dem recently added … does anyone think this is fair? And yet, there is NO COLLUSION!
One does not need to be a Trump fan to see that the president is correct: The Mueller probe was begun under false pretenses, has been turning over rocks, peering into trash cans, and looking behind doors for 10 months without producing anything, and is led by the anti-Trump Democrat establishment exposed — at least to some degree — in the House Intelligence Committee’s one-page summary.
As Trump and Dowd correctly assert, the probe was begun in dishonesty and corruption. It was indeed based on the “Fake Dossier,” as Trump said. And that “dossier” was bought and paid for by the Clinton campaign and DNC with direct ties to Russian sources. Furthermore, even McCabe, who was shown by text messages between two FBI agents to be involved in a “secret society” with an “insurance policy” against Trump while the FBI protected Clinton — who the agents knew would not be indicted — admitted that the FISA surveillance warrant that served to launch the Mueller probe would not have been sought (much less approved) had it not been for that now-discredited “dossier.”
Given that the very root of the Mueller probe is rotten, Dowd is correct to call for it to end: A rotten root cannot produce good fruit.
Photo: AP Images
