"Crazy S#*!"

Of all the journalists who have reported on the Mueller probe over the past two years, Kim Strassel has been one of the most accurate, providing needed context and probing commentary on a politically motivated witch hunt. She was also among the first to break the true bombshells associated with this investigative farce that turned into an abuse of governmental power. Based on irrefutable evidence, much of it in the written words of the perpetrators, elements of the FBI, the intelligence community and possibly, the Obama administration actively worked to undermine a 2016 presidential candidate and then to unseat him once he attained victory in the 2016 presidential election. She writes:

By the fall of 2017, it was clear that special counsel Robert Mueller, as a former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was too conflicted to take a detached look at a Russia-collusion story that had become more about FBI malfeasance than about Donald Trump. The evidence of that bias now stares at us through 448 pages of his report.

President Trump has every right to feel liberated. What the report shows is that he endured a special-counsel probe that was relentlessly, at times farcically, obsessed with taking him out. What stands out is just how diligently and creatively the special counsel’s legal minds worked to implicate someone in Trump World on something Russia- or obstruction-of-justice-related. And how—even with all its overweening power and aggressive tactics—it still struck out.

It is astounding that in the 448 pages of the Mueller Report, there is no meaningful discussion of the manner in which the DNC and the Clinton Campaign worked with intermediaries to glean Russian disinformation about Donald Trump. There is no discussion of the payments that were made to have that disinformation published in a dossier, no description of how the FBI used that dossier to subvert the FISA court and justify spying on the Trump campaign, and no mention of how people like James Comey leaked various information to undermine a newly elected president and precipitate the special counsel probe. Oh, well ... it all happened to a hated GOP president, so that makes it okay, right?

Strassel dissects the internal partisan politics (all benefiting the Democrats) that pervaded the Mueller probe, the struggle to find some Federal statute, any statute, that would allow the special counsel to indict Trump or his associates on the flimsy "evidence" they had collected. Mueller couldn't find a path for destroying Trump—something I'm sure he and his team see as a failure.

Strassel writes:

As for obstruction—Volume II—Attorney General Bill Barr noted Thursday that he disagreed with “some of the special counsel’s legal theories.” Maybe he had in mind Mr. Mueller’s proposition that he was entitled to pursue obstruction questions, even though that was not part of his initial mandate from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Or maybe it was Mr. Mueller’s long description of what a prosecution of the sitting president might look like—even though he acknowledged its legal impossibility. Or it could be Mr. Mueller’s theory that while “fairness” dictates that someone accused of crimes get a “speedy and public trial” to “clear his name,” Mr. Trump deserves no such courtesy with regard to the 200 pages of accusations Mr. Mueller lodges against him.

That was Mr. Mueller’s James Comey moment. Remember the July 2016 press conference in which the FBI director berated Hillary Clinton even as he didn’t bring charges? It was a firing offense. Here’s Mr. Mueller engaging in the same practice—only on a more inappropriate scale. At least this time the attorney general tried to clean up the mess by declaring he would not bring obstruction charges. Mr. Barr noted Thursday that we do not engage in grand-jury proceedings and probes with the purpose of generating innuendo.

Mueller's partisan investigative team saw fit to report verbal quotes from subpoenaed witnesses who said Trump asked them to "do crazy shit" or hearsay evidence that claimed that Trump said his "presidency was fucked" as the Mueller probe continued. Even if we assume these characterizations are true, how exactly, does the inclusion of this information in a report advance an understanding of Russian collusion that (it turned out) didn't happen? How do these quotes demonstrate "obstruction" or even the intent to obstruct. Yet, they were seeded throughout Volume II of the report for their news and shock value, not for their evidentiary value. They demonstrate bias on the part of the authors—nothing more, nothing less.

And how exactly does a discussion of alternative political options—including the firing of Robert Mueller—something, BTW that did NOT happen—rise to the level of "obstruction." But never mind, I'm certain that no other president in the history of our country suggested "crazy shit" that never happened or stated in frustration that his "presidency was fucked." In reality, no other president has been other this level of microscopic investigate and emerged unscathed.

Finally, Strassel discusses what is NOT in the report:

Note as well what isn’t in the report. It makes only passing, bland references to the genesis of so many of the accusations Mr. Mueller probed: the infamous dossier produced by opposition-research firm Fusion GPS and paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign. How do you exonerate Mr. Page without delving into the scandalous Moscow deeds of which he was falsely accused? How do you narrate an entire section on the July 2016 Trump Tower meeting without noting that Ms. Veselnitskaya was working alongside Fusion? How do you detail every aspect of the Papadopoulos accusations while avoiding any detail of the curious and suspect ways that those accusations came back to the FBI via Australia’s Alexander Downer?

The report instead mostly reads as a lengthy defense of the FBI—of its shaky claims about how its investigation began, of its far-fetched theories, of its procedures, even of its leadership. One of the more telling sections concerns Mr. Comey’s firing. Mr. Mueller’s team finds it generally beyond the realm of possibility that the FBI director was canned for incompetence or insubordination. It treats everything the FBI or Mr. Comey did as legitimate, even as it treats everything the president did as suspect.

Mr. Mueller is an institutionalist, and many on his team were the same Justice Department attorneys who first fanned the partisan collusion claims. He was the wrong man to provide an honest assessment of the 2016 collusion dirty trick. And we’ve got a report to prove it.

Mueller and his team accomplished little in his effort to unseat a president, but he achieved the only goal he could, given that he couldn't find any evidence of collusion, and couldn't indict anyone for anything that was even peripherally associated "obstruction."

Robert Mueller provided enough innuendo, sloppy hearsay quotes, and hollow accusations to enable the Democrats to continue "chasing." The only "crazy shit" that is actually happening is the Democrats' obsessive and interminable attempts to manufacture crimes when none occurred. I'm hopeful that the American public recognizes their deranged behavior, worries that such "crazy shit" behavior indicates they are incapable of leading, and punishes them adequately in 2020.

UPDATE-1:
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I disagree with Noam Chomsky on just about everything, but he seems to have clarity on the Dems propensity for "chasing." Joe DePaolo reports:

Noam Chomsky, the noted progressive scholar, believes Democrats have focused far too much on Russia. And he thinks it might earn them four more years of President Donald Trump.

Speaking at a forum in Boston with Amy Goodman, Chomsky stated his view that he always believed there was going to be little to no proof of collusion in the Mueller Report.

“[T]he Democrats are helping him,” Chomsky said. “They are. Take the focus on Russia-gate. What’s that all about? I mean, it was pretty obvious at the beginning that you’re not going to find anything very serious about Russian interference in elections.”

He added, “As far as Trump collusion with the Russians, that was never going to amount to anything more than minor corruption, maybe building a Trump hotel in Red Square or something like that, but nothing of any significance.”

Chomsky went on to say that he believes focusing too heavily on Russia may cost Democrats dearly next November.

“The Democrats invested everything in this issue,” Chomsky said. “Well, turned out there was nothing much there. They gave Trump a huge gift. In fact, they may have handed him the next election. … That’s a matter of being so unwilling to deal with fundamental issues, that they’re looking for something on the side that will somehow give political success.”

It might be because the Dems have no good ideas on how to address "fundamental issues." Then again, neither does Chomsky.

UPDATE-2:
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Glenn Greenwald is a left-of-center journalist who often takes position that support the progressive agenda. But he a pro, he has ethics, and he's not afraid of criticizing the trained hamsters who have hijacked his professions. Greenwald writes:

"If you listen to the media discourse, outside of a few circles, they've just put collusion and conspiracy and all of those conspiracy theories they've spent the last three years endorsing, just flushed it down the toilet like they don't even exist and just seamlessly shifted to obstruction. And then they're conflating them to claim essentially that they were right all along. And that is really the alarming thing," Greenwald said of the lack of contrition from the media.

"I think that in a lot of ways Donald Trump broke the brains of a lot of people, particularly people in the media who believe that telling lies, inventing conspiracy theories, being journalistically reckless, it's all justified to stop this unparalleled menace," he said. "And that's a good thing for an activist to think and a really bad thing for a journalist to think."

"Broke the brains" --->>> "crazy shit" -- maybe that's why the media is obsessed with proving that it's Trump, not them, who is crazy.