So far there's no evidence that Trump or his surrogates illegally conspired with Russia to "steal" the 2016 election, despite their unsavory behavior. (Certainly no worse than the DNC's sponsorship of the Steele Dossier.) The longer Mueller's special counsel investigation continues, the more it looks like an attempt by the disrupted political establishment to cover their collective ass. The WSJ lays out the facts.
The Washington Post and the New York Times reported Saturday that a lead FBI investigator on the Mueller probe, Peter Strzok, was demoted this summer after it was discovered he'd sent anti- Trump texts to a mistress. As troubling, Mr. Mueller and the Justice Department kept this information from House investigators, despite Intelligence Committee subpoenas that would have exposed those texts. They also refused to answer questions about Mr. Strzok's dismissal and refused to make him available for an interview.The news about Mr. Strzok leaked only when the Justice Department concluded it couldn't hold out any longer, and the stories were full of spin that praised Mr. Mueller for acting "swiftly" to remove the agent. Only after these stories ran did Justice agree on Saturday to make Mr. Strzok available to the House.
This is all the more notable because Mr. Strzok was a chief lieutenant to former FBI Director James Comey and played a lead role investigating alleged coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election. Mr. Mueller then gave him a top role in his special-counsel probe. And before all this Mr. Strzok led the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails and sat in on the interview she gave to the FBI shortly before Mr. Comey publicly exonerated her in violation of Justice Department practice.
Oh, and the woman with whom he supposedly exchanged anti-Trump texts, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, worked for both Mr. Mueller and deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe, who was accused of a conflict of interest in the Clinton probe when it came out that Clinton allies had donated to the political campaign of Mr. McCabe's wife. The texts haven't been publicly released, but it's fair to assume their anti-Trump bias must be clear for Mr. Mueller to reassign such a senior agent.
It's frankly astonishing to me that no substantial Trump wrongdoing has been uncovered, but despite numerous investigations that appears to be the case so far. Our political class keeps digging itself deeper into its hole, and somehow manages to make Trump look good.
