Special Counsel Robert Mueller has concluded — finally, after two years — his probe into whether President Donald Trump or any member of his campaign team colluded with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign. Millions of Americans believe the investigation was politically driven, doing great damage to the country itself, and in the process destroyed the lives of innocent Americans in what Trump has called a “witch hunt.”
One of those persecuted by Mueller during the seemingly never-ending investigation — Jerome Corsi (shown), a best-selling author and noted political commentator — has opted to continue his legal fight against Mueller and his fellow prosecutors, with a bar complaint and a $350 million lawsuit.
“They have to pay for this,” Corsi told the Washington Examiner on Monday.
During the probe, Mueller’s team insisted that Corsi plead guilty to lying to investigators, but he refused. Mueller’s investigation finally ended on Sunday evening when Attorney General William Barr told the appropriate congressional leaders that there were no further indictments, including sealed indictments, forthcoming, which meant that Corsi would not be charged with anything.
“The moral to the story is a good defense is a good offense,” Corsi’s attorney, Larry Klayman, commented. “We brought a bar complaint against [Mueller] and his prosecutors, and we sued him for $350 million for violating Jerry’s constitutional rights. Mueller came to the conclusion it wasn’t worth it to string Jerry up.”
The Special Counsel’s office offered Corsi a plea deal in November — for him to plead guilty to lying to investigators about having a desire to contact WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange during the presidential campaign of 2016. Corsi has explained that during a visit to Italy in 2016, he came to the conclusion that Assange had damaging emails of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, and that Assange would release them just before the November election.
“I figure it out myself, nobody told me,” Corsi told the Washington Examiner, but Mueller’s prosecutorial team did not believe him, and therefore insisted that he was lying to them. Corsi said they thought it was “impossible” that he had just “deduced” what was going to happen. But Corsi is a 72-year-old experienced observer of inside politics, and as his recent best-seller Killing the Deep State demonstrates, he has vast knowledge of the workings of the elitists who have been largely running the U.S. government for decades, regardless of who is president. (It also probably contributed to bringing him to the attention of the Mueller special counsel’s office.)
Corsi’s lawsuit is pending in U.S. District Court. The government has filed a motion to dismiss it.
“I think the fact they didn’t indict me shows I’m right in the case,” Corsi said. “They need to pay for this. They ruined my life for several months and caused me monetary damages. I currently have no job and no monthly income. I have to reconstruct my life. This was a political prosecution.” It was clearly designed to get Corsi to giving damaging testimony against President Trump.
Corsi’s lawyer, Larry Klayman, agreed. “What Mueller did was abhorrent, and it went on for two years for no reason.”
But, unfortunately, what Mueller did in the Trump case, dragging not only Corsi, but also the president, and the American people through two years of this has become systemic of the independent counsels. For example, back in 1989, independent counsel Lawrence Walsh spent $40 million in pursuing the Iran-Contra Affair, but even after failing to convict President Ronald Reagan’s National Security Administration aide Oliver North on a multitude of charges, Walsh continued to assault him anyway, even bringing up things — after the trial — that he had not brought up during the trial!
As the Wall Street Journal said at the time, “This whole prosecution is not legal but political.”
Of course, such politicized harassments are not unique to the special prosecutors’ offices. In the 1920s, Congressman Oscar Keller of Minnesota even had the audacity to make charges against President Warren Harding’s attorney general, Harry Daugherty, and when asked for his proof, he retorted, “I have made my charges, and they are true until they are proven untrue!”
This is not a partisan issue. One might shake one’s head at how an “independent counsel” probe that began by looking into possible President Bill Clinton illegal activities in the Whitewater real estate scandal in Arkansas somehow morphed into Monica Lewinsky and a blue dress. As Democrat Alan Dershowitz, a noted law professor, has said, he is troubled by the whole system of selecting these “special counsels” (sometimes called independent counsels). Dershowitz contends, “The framers of our Constitution did not seek to make it easy to convict Americans of crimes. They bestowed upon criminal defendants a bundle of rights to provide safeguards against overzealous prosecutors.”
Yet, with a “special counsel,” Dershowitz laments, instead of an investigation of an alleged crime, Mueller and other such “special prosecutors” are deemed failures if they don’t obtain conviction. He notes that Lavrentiy Beria, the head of the notorious NKVD (later the KGB) for communist dictator Joseph Stalin, said, “Show me the man, and I’ll find you the crime.”
That is basically what has been going on for the past two years, and it needs to stop. Perhaps Corsi’s lawsuit against Mueller and his cohorts can play some role in stopping it, before more damage is done to our political institutions.
Photo of Jerome Corsi: AP Images
