It’s too early to start calling Donald Trump “Teflon Don.”
But we do know two things from the yet-to-be released report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the Deep State free agent dispatched to overthrow the president with a probe of “Russian collusion.”
First, Mueller (shown) will not announce new indictments, which means he did not uncover evidence of putative high crimes and misdemeanors that could lead to an impeachment, the end-game of the anti-Trump Deep State Left.
Second, the Deep State isn’t close to quitting its prosecutorial lawfare against the president.
The Report
The Washington Post reported today that Attorney General William Barr is digesting Mueller’s report even now with other top officials in the Justice Department, but that he will not release his conclusions today.
But more importantly, the Post and the New York Times reported, a top Justice official said Mueller will not issue more indictments. His probe led to the indictment of 34 people, six connected to Trump.
But no indictment for Trump himself doesn’t mean he’s out of the woods.
The Deep Staters who thought Mueller’s platoon of shock-troop investigators would bring their nightmare presidency to a close must now rely on an attack from lesser troops.
“Federal and state prosecutors are pursuing about a dozen other investigations that largely grew out of his work, all but ensuring that a legal threat will continue to loom over the Trump presidency,” the Times reported:
Most of the investigations focus on President Trump or his family business or a cadre of his advisers and associates, according to court records and interviews with people briefed on the investigations. They are being conducted by officials from Los Angeles to Brooklyn, with about half of them being run by the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan.
Unlike Mr. Mueller, whose mandate was largely focused on any links between the Trump campaign and the Russian government’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, the federal prosecutors in Manhattan take an expansive view of their jurisdiction. That authority has enabled them, along with F.B.I. agents, to scrutinize a broader orbit around the president, including his family business.
In other words, the leftist Deep State operatives have a back-up plan to bring down the president. They couldn’t prove a treasonous conspiracy with Russia, and will try to harpoon the president another way.
What’s It Mean?
Without seeing Barr’s summary of Mueller’s report, one can only speculate about Mueller’s reason for ending his whaling expedition without more indictments. At Powerline, Paul Mirengoff asked the right questions:
Is it because Mueller has concluded that the U.S. president can’t be indicted while in office? Is it because Mueller has concluded that Trump did not do anything wrong, either by way of “colluding” with Russia or interfering with the administration of justice? Or is it because Mueller has concluded, James Comey style, that Trump did collude and/or interfere but that his conduct doesn’t rise to the level of a crime?
Mirengoff’s colleague, John Hinderaker, summed up the indictments. Again, only six of 34 are somehow connected to Trump, but they were not indicted for “collusion” with Russia to meddle with the 2016 election.
“The lion’s share of those indicted are Russians who are alleged to have interfered illegally in the campaign from a metaphorical basement in Moscow and one Maria Butina, who did her thing as a Russian agent in the United States,” he wrote.
“In toto, Mueller indicted 25 or 26 Russian nationals (and the three companies). Mueller’s indictments of the 13 Muscovites in the basement and 12 Russian GRU officers are of the show-business variety. They will not see the inside of an American courtroom. They will roll merrily along, period.”
Hinderaker concluded that the prosecution of Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, “was a put-up job by remnants of the Obama administration in the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the intelligence community. Recall that he was investigated for the act of talking to the Russian ambassador during the transition after Trump’s election.”
Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about that conversation, but, again, did not plead guilty to “collusion.” And neither did the other five. Thus, no more indictments.
But that won’t matter to bitter-enders in the Deep State, still furious over their defeat in 2016. They aren’t yet finished. Question is, to what end, given that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wisely ruled out impeachment last week?
Photo of Robert Mueller: AP Images
