On July 24, 2018, President Trump said, “What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”
Now that special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation is complete and we know definitively that neither Trump nor his 2016 campaign was in cahoots with Russia to swing the election, we can all rest easy that the state of America’s democracy is strong.
Just kidding! Even before the Justice Department’s key findings were delivered to Congress on Sunday, Democrats and liberals in the news media were already complaining that something was afoul.
Hey, remember when it was an act of treason for Trump to say that he could understand conclusions from U.S. intelligence that Russia had interfered in the election, but that he could equally understand Vladimir Putin’s denials?
New York Times, July 16, 2018: “President Trump stood next to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Monday and publicly challenged the conclusion of his own intelligence agencies that Moscow interfered in the 2016 presidential election…”
Politico, July 16, 2018: “Trump seemed ready to take Putin’s word over that of his own intelligence chiefs on the question of Russian election meddling…”
BBC, July 16, 2018: “Trump sides with Russia against FBI at Helsinki summit.”
The Atlantic, July 16, 2018: “Trump Sides With the Kremlin, Against the U.S. Government.”
Those are all articles covering Trump’s meeting with Putin in Helsinki, Finland. Here’s what Trump said about Russia interference in the election: “So I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today.”
Treason!
You can sum Trump’s remarks up as: U.S. intelligence claims this, while Putin, who I’m trying to build a relationship with, denies it.
Okay, so where’s the part about Trump siding with Putin?
And yet, now liberals are openly hostile to America’s democratic institutions without any push back from our defenders of democracy.
Joy Reid on MSNBC said Sunday that that the roll-out of the Mueller report, with no new indictments and no evidence of Russia collusion, “feels like the seeds of a cover-up … ”
Why doesn’t Reid have faith in our institutions?!
On CNN, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said early Sunday that Democrats would “accept” the special counsel’s summary, “subject to seeing all the underlying data.” That’s a nice way of saying he was ready to reject it all. Sure enough, hours later, he wrote on Twitter that there were “very concerning discrepancies” in the report and that congressional Democrats would “soon” haul in Attorney General William Barr for questioning.
Doesn’t he trust the American justice system?!
Beto O’Rourke, who is running for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, said Saturday in South Carolina, “You have a president, who in my opinion, beyond a shadow of a doubt, sought to, however ham-handedly, collude with the Russian government … ”
Why is he rejecting the findings of the nonpartisan special counsel?!
The hysteria isn’t limited to the colossal waste of time known as the Russia investigation. The Washington Post on Thursday reported on the spike of illegal immigrants apprehended at the southern border, noting that the data put Democrats in the uncomfortable position of either having to downplay the concern or admit there’s a legitimate problem.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., swept it all away by simply accusing the Department of Homeland Security of “cooking the books.”
Facts matter!*
*Until they don’t.
For Democrats, the special counsel investigation was never about justice. It was a political pursuit. They’re not giving it up just because Robert Mueller is done.
But Trump was right: What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.
