all, successful in slowing Trump’s agenda. To stave off an outright collapse, President Trump needs messaging discipline, a steely- eyed focus on his agenda’s implementation, and no more self-inflicted wounds from his team. Unfortunately, the recent appointment of a special counsel has made such refocusing even more difficult. Do not be influenced by the so-called “legal analysts” in the media who will tell tales of former FBI director Robert Mueller’s unparalleled honesty and integrity. It’s a trap. Mueller is a close confidante of former FBI Director James Comey, who with his recent testimony admitted that he is a savvy, if underhanded, bureaucratic infighter who knows the ways of the D.C. swamp all too well. He wanted a special prosecutor to even the score with Trump, and he stacked the deck to make it happen. No matter how decent a man Mueller may be, the special counsel is a political weapon. For President Trump’s enemies, this has been the plan all along. Comey lit the match with his leak of private memos to the New York Times , but the mainstream media were piling up the gunpowder for months. The sheer repetition of “Russia election hacking” stories in the media created the perception of a vast conspiracy without a shred of verifiable evidence. And now the country will be put through months (if not years) of investigation started without a specific crime in mind. Assorted latte-drinking coastal elites are
toasting this taxpayer-funded witch hunt. No matter what happens, the purposes of the Trump opposition will have been served. There will be months of injurious speculation – some based on leaks from the investigation itself, no doubt – about who the targets are, how close the Department of Justice is to filing charges, and who is going to “flip” and give testimony against Trump or one of his top advisors. By the time it’s clear the special counsel appointment was fake news, the damage will have been done and the media will have moved on. In a worst-case scenario for the White House, the grinding, remorseless machinery of the special counsel’s investigatory process will claim a hapless victim. Perhaps a senior Trump advisor will get caught in a perjury trap, or there will be some allegation of sloppy procedural misconduct. All it takes is for one of Trump’s special assistants or aides to destroy the wrong file or type a careless e-mail, and Mueller’s squad of G-men will swoop down and bring the sanctimonious fury of the would be great, but despite the Trumpian bravado, that seems unlikely. Trump and the GOP-led Congress must get either tax or health care reform through this year. Both
American Consequences | 61
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker