Free Republic

In a sane world, if the Justice Department’s internal watchdog discovered that the FBI official who began a counterintelligence investigation into an opposition party’s presidential candidate texted his lover a few days later that “we’ll stop” the candidate’s election, it would cause immediate action. At a minimum, the counterintelligence investigation – now in the hands of a special prosecutor – would be suspended pending further review of its reasons and sources, the entire sordid enterprise suddenly appearing to be the fruit of a very poisonous tree. Washington, unfortunately, is not a sane world.

On December 29, 2016, the Obama Administration – with three weeks remaining in its term – issued harsh sanctions against Russia over supposed election interference. Two compounds in the United States were closed and 35 Russian diplomats were ordered to leave the country. Russia responded by calling the actions “Cold War déjà vu.” In the two years that have elapsed since, it has been learned that the “intelligence” that formed the basis for the sanctions was beyond dubious. A single unverified “dossier” compiled by an ex-British spy with no discernable connections to Russia was shopped to FISA judges and the...

Whoever is behind this knew from the start that they could indict Manafort by dusting off some old FBI files and convening a grand jury. As of right now, the crime of the century about Russia stealing the election is really a stale investigation from the Obama Administration resurrected for dramatic effect. There are major gaps, which happens when investigations from 2014 are retrofitted to look like a stolen election in 2016. The indictment covers Manafort’s consulting activity in Ukraine. The order defining the Special Counsel’s authority was to investigate, “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals...

There is a basic morality to Trump’s politics. He may be unfaithful in other relationships, but in dealings with his supporters he has been heroically true. He sticks to his promises under attacks that men with greater reputations for virtue have fled. It is not lost on conservatives that they put into office two Bushes, exemplars of public rectitude, who tended to sue for peace whenever the left threatened to expel them from the club of right thinkers. The parable Jesus told of the Good Samaritan is about two upstanding members of the community passing a man who was robbed...

When the Nunes memo finally became public, the media immediately went to work to say it was “nothing.” Really? Replace the names “Comey,” “Strzok” and “McCabe” with “Haldeman,” “Ehrlichman” and “Mitchell” and reread it, please. It’s a lot like Watergate, if the original break was not the work of G. Gordon Liddy and his candle-impervious hand but rather FBI agents with an improperly obtained warrant. The Washington Post would be all over that story, lest democracy die in darkness. Here’s how it would look, in the movie at least: “All the President’s Men II: Dirty Tricks with a Vengeance.”

This would not be the expected bipartisan speech about infrastructure. Trump instead treated the United States Capitol like a campaign rally at a hockey rink in Wheeling.... His speech called firefighters and coast guard rescuers and Corey the welder “heroic” and “beautiful” and “a great welder.” He scolded the politicians in the room: “These are the people we were elected to serve.” In a city where every square patch of grass is named to honor a politician, he gives politicians demeaning names and honors ordinary citizens. That, right there, is the chewy Tootsie Pop center of Trumpism.

It has not been a good month for Democrats. The economic news is through the roof. Trump’s pro-business policies have had an immediate and profound effect. The unemployment numbers are the best in years. The stock market is booming. The Republican tax cuts have yielded immediate benefits, as corporations are giving back in the form of higher wages, bonuses, and expansion. We are in the midst of the Trump-boom. Democrats have staked their credibility on the Steele Dossier, something so far-fetched and clumsily worded that nobody could possibly believe it. Read out loud it sounds like one of those Nigerian...