Where It Leads Us

So now we have former FBI Director Robert Mueller appointed as a special counsel to investigate ... something.  Presumably it is the RussiaRussiaRussia squealing and yelping of the left, that somehow President Trump is connected to the Russians and ... again, I don't know what they are seriously suggesting was done.

After all, you need something like an accusation of wrongdoing and lawbreaking, and to date there is nothing out there that points to anything remotely illegal done by the president in his term of office, or even as a candidate.  After all, anything would have to end up being hung on him; you can't try to impeach a president based on anything his campaign people did, certainly not before the election.

All you get is smoke and mirrors, amorphous suggestions and no facts.  So right now, the biggest thing is that you have this memo from Jim Comey while FBI Director himself, after a conversation with the president.  It says -- and this may or may not have happened, but let's assume so -- that President Trump asked him in some fashion to go easy on Gen. Mike Flynn, who was then under investigation for something related to communications with Russia, or Turkey -- again, crime indeterminate.

Of course, the president saying that he "hoped Comey would go easy on Flynn" is not the same as ordering him to drop an investigation and, as I wrote yesterday, there are a ton of gradations between.

But it is now in Mueller's hands.  The Democrats are hoping for a long, winding investigation that goes forever and somehow stops the president's work from going forward.  They're using terms like "Let the investigation go where it leads, however long it takes ...", and it strikes me that they'd better be careful what they ask for.

You see, as soon as Comey's note-taking becomes a topic of the investigation, it automatically becomes a legitimate question for the special counsel as to Comey's history of note-taking, and whether he took notes at every meeting or afterward.  And if that gets asked, then perhaps the notes should be subpoenaed.

You see, I would like to see the notes, or have the special counsel see the notes, that followed all -- every one -- of the meetings that Comey had with Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch -- particularly Loretta Lynch -- on a whole passel of things.

Did Comey ever once discuss with Holder or Lynch the IRS scandal, where IRS officials targeted conservative groups for special delay or rejection in their applications for non-profit status?  We'd like to know what either or both of the attorneys general he served had to say about that.  Perhaps they could discuss why there was no further criminal prosecution of the IRS official who pleaded the Fifth Amendment rather than testify before Congress regarding actions as a government official herself.

The one I'd like to hear that Mueller is looking into is the notes that Comey took after Loretta Lynch, the then-attorney general and Comey's superior, spent a half-hour in a private meeting on a plane on the tarmac of an airport with -- oh yeah, the husband of the person that the FBI was investigating.  She met with Comey after, right?  Where are the notes?

Whatever Donald Trump said to Comey in the White House, we'd equally like to know what Loretta Lynch said to Comey about what Bill Clinton said to her in a private meeting, that was so inappropriate that she ended up allegedly letting Comey run with the Hillary investigation.  I certainly want to know that.

And it would seem to me that anything related to Comey note-taking becomes fodder for the Mueller investigation.  That should include the leaks of classified information to the press by the intelligence community.  That is beyond illegal; it is treasonous.  And the press is not talking about it.

And if that thread gets pulled, well, the Democrats may be less than happy that they squealed for a special counsel, especially if it comes to pass that Mueller decides after a few weeks that the Trump part of the investigation is a pile of nothing, and he moves past it onto real crimes.

Oh, that would be fun.  Sure, let's take it where it leads us.

Copyright 2017 by Robert Sutton
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