An extraordinary story was published in Tablet – the Jewish online news publication- on March 13, 2018. Written by Lee Smith, it is forceful – probably because it wreaks of truth – an ugly truth. For those – especially those who support Trump – who wish to understand the real reason for the seemingly incomprehensible and patently dishonest Mueller probe, this is an excellent place to begin.
Read the whole article, of course. But here is a digest:
Mueller is not conducting an investigation but a cover-up.
He took his job at the behest of blue-chip Beltway elites of which he is a charter member.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed him nearly a year ago to lead an investigation without parameters.
Mueller’s real job is to obscure the abuses of the US surveillance apparatus that occurred under Obama. Mueller, a former FBI director, was called in to “sweep up the mess” left by bad actors in the FBI, CIA and other parts of the intelligence bureaucracy.
The premise of his investigation is the “collusion narrative”– that the Kremlin cultivated Trump for years; the Trump circle teamed with high-level Russian officials for the purpose of winning the 2016 election; anyone who supported Trump likely met with a Russian national and hence committed treason. This is the stuff of Cold War B-movies.
But the Mueller probe is more than prosecutorial overreach. Mueller knows the case he has regarding Russian interference was built by abuses of the foreign intelligence surveillance apparatus and other related crimes punishable with jail time.
The identity of Michael Flynn was leaked to the Washington Post illegally.
The identity of Attorney General Jeff Sessions was also unmasked from intelligence intercepts and leaked to the Washington Post. The fact that the FBI had secured a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act [FISA] warrant on Carter Page was also leaked to the Post.
The warrant on Page was secured on the basis of findings in the Steele dossier, an unverified piece of opposition research paid for by the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee.
Mueller knows the system was abused—and what the penalties are. He knows that illegal surveillance by Obama officials is evidence of how it was abused, and who abused it. The purpose of the Mueller inquiry therefore is not really to investigate the bogus charges in the Steele dossier, but to protect the FBI, former colleagues, as well as the national security surveillance system. He has to cover up the illegal origins of the collusion narrative —which was born in abuses of power and crimes committed by US officials in the intelligence bureaucracy and Obama administration.
Past and present FBI officials who broke the law have the largest stake in Mueller’s investigation continuing as long as possible.
Others also have an interest. National security hawks worried that the abuses of foreign intelligence surveillance may jeopardize programs designed to keep Americans safe from terrorism. Mueller’s probe helps obscure the fact that these programs are used to spy on Americans.
The press also has an interest in prolonging the Mueller probe. Russiagate is good for business, entertaining viewers with the media’s biggest draw —Donald Trump, boss villain in the White House.
Most prominent among the interested media is the Washington Post – the paper that colluded with lawbreakers in publishing the names of US persons whose identities have been illegally leaked by intelligence officials and political operatives.
The owner of the Post has a major stake in letting Mueller preserve America’s surveillance and spying complex. In 2013, the year Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post for $250 million, Amazon Web Services landed a $600 million deal with the US intelligence community to create a “cloud storage service designed to handle classified information for U.S. spy agencies,” including the CIA.
Experts believe that CIA cloud is how the Obama administration minimized its trail after illegally unmasking US persons.
The owner of Amazon cannot be eager to have Amazon customers realize that his company – which has credit card data and buying and viewing habits of Americans on file – facilitated government spying on Americans.
Mueller’s true supporters —spies, political operatives, the corporate media, big data/big business— look like the “Deep State,” but arguably they are Beltway insiders whose privileges Trump threatened.
Mueller was chosen to protect the interests of the ruling class. The range of his inquiry is dictated not by the purpose of his appointment, but by the nature and scope of abuses and crimes he’s covering up. Should the Mueller probe ever stop, his constituency becomes vulnerable. The public will understand what happened, who’s responsible, and who covered it up. That’s why the investigation can’t stop; it must keep expanding.
“Let Mueller do his work,” Democratic and Republican elites chant together.
“Somewhere, someone must have committed a crime, or told a lie, and then something that Trump did or someone who worked for him will prove that someone did something.” Or if all else fails: someone lied to people in charge of the cover-up.
Using the justice system as a political weapon to attack the enemies of the country’s elite, Mueller and his supporters confirm what many Americans believe: We are not equal under the law. There is a privileged class, a ruling class that never pays a price for its crimes.
Truth against power is insufficient. Power vs. Power: We the people must demand of our Congress that this travesty of justice — bankrupting the innocent, punishing the opposition, criminalizing for one’s political associations — that is the Mueller special counsel come to an end.