Smith - The Plot Against the President

WELCOME, said Congressman Devin Nunes, to the last gasp of the Russian collusion conspiracy theory.

It was July 24, 2019, the first time hed come face to face with Special Counsel Robert Mueller III. And now their meeting was taking place in public, on Capitol Hill, in front of millions of people watching at home on television. At least half the audience had their hopes pinned on Mueller. The former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation had been appointed in May 2017 to continue the Bureaus probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. He represented what had once been the best chance of changing the outcome of the election by bringing down Trump.

What had stopped him was Nunes. The former chairman and now ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee had been studying the Russia-Trump collusion investigation for nearly two and a half years. Nunes had discovered, and produced evidence, that the FBI and Department of Justice had abused the resources of the federal government to spy on Donald J. Trump, his campaign, his transition team, and his presidency.

Nunes knew that the FBI had no collusion case against Trump. The FBI had no evidence, except for political dirt paid for by Hillary Clintons campaign.

With Nunes closing off avenues, Mueller had to adjust. He turned it into an obstruction investigation, which had lasted nearly two years until Attorney General William Barr had shut that down, too. Like Nunes, Barr understood that Mueller was running an operation, not an investigation.

On March 22, 2019, Mueller produced his final report. After spending more than $30 million and employing dozens of attorneys and FBI agents, the special counsel found no evidence that Trump or his associates had colluded with Russia. Nonetheless, Muellers devotees found hope in the report insinuating that the president might have obstructed justice. Democrats summoned him to testify before Congress in an effort to bring the report to life, a television reenactment that might with luck lead to Trumps impeachment. After a long career in public service, the seventy-four-year-old Muellers last act was as a political mannequin.

He surely wasnt there to answer real questions about the investigation, the questions that Nunes had been asking since March 2017: When did the investigation start? Based on what evidence? Under whose authority? What other US agencies or departments were involved? Which US governmental personnel had a hand in the operation? How high did it go? How many spies were sent against Trumps presidential campaign?

Mueller brushed any probing questions aside. They werent, as he said repeatedly, in his purview. The special counsel stumbled over even friendly questions. He claimed ignorance of important investigative details. He appeared not to know much of what was in the report that carried his name.

Nunes read from a prepared statement:

In March 2017, Democrats on this committee said they had more than circumstantial evidence of collusion, but they couldnt reveal it yet. Mr. Mueller was soon appointed, and they said he would find the collusion.

Then when no collusion was found in Mr. Muellers indictments, the Democrats said wed find it in his final report.

Then when there was no collusion in the report, we were told Attorney General Barr was hiding it.

Then when it was clear Barr wasnt hiding anything, we were told it will be revealed through a hearing with Mr. Mueller himself.

And now that Mr. Mueller is here, they are claiming that the collusion has actually been in his report all along, hidden in plain sight.

Mueller started impassively at Nunes as the congressman concluded his speech. Its time for the curtain to close on the Russia hoax, said Nunes. The conspiracy theory is dead.

Nunes spoke the truth for those with ears to hear it. It was the American voter who chose Trump, not Putin. The efforts to undermine Trumps candidacy, destroy his presidency, and criminalize political differences were also attacks on American institutions and the American public. No one had risked more to tell the truth than Nunes. His strange odyssey had started precisely two years before Mueller filed his final report.

On March 22, 2017, Nunes was on his way to the White House to tell Trump about what hed seen. The chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) looked alarmed. What concerned him that afternoon wasnt a hostile action taken by foreign adversaries, terrorists, or the intelligence services of a rogue nation-state; rather, it was something that American spies had done to Americans. Nunes had seen evidence of a plot against the president.

Earlier in the month, the recently inaugurated Trump had written on Twitter that his predecessor had spied on him: Just found out that Obama had my wires tapped in Trump Tower just before the victory.

Trumps statements regularly touched off a firestorm. His opponents found cause to denounce his every utterance even as the same words rallied his supporters. But this was different. Hed accused the president of the United States of spying on a political campaign, his. It was unthinkable. Yet sources had shown Nunes that Barack Obama administration officials had asked for the identities of Trump transition team members to be unredacted from intelligence reports.

Typically, the identitiesnames, titles, and so onof US citizens are redacted, i.e., masked, to protect their privacy rights. Unmasking is not illegal, and there are legitimate reasons to ask for the identity of an American to be unmasked. But Nunes had seen evidence of an extensive campaign of unmaskings, for no apparent purpose except to spy on the Trump team.

Nunes, wearing a blue pin-striped suit, approached a group of several dozen reporters, photographers, and TV cameramen assembled at the bottom of a staircase in the Capitol Hill Visitor Center. He stood at a narrow lectern with a dozen microphones to accommodate all the media. The event was carried live on several networks. He unfolded a prepared statement and began.