ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Where does Donald Trump go to get his presidency back?

After two years of ominous suspicion, $30 million dollars, endless warrants and subpoenas, dishonest media hysteria and too many wrecked reputations and lives, Special Counsel Robert Mueller found that neither Trump nor his associates colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election, and determined that no further investigation on obstruction of justice was warranted, and the Department of Justice concurred.

Even some of the president’s fiercest enemies were forced to concede that the Mueller report was a complete vindication of the president and his team.

The Resistance lived by the Mueller, and they’ve died by the Mueller.

They are now, however, too deeply invested in their mission to destroy President Trump to permit anything — above all, the truth — to change their course. They’ve already moved the goalposts again to keep the investigations going.

What they have done — explaining the 2016 election results with the malicious Trump-Russia collusion lie — goes way beyond sore loser syndrome.

It was, in fact, an attempted coup to remove the duly-elected president by weaponizing some of the most fearsome arms of the U.S. government. And the conspirators enjoyed an invaluable, constant assist from their media wingmen.

The entire Russia conspiracy, orchestrated by high-ranking figures in the Obama administration, Hillary Clinton campaign and broader leftist network, was designed to undermine and then destroy the crass interloper who posed an immediate existential threat to all of them. They had to crush him before he could crush them.

It was also designed to provide maximum distraction away from their potential crimes. A multi-year special counsel investigation of a sitting president for something that never happened would grant the actual plotters enough time to cover their tracks and run out the clock on various statutes of limitations so they could escape prosecution.

Ensuring that these corrupt players don’t slip justice is critical to rightfully restoring Mr. Trump’s presidency and the integrity of the DOJ, FBI and other institutions which may be implicated.

That means investigating everyone who carried out the treacherous acts, which they’ve been desperately trying to bury:

• Actual Russian collusion: Mrs. Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee enlisted a left-wing opposition research firm, Fusion GPS, which hired a former British spy and rabid Trump hater, Christopher Steele, who sought dirt on Mr. Trump from shadowy Russian contacts, among others. Mr. Steele then compiled a phony dossier on Mr. Trump based on the unsubstantiated, uncorroborated nonsense from those sources and helped to pass it off to pivotal figures in the Obama administration and friendlies in the media. With the lies teed up, these figures weaponized them, including using them to secure warrants to spy on the Trump campaign from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which was not told that the “evidence” was a pack of political smears derived, at least in part, from Russian sources.

• The use of individuals (Stefan Halper, Joseph Mifsud) with known ties to foreign intelligence to target Trump associates raises questions about the role of John Brennan. If a CIA director had a hand in domestic political spying, it would constitute epic illegality.

• At the highest levels, the Obama administration wiretapped American citizens, including political opponents, illegally unmasked Gen. Michael Flynn and leaked his name to the press. Later, the former FBI director and his deputy Andrew McCabe appear to have set Flynn up in an interview with Trump-hating, now-fired FBI official Peter Strzok.

• The late 2015/early 2016 origins of the Russian hoax, including the original DOJ/FBI probe documents and later, the revised Mueller scope memo, written by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, which authorized the special counsel fishing expedition.

• The corrupt handling of the Clinton email/server case by the DOJ and FBI.

• The broader criminal leaks of selective information to journalists who were more than willing to serve as tools of the conspiracy.

All of this — and more — cries out for a thorough-going investigation.

Fortunately Attorney General William Barr views his top priority as restoring institutional trust by sanitizing the DOJ and FBI of their rampant politicization and corruption. That means launching a blue-ribbon investigation to go wherever the facts may lead.

Among those who may want to put their attorneys on speed-dial: former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Mr. Comey, Mr. McCabe, former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates, Mr. Strzok, former DOJ lawyer Lisa Page, DOJ official Bruce Ohr and his Fusion GPS-employee wife Nellie, Mr. Brennan, former National Security Adviser Susan Rice, former U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power, former NSC adviser Ben Rhodes and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.

And then there are the two previously sacred cows at the top: Former President Barack Obama and Mrs. Clinton. As I first wrote in February 2018, “High-ranking officials and other major players in those agencies — which Obama oversaw — are increasingly embroiled in the growing scandal Given the tight control Obama exercised over every part of his administration and agenda, the idea that any of these appointees and loyalists freelanced their activities without at least his tacit approval or that of his White House strains credulity.”

Indeed.

This investigation should be conducted expeditiously before applicable statutes of limitations expire. If any of these individuals have committed crimes but are permitted to skate because of endless Mueller/DOJ stalling, the damage to the country will be exponentially worse.

It’s time to fight fire with fire. We deserve answers to the sinister fraud perpetrated upon the legitimate president, his voters, our institutions and the country writ large. We must pursue these public enemies with the same tireless vigor they deployed to target Mr. Trump.

Their malignant lie has been exposed. Now the consequences must begin.

• Monica Crowley is a columnist for The Washington Times

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