ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Happy anniversary, Robert Mueller — it’s the one-year mark of the special counsel’s investigation into the President Donald Trump-Russia collusion-slash-obstruction-of-justice-slash-whatever-else-comes-up look-see.

And much as the mainstream media, left and anti-Trumpers of the world want to spin it, it’s been a political failure of epic proportions for the left.

Mueller has been forced to admit that no matter the outcome, his team doesn’t have the legal guns to indict a sitting president.

“All they get to do is write a report,” Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani said this week on CNN. “They can’t indict. At least they acknowledged that to us after some battling — they acknowledged that to us.”

But that aside — the bigger picture is that they don’t have anything to indict over anyway.

It’s been a year. A year of tax-paid special counsel looks at what was supposed to be Team Trump election collusion with Russia, but then, when nothing materialized, Team Trump obstruction of justice over Russia — and then, when nothing materialized, demands for Trump Organization financial records to find, well, whatever could be found. And then came Stormy, and the media found a new attack angle to pursue.

CNN’s marking Mueller’s one-year of nothingburgers with a special report entitled, “One year of Mueller’s special counsel investigation, by the numbers,” that includes a play-by-play of all that has gone forth. What’s lacking is any charge against Trump.

It’s not that Mueller hasn’t brought any charges. It’s that the much-ballyhooed charges against Trump — the ones that had the left collectively shrieking of impeachment and promising to take down this president — have fallen completely flat.

“In one year,” CNN reported, “Mueller has brought charges against 19 people and three companies, including a former White House adviser, three former Trump campaign aides — including the campaign chairman at the time — a prominent Russian oligarch and a dozen Kremlin-backed trolls. In all, these defendants are facing a combined 75 criminal charges, ranging from alleged conspiracy against the United States, bank fraud and tax violations to lying to FBI investigators and identity fraud.”

Sounds impressive, right?

Perhaps — until it’s remembered that charges are simply charges. They don’t mean anything concrete. They don’t indicate guilt — and moreover, none of them are targeted directly at Trump.

And that’s where Mueller’s lost cause comes in.

Mueller was supposed to be the left’s gilded gift — the golden sphere that, with a touch, would take down Trump. But politically speaking, his hunt has been nothing but nothing. Mueller may not have had political eyes set on impeaching Trump. But his team of Democratic backers sure did, including some of those on his very investigative team. (Can you say Peter Strzok and Lisa Page?)

Yet Trump’s still president.

The investigation wears on.

And voters are getting weary. They’re moving on, looking at Mueller as a has-been, a hanger-on, a holdover from the anti-Trump beginning days of campaign time. And the Democrats, who threw in with Mueller and decided this was their ticket to election wins, are now seeing the same wearied looks in voters’ eyes.

Politically speaking, Mueller’s investigation has turned into a lost cause for the left. Just watch how the votes, come November, roll.

• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter, @ckchumley.

Sign up for Daily Opinion Newsletter Manage Newsletters

Copyright © 2020 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.