Now that the Mueller and related New York State sentencing memos are in for Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort — and with rumors increasingly circulating that the Mueller Investigation that was supposed to look into collusion between the 2016 Trump Presidential Campaign and “The Russians” may be over as soon as six years, one month, and two weeks from now — I have begun drafting my proposed speech for President Trump to use on the occasion of his pardoning all convicted and imprisoned Mueller victims except Michael “Cash Cab” Cohen. It necessarily includes a bit of rambling to allow the President his voice. Herewith:

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen of the media and purveyors of Fake News.

Is Acosta in the room? Get him out of here; I have something to say.

OK, that’s better.

I begin by thanking Robert Mueller and his team of loyal Democrat donors for having set aside two [alternate version: eight] years of his and their lives to the national service, spending a few months investigating “collusion” that never happened and then just hunting down people to indict for slipping in slick perjury traps. It cost the American taxpayer more than $20 million.

Let me first explain what it means when someone says that something “cost the American taxpayer” something. Since half the people in this country do not pay income taxes, let’s say 100 million Americans pay income taxes. So each American who does pay gave Mueller 20 cents. If you were married with three kids, that means the five of you chipped in to give him a dollar. If you have not yet filed your taxes, feel free to write a check payable to “Robert Mueller” for one dollar, and you can mail it to Don Lemon or Anderson Cooper at CNN — or mail it to MSNBC care-of Adam Schiff or that hyphenated “no-brainer” named for Cortez the Conqueror. They will get your dollar to Mueller. If you are thinking to yourself, “But, Mr. President, why would I send a dollar to Robert Mueller? You think I am crazy?” Well, hey, I did not elect the Congress. I came to drain a swamp that is so thick that maybe it cannot be drained. I came to build a wall that maybe would just sink in the swamp. But, yes, either you send him the dollar via CNN or MSNBC, or the IRS will get it from you later when you file. So take that dollar you were going to put under your kid’s pillow the next time he or she loses a tooth, and make sure that at least one of the kid’s “baby teeth” doesn’t fall out until they can pay for their own dentist.

Mr. Mueller left no stone unturned. He followed every clue. It reminds me of the airplane that crashed into the middle of an Albanian cemetery, and the Albanian Minister of Aviation held a press conference at the cemetery and said, “There will be a full investigation of what caused this crash at this site and all these deaths. We already have uncovered more than 2,000 bodies here at the accident site, and we are finding more every hour.” So, yes, Mueller took two years, but it was worth it because now, finally, every American can sleep peacefully, knowing there never was any collusion from our side with The Russians. Now maybe some people can focus on worrying about North Korean or Iranian inter-continental ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads aimed at us, because now you finally can sleep at night on the subject of collusion. And now that our Administration soon will have an Attorney-General — it will be nice finding out what that feels like — we all now can look forward to the new investigations into the Clinton Campaign’s collusion with The Russians, the Steele Dossier they paid for, how they and their cronies lied to the FISA court, how the Obama Administration illegally spied on our campaign and illegally unmasked Americans who got caught up in legitimate CIA monitoring of the Russians and other foreign actors. And also the new investigations into the Clinton Foundation and Uranium One. I must warn you, though. This will cost everyone another baby tooth.

Meanwhile, as I understand it, Mueller already has expanded his probe since he never could find any collusion with Russians and now is spending up to $20 million more — another dollar, yet another baby tooth — to investigate whether there really is a Santa Claus. As you know, Jeff Sessions recused himself from that one, too. I understand that Mueller’s team already has handed down several indictments of mothers who lied to the Justice Department under questioning and maintained, in the presence of their young children, that there really is a Santa Claus. Which brings me next to those whom the Mueller team got convicted for lying to investigators.

Lying is common in Washington. It is a swamp here. For example, some former Republican Congressmen promised for years to repeal and replace Obamacare. They promised to repeal the sucker, and then to replace it with something better. That would have given every American peace of mind, knowing that he or she has truly affordable great health care that also covers pre-existing conditions. But the Republican majorities never got around to doing what they promised to do. Because some lied, they got thrown out of the House. Melania and I have to remember to send them Christmas cards next year, too.

Which brings me to the Democrats and their lying. The Democrats just ran for the House promising they will focus their next two years on what people need for better lives — not on political investigations. Remember how they just promised that? And they promised they never would vote for Nancy Pelosi to be their next House Speaker. Remember? Well, they lied even worse than Republicans do. At least, when Republicans lie, they actually believe for a what they are saying until it comes time for them to do it. But when Democrats lie, they can’t even believe hearing the words coming out of their own mouths! Now they will waste the next two years spending yet another $20 million or more on more investigations. That’s another baby tooth. What are we at now, four teeth? And that is why Republicans will take back the House in 2020 and — don’t get excited — why the Democrats will get it back again in 2022. Y’know why it always see-saws back and forth? It’s because Americans cannot abide lying. That is why they always throw the liars out and replace them with new and different liars.

But there is something different about lying to Mueller and the Department of Justice — like the Hillary Clinton people who got special deals, special immunity sweetheart packages from Comey and his crowd. The Cheryl Mills, Huma Abedin crowd. Lies, lies. So many lies. The same as Susan Rice lying on four TV stations the same Sunday morning about Benghazi, or Hillary lying about 33,000 emails she acid-washed in her bathroom server because — she says — they were about her yoga classes and a wedding dress. Or Hillary lying to the American people that our ambassador to Libya was murdered on 9/11 because of a YouTube video that was seen only by Susan Rice and by three derelicts who were trying to stay awake while stuffing ballots in Florida or harvesting them in Orange County, California — when we know that Hillary secretly was emailing her daughter and telling her that the ambassador actually was murdered by Islamist terrorists who planned it for a 9/11 anniversary.

So Mr. Mueller finally figured out there truly was no collusion. He’s very smart; it only took him two years and four baby teeth. But after spending $20 million he had to convict at least some people of something. To spend $20 million without a conviction would be a scandal. Look how inexpensively the Ayatollahs get convictions in Iran and my good friend President Xi gets convictions in China. So, for $20 million, Mueller had to get convictions. As a result, he got Gen. Flynn on lying that, by the way, had nothing whatsoever to do with collusion, and Mr. Mueller’s own Justice Department people said that Gen. Flynn’s statements were meaningless and pointless to pursue, but Mueller got the conviction anyway. And the Mueller Team got several others convicted for lying, too. It is something that every Mother and Father in America wishes they could hang over their kids when cookies are missing: if you lie about who ate those cookies, you will go to prison until you are too old to see your grandchildren.

Well, I am the President of the United States. I have a sworn duty to uphold certain standards. Jeff Flake screamed and preened for two years, saying that I would close down the Mueller Investigation. Adam Schiff, Crying Chuck Schumer, the Failing New York Times, the Fake News CNN — all of them went around daily for two years saying that I was going to shut down the Mueller Investigation and fire Rod Rosenstein. But I kept saying, over and over again, that I never would. And guess what? I never did. So you tell me: Who was lying, and who was telling the truth these past two years? Who is the one with full mental capacities, and who are the ones with the delusions and all the Pinocchios? I never shut down the Mueller Investigation. I never reduced or interfered with its funding. I allowed him to bring any charges he liked, to prosecute, to intimidate, to force settlements, and to get convictions. As a result, no evidence ever was spoliated, no perjury ever suborned. And now it all is done.

I have looked carefully at each situation where someone has pleaded guilty or otherwise been convicted of perjury as a result of the Mueller Investigation. In each case, I am persuaded they never would have had this problem had they not been associated with me. This is a very important point, and I want to emphasize it: Mueller sent Americans a message that “If you associate with a certain political candidate whom we do not favor, then we will hunt you down, set up perjury traps, bankrupt you with the need to mortgage your home to pay extraordinarily expensive legal fees to defend yourself from baseless charges, and ultimately we still will lock you up.”

I believe this poses the gravest of threats to our democracy. Today it is those who supported the Trump Presidency who were hounded and trapped into perjury. Another time, it might be volunteers for an unpopular Democrat candidate who get hounded into perjuring themselves and going to prison. This threat to our democracy will scare away many from working for legitimate candidates of major parties, fearing they may be hounded and tricked into lying, and get sent away to prison, if they back the losing candidate or even the winner who gets on the wrong side of intelligence officials who have voted for communists like Gus Hall.

As a result, now that the Mueller Investigation has ended, all evidence has been propounded, discovered and produced for review.So now that all the fact-finding is done, I hereby announce, pursuant to the authority extended to me by our Founding Fathers in Article II, Section 2, Clause 1 of the United States Constitution — [that the President] “shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States”— that I hereby grant a complete and absolute pardon to each and every person who entered any plea of guilty for telling the Mueller Team anything short of what their truth was. You all are pardoned. You should not have lied, but you never would have been put into the perjury trap in the first place if not for your political association with me. Therefore, because all your convictions are fruit of the Special Prosecutor’s poisonous tree, you all are pardoned.

In like manner, I turn to the convictions of people like Paul Manafort whom the Mueller Investigation convicted on issues other than perjury. In Paul’s case, for example, he pleaded guilty to filing false taxes and sometimes not even filing, and to other business wrongdoing. There is no question that Mr. Manafort’s wrongs violated laws that well could merit his being sent to prison. Frankly, if we had known of that background, Paul never would have been part of our campaign — just as Kamala Harris now tells us that she never would have had such a high-ranking advisor if she had known that he was a recidivist sex abuser. Just as Dianne Feinstein, that other beauty from California — who knows, maybe the water and air in California really is polluted to the point of no return? — tells us that she never would have had that Chinese double-agent and anti-American spy chauffeuring her around for decades, listening to all her top-secret national-security phone calls, if only she had known that he was a spy. So it’s the same with Paul. None of us knew about the tax stuff and the ostrich jacket.

But here’s the thing: If the Department of Justice or the IRS had caught up with Paul through customary law-enforcement processes, the way they have uncovered other tax evaders, then so it would be. But they did not uncover Mr. Manafort’s tax issues that usual way. Instead, they went after him specifically and solely because he was identified with my Presidential campaign, was my campaign manager during a part of the primaries, and helped us unite the Republican Party at the convention.

No American should end up in prison or with a conviction simply because his support for a Presidential candidate from outside the mainstream draws ire from political opponents. American political volunteers and operatives must not fear that, if their candidate is unpopular, then a witch hunt will unfold afterwards that will ensnare them for some long-forgotten wrong of a decade or more earlier. So, now that the Mueller Investigation is done, and the investigators were allowed unlimited funds and no interference in investigating tax filings and all other such issues as arose, the facts are discovered, the pleas have been secured, and the convictions have been handed down. Now that all that is behind us, I likewise hereby grant a complete and absolute pardon to each and every person who entered any plea of guilty or otherwise has been convicted for any deed that was discovered by or as a result of the Mueller Investigation that was supposed to be about my campaign and Russian Collusion and nothing else.

That leaves only one criminal unaddressed, Mr. Michael “Cash Cab” Cohen, formerly one of my many attorneys but the only one who secretly recorded me and who-knows-how-many-other of his clients. I do not know much about the taxi medallion business. I wish him well.

Thank you.

You can let Acosta back in now.