Now that the Mueller investigation has been revealed itself to be the fraud that many of us have said it was for over a year (I’m not a johnny-come-lately to this belief If Mueller’s Indictment Isn’t A Nothingburger You Could Be Forgiven For Making That Mistake), one of the common refrains in the media, on the left, and among NeverTrump nutters (yes, I know that they are essentially the same thing) is that everyone on the right who challenged the ethics of Muellers investigation for two years will now be praising Mueller’s evenhandedness.

In my view, nothing could be further from the truth.

First and foremost, we have no need to overlook the abuses of Mueller’s investigation (extorting a guilty plea from Michael Flynn by threatening to indict his son, a pre-dawn raid on Paul Manafort’s home, using a SWAT team to force entry into Roger Stone’s home over the king of chickensh** indictments) or the raw partisanship made in his selection of his team. His senior deputy was a guest at Hillary’s “victory party” on Election Night and shamelessly ass-smooched Sally Yates over her illegal decision to refuse to defend President Trump’s so-called travel ban, simply because he could not find any evidence of what he was investigating, that is:

any links and/or coordination bet ween the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump;

Let’s be serious. By the time that Mueller was appointed, the nature of the Steele Dossier had been subjected to scrutiny by both the FBI and the intelligence community. It is doubtful that Mueller uncovered anything that was not known. Without the dossier there was actually no allegation of anything other than the Russians acting pretty much exactly the way Russians act. Again, the information about the Russian activities on Facebook and Twitter seem to have been handed over to Mueller’s team by other agencies. We knew before Trump was sworn in that there were on compromises of voting machines by Russia (thought there were massive compromises of the ballot boxes in Democrat cities). Logic tells you that Mueller could have put that investigation to bed in short order. In fact, he had an obligation to do so. Him dragging this investigation out for two years to enable score settling with Paul Manafort (see Does One Of Mueller’s Prosecutors Have A Personal Animus Against Paul Manafort?) effectively sapped the early momentum of the Trump administration and served as a basis to question the very legitimacy of his election.

Indeed, there is circumstantial evidence that looks like that Mueller knew he not only had nothing but made a calculated decision to extend his investigation by taking a handful of high profile actions that dovetailed pretty neatly with concurrent leaks appearing in the media from sources unknown. As a point of departure, let’s take this Twitter thread from Byron York on the signs that there was nothing in Mueller’s investigation concerning Trump and Russia:

Mueller's signs took the form of indictments against key Trump figures that did not allege conspiracy/coordination between Trump and Russia. If they weren't involved, who was? 2/5 https://t.co/7RiwUsdRAI — Byron York (@ByronYork) March 25, 2019

That was all public, for all to see. And yet, some are surprised Mueller did not allege conspiracy-coordination. They should have been watching more closely all along. 4/5 https://t.co/7RiwUsdRAI — Byron York (@ByronYork) March 25, 2019

Link: On collusion, Mueller sent sign after sign, yet some would not see. 5/5 End. https://t.co/7RiwUsdRAI — Byron York (@ByronYork) March 25, 2019

And yet, we have this:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1109624350020431872

The entire thread, via Threadreaderapp:

PapaD wasn’t Collusion Manafort wasn’t Collusion Cohen wasn’t Collusion And every one of those cases was dragged out and delayed Why: Mueller wanted to entangle them in legal jeopardy, then shut them up, to leave the *possibility* of “Collusion” tangling with the public/media

June 27 2017: Chuck Grassley and Lindsey Graham ask the FBI/DOJ for copies of all FISA warrants sought in the Trump/Russia investigation. They reference that Steele’s reporting may have been used “to bolster” the FISA on Carter Page (that had just been renewed for the final time)

And they want a response by mid July:

grassley.senate.gov/news/news-rele…

I think Mueller feared getting shut down before he even got started, as the original predicate for the investigation was going to unravel as soon as those FISAs and related docs were turned over If Muller ever testifies to Congress this is a crucial time period to explore

If Mueller knew there was no collusion and wanted to inflict the maximum possible damage on Trump, how would he have acted differently.

Senator Lindsey Graham is on the right track. We need a reckoning. We to take a serious look at how we got to the point where a opposition research document prepared under contract to the Clinton campaign and is more likely a product of Russian intelligence than anything else was laundered and spun as though it was the Holy Grail of the intelligence community (see my post The Steele Memo Is Much More Likely Russian Dezinformatsiya Than It Is Intelligence).

But that reckoning, though necessary, is not sufficient. We need a serious examination of how an investigation that found absolutely nothing took two years. We need a non-insulting-to-the-intelligence explanation of why it was decided to allow the accusations of collusion with Russia against President Trump were allowed to fester for at least a year after they were known to be false.