My God… what a shambles!

Special Counsel Robert Mueller came to Congress with a stellar reputation as one of the sharpest, most experienced, reliable and brilliant legal minds in America.

By the time he’d finished his stumbling, bumbling, obfuscating, dithering appearances before the House Judiciary Committee and House Intelligence Committee, that reputation lay in tatters.

Frankly, he was embarrassing.

He looked old, bleary-eyed, exhausted, and slightly out of it.

In their wildest nightmares, the Democrats could surely never have imagined that Mueller’s testimony would actually HELP Donald Trump? Yet that’s what it did

How can Democrats, and the anti-Trump media for that matter, possibly keep this Russia collusion nonsense going any longer after today?

I take no pleasure in saying this because Mueller has served his country with great distinction, as a decorated war hero, highly regarded lawyer and respected FBI director.

But none of that excuses his dismal performance today, which did a grave disservice to the American national interest.

This was supposed to be the moment of clarity, the moment when Americans could finally get all remaining questions answered about this whole sorry Russia collusion affair – straight from the horse’s mouth, on live television.

Instead, they got a political pea-souper so foggy that even Mueller didn’t seem to know what the hell he was talking about.

In perhaps the single most staggering exchange – one I could barely believe I was watching - Mueller was asked by Republican congressman Doug Collins if ‘collusion’ and ‘conspiracy’ were, in colloquial language, ‘largely synonymous’ terms.

In other words, to most people’s understanding, they have the same meaning.

Mueller replied firmly: ‘No.’

Yet, as Collins pointed out, in Mueller’s own report and in his May 29 press conference, he said the complete opposite.

‘So would you change your answer to “yes” then?’ Collins asked, given this complete contradiction.

Mueller stammered ‘No’, then scrabbled around looking frantically at a piece of paper, before asking Collins to repeat his very simple, unambiguous question.

Collins read again Mueller’s own words from his own report, stating that ‘collusion’ and conspiracy’ are ‘largely synonymous’ words.

At which point, Mueller gave up trying to explain his baffling U-turn on this crucial point, and told Collins: ‘I leave it with the report.’

Incredibly, he later made things even worse when he forgot the word ‘conspiracy’ altogether.

‘We don’t use the word ‘collusion’,’ he stated in the latter part of the day. ‘We use…’

He couldn’t finish the sentence.

He couldn’t remember what word they use instead.

He had to be told by his questioner that the word was ‘conspiracy’.

Yes, the Special Counsel investigating alleged conspiracy into collusion with Russia, forgot the name of the very thing he was supposed to be investigating.

It was almost beyond parody.

Why does the Mueller’s collusion-definition-confusion matter so much?

President Trump, who must have been laughing his head off watching Mueller self-implode, will probably continue laughing all the way to a second term

Because legally, conspiracy is a criminal offense and collusion isn’t.

This is an absolutely fundamental distinction that goes to the very heart of Mueller’s investigation.

His abject failure to be consistent about something so basic was both shocking and a fiasco for Democrats who’d bet all their chips on Mueller’s live TV testimony landing a killer blow to President Trump that the written report failed to do.

Contrary to all the absurdly disingenuous spinning by hyper-partisan media and social media commentators, Mueller said nothing new today.

He just parroted the same conclusions he wrote in his report: no collusion, no conspiracy and no determination of obstruction of justice over the crime he says didn’t happen, or whether Trump should face any indictment once he leaves office.

So in terms of dropping new bombshells that might help Democrats push for impeachment, Mueller delivered a nothing-burger.

But in their wildest nightmares, the Democrats could surely never have imagined that Mueller’s testimony would actually HELP Donald Trump?

Yet that’s what it did.

In another spectacular lowlight, Mueller didn’t even know what Fusion GPS is - despite it being the name of the infamous firm paid by Hillary Clinton’s campaign that used a former British spy to dig up a salacious dirty dossier on Trump.

Michael Moore, the firebrand liberal filmmaker who is desperate to see Trump ousted from the White House, tweeted:

‘A frail old man, unable to remember things, stumbling, refusing to answer basic questions…I said it in 2017 and Mueller confirmed it today – all pundits and moderates and lame Dems who told the public to put their faith in the esteemed Robert Mueller.. just STFU from now on.’

Distraught Moore added: ‘Trump must be gloating in ecstasy…because he understands the power of the visual and he understands the Dems aren’t street fighters and that’s why he’ll win.’

Other leading Democrat voices were equally appalled.

‘This is very, very painful,’ tweeted David Axelrod, President Obama’s former senior aide, half way through Mueller’s testimony.

He wasn’t talking about any pain to Trump, as was anticipated. He was talking about the excruciating pain of Mueller’s disastrous performance.

If this is what Trump-loathing liberals were thinking about Mueller’s testimony, just imagine how gleeful Trump and Republicans must be feeling tonight?

This wasn’t just a train wreck - it was a multiple pile up of every train in the United States all colliding at the same time and exploding into a gigantic, catastrophic fireball.

As Fox News host Chris Wallace, no great fan of Trump, said in a savage critique that was instantly retweeted by the President: ‘I think this has been a disaster for the Democrats, and I think it’s been a disaster for the reputation of Robert Mueller. He doesn’t seem to know things that are in the report. I think it does raise questions about the degree to which he actually was in charge of and in control of this report… the investigation, because he doesn’t seem to be in charge of what the report actually says.’

That was exactly my sentiment too.

Special Counsel Mueller blew it today.

He had a chance to bring this all to a close, to be definitive with his statements and clear with his opinions.

Instead, he blathered away like an ill-informed nervous elderly rabbit in headlights – absurdly contradicting himself, dodging endless questions, and often looking like he had no real grasp of either what was in his own report or what it really meant with regard to the point of his investigation.

Yet ironically, through his dreadful ineptitude, he almost certainly HAS brought things to a close.

How can Democrats, and the anti-Trump media for that matter, possibly keep this Russia collusion nonsense going any longer after today?

The more they try, the stronger it will play for Trump.

White House Counsel Jay Sekulow said after the hearings finished: ‘The American people understand that this issue is over. They also understand that the case is closed.’

I suspect he’s absolutely right.

But the impact of today’s debacle may have far greater significance.

The Democrats, whose pathetic obsession with bogus Russia collusion has caused them huge political damage, are now left licking massively deeper self-inflicted wounds just when they’re already facing an uphill battle to win the 2020 election.

And President Trump, who must have been laughing his head off watching Mueller self-implode, will probably continue laughing all the way to a second term.