Now that the investigation into Russian collusion is over and nobody has been charged, indicted or convicted for collusion, the parties that spent the past few years endlessly pushing a Russian collusion conspiracy theory need to be held to account, conservative political commentator Mollie Hemingway argued Friday evening on Fox News.

“We have, for the last three years … frequently [witnessed] hysteria about treasonous collusion with Russia to steal the 2016 election,” she told a panel on “Special Report with Bret Baier.”

Claims of Russian collusion were frequently amplified by mainstream media outlets such as CNN, The Washington Post, The New York Times, BuzzFeed, etc., via the use of anonymous sources allegedly within the government, as well as the since-debunked Steele dossier.

“The fact [is] that there are no more indictments coming and the fact [is] that all of the indictments that we’ve seen thus far have been for process crimes or things unrelated to what we were told by so many people in the media was ‘treasonous collusion’ to steal the 2016 election,” Hemingway added.

“If there is nothing there that matches what we’ve heard from the media for many years, there needs to be a reckoning and the people who spread this theory both inside and outside the government who were not critical and who did not behave appropriately need to be held accountable.”

Listen:

Matthew Continetti of the Washington Free Beacon appeared to agree but warned that “the battle will continue,” since Democrats have no intention of abandoning their crusade.

“The battle will continue. I think it’s incumbent on the White House and Republicans who think that this is over … they need to understand that this is not over,” he said.

He was right.

House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff has already threatened to subpoena Mueller: “If necessary, we will call Bob Mueller or others before our committee,” he told CNN host Wolf Blitzer earlier in the evening, adding that it’s mandatory that Democrats “find the truth.”

The truth is that nobody has been charged, indicted of convicted for collusion:

The Mueller investigation is complete and this is a simple fact that will never go away: not one single American was charged, indicted or convicted for conspiring with Russia to influence the 2016 election – not even a low-level volunteer. The number is zero. — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) March 22, 2019

Continuing the discussion on “Special Report with Bret Baier,” Hemingway highlighted the many events that the media claimed would happen, but that never actually transpired.

“So many of the things that we were told — for instance, that Bob Mueller would be fired, or that certain people would be indicted — haven’t come to be true,” she said.

Good point about Mueller’s firing. Two years ago a CNN guest predicted that President Donald Trump was on the verge of firing Mueller. That clearly never happened. A year after The New York Times alleged via anonymous sources that the president had tried to fire Mueller in 2017.

“Fake news, fake news. Typical New York Times. Fake stories,” the president responded at the time.

Hemingway then addressed the “conspiracy theory” touted by conservatives that Mueller’s appointment was made purposefully as an “insurance policy” against Trump’s election. Conspiracy theory was placed in quotes because this “conspiracy theory” has actual legs to stand on.

“There was a lot of questionable behavior, whether it was running human informants — what you might call spies — against the campaign, wiretapping people close to Trump with a FISA warrant that was I think is under investigation right now, whether there were other wiretaps involved as well,” she said.

“[P]eople should be held accountable,” she continued. “We don’t want to see people taking political disputes and weaponizing them with law enforcement agencies or intelligence agencies. Just because you disagree with someone politically … doesn’t mean you should use a full powers of the state to target them and destroy the lives of people who help them.”

“There are a lot of people who are going to prison or have had been found guilty of things that are a result of this special counsel investigation that have nothing to do with what was sold as.”

True.

Listen:

HERE’S WHAT YOU’RE MISSING …

The most notable “victim” of the Russian collusion conspiracy theory is Michael Flynn, a retired decorated U.S. Army lieutenant general whose life has been turned upside down because he allegedly lied to the FBI. To this day it remains unclear if he’d actually lied.

Despite the Russian collusion conspiracy theory finally being debunked, members of the far-left still remain convinced of the president’s guilty, as evidenced by Schiff’s threat to subpoena Mueller and the left’s demands that the special counselor’s report be released publicly:

I strongly urge U. S. Attorney General Barr to make the findings of the Mueller investigation public immediately. The American people deserve to know the truth. — NY AG James (@NewYorkStateAG) March 22, 2019

Americans deserve to know the truth now that the Mueller report is complete. The report must be released immediately and AG Barr must publicly testify under oath about the investigation’s findings. We need total transparency here. — Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) March 22, 2019

Attorney General Barr—release the Mueller report to the American public. Now. https://t.co/sqz8eoTjLD — Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) March 22, 2019

I know we can’t agree to much as a nation these days, but I hope we can agree that the public has a right to see the full Mueller report no matter what it shows. — Dan Rather (@DanRather) March 23, 2019

We must demand:

–The American people have access to the full report.

–Mueller’s records are preserved.

–Congress has unfiltered access to all findings. We can’t afford to settle for anything less. — Robert Reich (@RBReich) March 22, 2019

It’s unclear what the report’s release will prove.

What’s clear to Fox News host Tucker Carlson is that yes, the perpetrators of the Russia collusion do need to be held to account, preferably by some good old-fashioned shame.

“There need to be consequences for this,” he said earlier in the week. “Once the Mueller report appears and it becomes incontrovertible that, whatever his faults, Donald Trump did not collude with the Russians, the many people who’ve persistently claimed on the basis of no evidence that he did collude with the Russians must be punished. Not indicted or imprisoned, but thoroughly shamed and forced to apologize.”

A liberal apologizing? Good luck with that …

HERE’S WHAT YOU’RE MISSING …