ANALYSIS/OPINION:

It’s time for the Russia collusion investigation into President Donald Trump to come to a halt.

It’s a sham; it’s a web of deceits. And the American people are just not that stupid that its continuance can be justified any longer.

Special counsel Robert Mueller has been digging around in dirt for months, trying to find some shred of evidence that members of Campaign Team Trump — or as former Mueller-helpmates Peter Strzok and Lisa Page might put it, in one of their many texts, of “idiot” Trump himself — committed treason by working with Russians to thwart Hillary Clinton’s chances at the White House.

Well, it’s high time to admit Clinton was just a crappy candidate. And she didn’t win because Americans didn’t want a crappy president.

That has nothing to do with Russia.

Yet dig, the Democrats must. And by Democrats, of course, it’s meant Mueller investigators, because that’s the party of affiliation for most. That was Red Flag No. 1 in this whole special counsel whirlwind — the fact the majority selected for Mueller’s team were card-carrying members of the Democratic Party, voting and financially supporting the likes of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

PolitiFact likes to play this down by running defense for Mueller with a fact-check of Rep. Sean Duffy — the Wisconsin lawmaker who, in October, expressed concern that Mueller was “bringing in Democrat campaign donors at a very high level.” PolitiFact scorned that assessment with a “half true” rating because “six of the 15 lawyers [on Mueller’s team] have not made campaign contributions to any political campaigns at the federal level” — albeit “among the lawyers who did make contributions, a total of $62,043 went to Democrats and $2,750 to Republicans.” Well, as any good mathematician will tell you, that leaves nine.

But wait. There’s more. We’re not done here yet.

“In terms of Clinton specifically,” the site goes on, “election filings indicate that three lawyers gave her 2016 presidential campaign a total of $700; and three gave a total of $18,100 to either her 2016 campaign or her 2008 run for the presidential nomination.”

Umm, forgive the nod to Capt. Obvious, but isn’t that in fact supporting what Duffy claimed?

PolitiFact then carries the left’s water farther, chiding any doubting Thomases out there that “federal regulations prohibit the Justice Department from considering the political affiliation or political contributions of career appointees, including those appointed in the special counsel’s office,” and therefore, a suggestion that “Mueller is making politically motivated hires is quite a stretch.”

Why — ‘cause it’s the law?

On that score, it’s the law that presidents of the United States can’t legally work with Russians to steal away domestic elections, either. So Trump, by default — by the same logic PolitiFact wants to use to excuse Mueller — is innocent.

Trump must get a pass. Right? Right.

Take a breath, though. We’re just getting started. All that is just the first red flag — the first of many that have followed.

Since, Mueller members have been caught texting anti-Trump messages; the whole dossier anti-Trump narrative fell flat after it was found Democrats actually funded the report as a means of gathering opposition research; lawmakers have been stymied in their attempts to obtain even the most generic of public records associated with supposed surveillance of Trump-tied officials — the simple one-page cover letter that went with the intel application to the FISA court, for example; the FBI’s curious and oh-how-convenient loss of five months’ worth of text messages exchanged between the anti-Trump Strozk and Page; and House Republicans have expressed shock and eye-widening awe at the newest special counsel curiosity, that of a secret memo that reportedly lays out a Deep State fix so, well, deep that it will prove once and for all the witch hunt aspects of this whole collusion fiasco.

“It is so alarming the American people have to see this,” Rep. Jim Jordan said, after reading it himself.

All that — and this: Common sense will tell you that if Russia wanted anybody to win the White House, it would’ve been Clinton, not Trump. Why?

Trump, like him or hate him, is first and foremost and America First kind of guy. Clinton, by contrast, is a savvy political player with a proven past of dealing favorably with Russia. Can you say Uranium One?

Come to think of it, Mueller, if he truly wants to serve the interests of the American people, shouldn’t just stop the investigation of Russia collusion entirely. He ought to instead switch focus and change up targets — to Clinton. Now there’s an investigation that won’t take months to uncover something of substance. Of course, he’ll probably have to get rid of the Clinton donors on his team first.

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

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