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Illustrative of the Globe and Mail’s purblind leadership of our thoroughly misinformed country was Sarah Kendzior’s piece late last month, where she wrote of President Trump’s son and son-in-law as “apparently complicit in foreign interference in a U.S. election,” referred to Lt.-Gen. Michael Flynn simply as a “criminal,” and accused the U.S. attorney general, William Barr, of “misleading” the public with “a deceitful summary” of the findings of the Mueller report about Russian interference in the 2016 election. She blamed Mueller and his team for not exploring “Trump’s possible involvement with organized crime … and shady finances … He did not want to indict anyone, even when their offences were blatant.” She grimly concluded that all this “could mean that Americans lose their own free will in the years to come.” All of this is just nonsense; an exhaustive investigation found no proof that anyone in Trump’s inner circle colluded with the Russians or any foreigners. Flynn was mouse-trapped without counsel. There was no obstruction. Trump handed over all documents requested, allowed all staff and collaborators to give sworn evidence, never invoked executive privilege and never interfered in any way with the investigation, as Mueller affirmed, under oath at the House judiciary committee.

All of this is just nonsense; an exhaustive investigation found no proof that anyone in Trump's inner circle colluded with the Russians or any foreigners

The outrages that did occur were that senior elements of the CIA and FBI co-operated with the Clinton campaign before the election and after, to publicize the spurious Steele dossier, a pastiche of lies and defamations ultimately funded by Hillary Clinton’s camp. The Justice department’s highest officials then used the same dossier as part of the basis for applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court (FISA), to authorize espionage against the Trump campaign and transition team. The justice and intelligence apparatus of the U.S. was unconstitutionally politicized, the closest the United States has ever come to a presidential election rigged or undone by unlawful official interference. When all else failed, the canard of Russian collusion was dredged up, and although as FBI agent Peter Strzok acknowledged to his FBI girlfriend by text (he said he felt “concern there’s no there there”), this farce was kept going for two years in the hope that Trump would blow up and fire Mueller, as Nixon did Archibald Cox in 1973, so some sort of obstruction charge could be cobbled together to force an impeachment trial.