On Monday, March 24, Attorney General William Barr submitted a summary of the report conducted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. In it, Barr reports that the investigation did not find that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government to influence the presidential election. This revelation refutes the president’s critics, who have alleged that he partook in an effort to undermine American democracy in the presidential race by colluding with Russian officials.
Yet President Trump’s critics continue to attack the President and his staff, even implying that, regardless of Barr’s summary, the president did in fact collude. However, Mueller’s nearly two-year investigation, partially funded with taxpayer money, proves that it is unlikely that this conspiracy theory played out as they allege.
It remains unclear whether Democrats are genuinely relieved that a foreign power did not collaborate with the president to tamper with the fabric of our democracy. Countless Democrats (and even a few Republicans) have made it clear that a national crisis is welcome if it ends the Trump presidency, so much so that they have encouraged a paranoia-driven investigation into baseless charges.
Unfortunately, this conduct has widely been tolerated in major media outlets, signaling a great divide between those who do and those who do not support the judicial standard of “innocent until proven guilty.”
The real cause for alarm, however, should no longer be whether the president colluded with Russia, but instead that Barr indicated that the Internet Research Agency, a Russian company, did attempt, “to conduct disinformation and social media operations in the United States designed to sow social discord, eventually with the aim of interfering with the election.”
He went on to clarify that the Trump campaign did not participate in those operations. While some may argue that because members of the Trump administration lied about communications between themselves and Russian officials, the president should assume responsibility for their crimes; however, that is not the case. Because the president was exonerated by Mueller and his team and was not aware of these conversations, and thus cannot be held accountable for them.
Naturally, Congress has called for the Special Counsel’s full report to be released by mid-April at the very latest. As tensions in Washington escalate, however, a subpoena to release the report may not settle the disagreement permanently, as the motivations in calling for the report are not legally justified, but politically charged.
Before the exoneration of President Trump, the majority of the Democratic party decided to publicly label the conspiracy theories as definite collusion. Because there is no proof that President Trump committed treason, the results of the Mueller Report, intended to give Democrats a springboard for impeaching him, may instead provide a rallying cry for the Trump administration in the 2020 elections.
The public is exhausted with the supposed conspiracy; according to polls, a little over 50% of voters now believe that the Mueller Probe was a “witch hunt.” Currently, there are still Democratic officials dwelling on their loss and the reality that the president is innocent, which is foolish, because this only tarnishes their party more. Inevitably, President Trump’s approval ratings will go up, and trust in Democrats will decrease, thus proving that the president was right all along.