Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, said Robert Mueller’s openness to obstruction of justice accusations against President Donald Trump — in the context of the Mueller-led operation’s 448-page report — amounted to Mueller’s “final act of abuse of power,” offering his remarks in a Friday interview on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily with host Alex Marlow.
“It’s great that the president has been vindicated,” said Fitton of the 448-page Mueller report. “There’s no collusion, so we had nearly 200 pages of irrelevancies about Russia collusion, but it couldn’t disguise the fact that all those alleged contacts between the Russian and the Trump campaign amounted to nothing legally or substantively.”
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Fitton stated, “You have this grave abuse of power by Mueller in suggesting obstruction where no obstruction took place. Attorney General Barr wasn’t fooled by Mr. Mueller’s implications and concluded there was no obstruction of justice. This is the final act of abuse of power by the Mueller operation, and this is why the attorney general was under such attack by the Democrats because he saw through the 448-page smear job and got to the heart of both sections: no collusion and no obstruction.”
The Mueller-led operation ostensibly investigated allegations of Russian political interference in 2016’s presidential election.
“I rarely use the term lie, but you have senior government officials [and] senior elected representatives knowingly lying about this collusion,” said Fitton:
There was no collusion. The Russians and the Trump campaign were not colluding or conspiring in an either informal or illegal way. You can read it for yourself in the Mueller report. He describes dozens of contacts — he takes two or three people and discusses at great length their unsubstantial, immaterial and most of the time appropriate and legal communications with people who may or may not be connected to the Russian government. There’s no there there.
Fitton added, “They’ve always known there was no there there. In fact, that’s the language of one of [Peter Strzok’s and Lisa Page’s] text messages: ‘there’s no there there.'”
Fitton highlighted how Mueller continued his operations despite knowing collusion had not occurred between the Trump campaign and Russian government. Those pushing the “obstruction of justice” narrative regarding Trump’s firing of James Comey from the FBI’s directorship, he added, wish to criminalize the president’s execution of constitutional authority over executive branch agency appointments.
“Yet this Mueller operation continued to spin despite them knowing there was no collusion at least a year ago hoping to get the president on a fraud or obstruction charge,” remarked Fitton:
Why is it fraud? Because [Donald Trump] is being accused of acting as president considering hiring and firing people and they’re changing that into, “Well, that must be — that could be possibly — obstruction.” That would be such a radical [precedent]. So every hiring decision by the president, now, according to the Mueller craziness, would be subject to criminal investigation because even though he’s executing his constitutional powers we give him as president, we’re going to take that presumably constitutional exercise of power and attach a potential criminal investigation to it. Unbelievable.
Trump erred in not terminating the Mueller operation, assessed Fitton. “When they talked about the president shutting down the Mueller operation, the president should have shut it down. I wish the people around him hadn’t, quote, ‘tried to protect him,’ which is just baloney, and done what he wanted to do was shut it all down because it was an abuse of power by the Justice Department.”
“They knew almost immediately upon the appointment [of Robert Mueller as special counsel that there was no collusion],” stated Fitton:
I’m convinced it will be shown from the get-go they knew there was no collusion. Remember those text messages art the beginning of the Mueller appointment where Page and Strzok are talking to each other worried “there’s no there there” but they’re hoping for impeachment. They’ve known that for at least a year-plus — that’s the most charitable interpretation — but they allowed this investigation to continue to fester, to harass the president. … Imagine if he was able to do his job completely without this harassment and interference with his ability to govern.
Marlow invited Fitton’s recommendations as to how the Justice Department should respond to the Mueller operation.
“The time is already here, and I hope the attorney general starts doing what Judicial Watch is doing,” replied Fitton. “I’m hopeful he does, but we’re not going to wait for him. In the meantime, if they want to do prosecutions, wonderful. The least the Justice Department can do is stop the cover-up that has been protecting Mueller and those who created these circumstances that led to his appointment from full accountability.”
Fitton continued, “They should release all the information that’s out there that’s been publicly requested by the last Congress related to the FISA warrants. The text messages between Strzok-Page, the unmasking information.”
Fitton went on, “The president, at his next cabinet meeting, he should have one next week, should say, ‘This Russia collusion is over, but it’s not over in terms of the assault on our republic by various agencies misusing resources to target their political opposition. So I want you all to go back, and everyone knows what and how their agencies were involved in this and open the books. Open the records. Err on the side of transparency. And if you’re going to withhold anything for classified reasons, send it back to me at the White House, and I’ll be the final decider as to whether something’s going to be withheld that protects the deep state and the Obama-Clinton gang from accountability under the guise of accountability.'”
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Follow Robert Kraychik on Twitter @rkraychik.