Yet, instead of being smart enough to get off the collusion delusion and pivot to obstruction of justice, Schiff answered his Republican committee members by doubling down on the discredited collusion narrative. Citing Donald Trump, Jr.’s completely innocuous meeting with Russians in possession of absolutely nothing of use for his father’s campaign, and Paul Manafort’s completely unrelated convictions—many of which could have been hung on most of the lobbyists on K Street—Schiff defiantly responded, “And yes, I think it is corrupt,” he added. “And evidence of collusion.”10
Some people don’t know when to quit. Kind of like those wackadoos at the annual running of the bulls in Pamplona, who think they’re going to outsmart and outrun a 2,400-pound bull but end up with hoofprints on their skinny necks.
CHAPTER TWO
They Can Lie, but They Can’t Stop Trump from Winning
They don’t make movies like they used to. A couple of years back, one came out called The Post. It was about the Washington Post back in the ’60s; you might have heard about it. The movie starred Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks. It was directed by Steven Spielberg. In other words, it was the Hollywood liberal elite making a film about the media liberal elite. A regular love-in. Though the plot concerned the leaking of the Pentagon Papers, the secret sordid history of America’s involvement in Vietnam, you didn’t have to be a Film Studies professor to see the underlying message of the movie was an indictment of President Trump—a poor little liberal newspaper battles a big, bad Republican president and wins the day. “The allegory is obvious,” Spielberg himself said many times. Pure Hollywood horse crap.
There was one thing the movie got absolutely right, however, and that was the relationship between the mainstream media and the Left. Like Dancing with the Stars, the Democrats tell the media to jump, and the press says How high? They’ve gotten so good at the routine that fake news doesn’t just smear the president with lies. Oh, no. It does even more damage than that. Allow me to explain.
Unfortunately, I have to listen to the mainstream media on a regular basis. It’s part of my job. I need to keep myself apprised of what they’re up to. Maybe it was my prosecutorial sixth sense, but a while back I began to notice a suspicious pattern in the liberal press. How many times over the past two and a half years did we hear Mueller was “closing in” on President Trump? Large segments of the American public likely believed indictments or at least articles of impeachment were imminent on so many occasions it’s difficult to try to put a number to them. But at no time in the past two years did Mueller have enough evidence to bring a single indictment against any American for colluding with Russia to affect the 2016 elections. Still, there was no better story to lather up liberals than a Mueller-hot-on-the-trail tale, so it isn’t unusual that the fake news ran so many different versions of the story. What was unusual, however, was the timing of those stories.
As far back as September 20, 2017, Vanity Fair ran a story titled “Robert Mueller Is Officially Closing in on Trump.”1 Why closing in? Because Mueller’s office had requested a number of documents from the White House, a routine part of any investigation into anything. But for the seemingly hysterical media, this was a major development indicating Mueller was onto some significant discovery. As you might imagine, the story dominated the mainstream news cycle.
The day before, on September 19, 2017, President Trump had delivered an historic address to the United Nations. I say historic because it was one of the first times the president had spoken directly to the member nations on how his America First policy would impact the rest of the world. “As president of the United States, I will always put America first, just like you, as the leaders of your countries will always, and should always, put your countries first,” said the president.2
The speech didn’t represent a withdrawal from the world by the United States, but it was a clear message to the other nations that they could no longer take advantage of the United States. The president called out member nations for continuing to trade with Iran and North Korea and called for support against Venezuela’s murderous socialist regime. He called it a “massive source of embarrassment to the United Nations that some governments with egregious human rights records sit on the UN Human Rights Council.”3
This was an early attempt by the president to redefine America’s relationship with its allies as one of fairer mutual cooperation, a promise he’d made repeatedly on the campaign trail. And yet, as great as the speech was, the Mueller “closing in” crap, which was published the very next day, drew most of the attention in the liberal press.
Then on January 24, 2018, Business Insider ran a story titled, “The Russia Investigation Is Reaching a Pivotal Moment and It Looks Like It’s Closing in on Trump.”4 Why closing in this time? Mueller had just interviewed former Attorney General Jeff Sessions a few days earlier. It was also reported Mueller’s team had interviewed Cardinal James Comey in late 2017. Supposedly, this was the reason the media believed Mueller to be “closing in” when he wasn’t.
Or, was it because President Trump had signed the first of his tariffs on Chinese imports just three days before,5 keeping another campaign promise and implementing a strategy that would become successful in reaching an agreement with China where so many previous presidents had failed? Not only had the president just imposed the first of his tariffs on Chinese goods, but he was leaving for Davos, Switzerland, to deliver another international address crucial to his economic platform.6 The speech was scheduled for the very next day after the latest “closing in” articles appeared.
Newsweek ran another “closing in” article a couple months later, on March 6, 2018, titled “Is Mueller Closing in on Trump? Incidents Involving President’s Lawyer and Russia Under Scrutiny, Report Says.”7 This story had to do with the Mueller probe’s interest in Michael Cohen, a convicted perjurer who eventually testified to precisely nothing implicating Donald Trump or his campaign in collusion with Russia or obstruction of justice.
But on March 6, 2018, this was the latest evidence Mueller was “closing in” on the president, just a few days after President Trump announced his tariff on steel.8 The move was controversial and debate on it was justified, but it seems at least some media would rather just shut that debate down by running the “closing in” fake news talking point.
In late November 2018, US Border Patrol agents were forced to use tear gas on a mob of illegal immigrants who rushed the border, temporarily closing down the San Ysidro port of entry, one of the busiest on our southern border.9 President Trump threatened to close the border down permanently if Mexico didn’t do something about the migrant caravans increasingly assaulting our southern border.
The tough talk paid off. Over that weekend, the president reached a tentative agreement with incoming Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to keep asylum applicants in Mexico while their claims are processed, rather than allowing them to wait for adjudication in the United States. This was yet another policy achievement his predecessors had failed to realize. Two days after the agreement was announced, on November 28, 2018, the Pentagon told the media the president would extend the deployment of US troops on our southern border, for obvious reasons.10 The anti-American Left hates the idea of troops on the border, mostly because it works.
Right on cue, The Nation ran a headline the very next day shouting—you guessed it—“The Mueller Investigation Is Closing in on Trump—and the Next Congress Won’t Protect Him.”11 Running out of ideas, the latest “closing in” hysteria was based on supposedly new developments in the Cohen investigation, which just happened to occur when the president was fighting to keep another key campaign promise to the people who elected him.
I could probably write a whole book on the “closing in” talking point, but I’ll give you just one more example. On January 23 of this year, the situation in Venezuela had deteriorated to the point of constitutional crisis. Amid nationwide protests, Venezuela’s National Assembly—its unicameral equivalent to our bicameral Congr
ess—declared Juan Guaidó acting president of Venezuela.
President Trump joined Canada, Brazil, and several other Latin American countries in supporting Guaidó and opposing the tyrannical socialist Nicolás Maduro. Russia, China, and Cuba supported Maduro. The Washington Examiner called the president’s resolute defense of freedom “bold moral leadership.”12 By February 6, all of South America, except Bolivia, and most of Europe supported Guaidó,13 proof the president’s international leadership going back to that first United Nations speech was taking hold.
You can imagine how problematic this was for the Left, on multiple levels. First, it called worldwide attention to the disaster of Venezuela’s socialist “paradise.” It was once extolled by the Left as proof socialism works.14 These days, the Left tries to argue Venezuela never practiced “real socialism,” contrary to their claims at the time.
Those who have lived under it tell a different story. Writing in USA Today, Daniel Di Martino, who came to the United States from Venezuela in 2016, said,
Though so many of us Venezuelans fled to the USA to escape from the destructive consequences of socialism, liberal politicians like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. José Serrano, D-N.Y., have praised the same kind of policies that produced famine, mass exodus and soaring inflation in Venezuela.15
Worse even than the world seeing the results of the socialist policies they’d praised in Venezuela and now proposed for their own country was the dynamic of this conflict on the international stage. The supposedly “compromised by Russia” President Trump had taken a firm stand for freedom against Russia yet again, as he had when he imposed sanctions against Russia and when he punished Russian ally and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for chemical attacks on his own people with missile strikes on Syrian military targets.
The president had again made the right decision on the international stage and, right on cue, headlines repeating the absurd “closing in” talking point appeared almost immediately. On January 25, 2019, just two days after the president announced his support for Juan Guaidó, The Week ran its story, “The Mueller Investigation Is Closing in on Trump.”16 This time the “smoking gun” that would prove too much for the president to survive politically was the over-the-top arrest of Trump associate Roger Stone, an elderly man with a hearing-impaired wife, against whom the DOJ mobilized air, sea, and land forces as if they were laying siege to an ISIS stronghold.
Perhaps the media weren’t as culpable as the Deep State on this occasion, as the DOJ made sure the arrest of this unarmed man accused of “process crimes” was as newsworthy as they could make it. Twenty-nine FBI agents bearing loaded automatic weapons arrived in seventeen different vehicles. CNN “just happened” to be on the scene. They say they weren’t tipped off about the arrest in advance. According to CNN, they were at this man’s house before sunup because of “reporter’s instinct,”17 which you and I both know is nonsense.
Given that all of Stone’s alleged crimes resulted from the bogus investigation into Russia collusion and are the kinds of charges most defendants are allowed to self-surrender to answer, this was clearly a case of the DOJ trying to create a much bigger news story than there was, whether they tipped off CNN or not. Regardless, Stone’s arrest in no way represented the special counsel “closing in on Trump.” While Stone was a longtime friend of the president, he only worked on the campaign very briefly in 2015, long before even the dizziest Democrat claimed the president was “colluding” with Russia.
Maybe it was just coincidence that every “closing in” headline I’ve mentioned here dropped during a crucial moment for the president’s policy agenda, especially his international agenda. Maybe I’m jaded after decades as a prosecutor who has good reason to be suspicious of coincidences that benefit bad actors. Even if I am, this much is true. Every one of these bogus headlines distracted from, diminished, impaired, or plain covered up a major policy victory by President Trump. And the two-year, completely false narrative that Mueller was “closing in on Trump” interfered with the president’s ability to do his job.
Not on one single day was Robert Mueller closing in on the president. Not in September 2017, in January 2018, in March 2018, November 2018, January 2019, or a week before Mueller turned in his report, when former CIA director Brennan was on television saying the president’s son would be indicted and arrested any day. Mueller was never closing in because there was nothing to close in on. This was weaponized fake news from beginning to end, and it was directed at you, the people. Can anyone wonder why the president calls the national media your enemy?
Winning Despite the Lies
Even as someone who knew all along that Russiagate was a fraud, it is startling even for me to look back at what the media accomplished as part of their revenge to bring down the president. Even more startling has been President Trump’s achievements while they did so. While enduring one outrageous lie told about him after another, the president continued to do his job and establish his place in the world. Just as he promised he would, he put NATO on alert that we’re not going to carry their baggage anymore and we might not even come to their aid unless they pay up. He went toe to toe with Rocket Man Kim Jong-un and with China. And nothing about his treatment of Russia was significantly different from the way he handled other world leaders.
Did he want to be able to talk to adversaries? Absolutely. But there was nothing in how he handled Russia that was in any way a reflection of his affection for Putin or his fear of Mueller. In fact, he imposed the toughest sanctions ever enacted against Russia. It was all just vintage Trump: try to make friends but make the lines very clear.
He has said conciliatory things about Putin when he has been able to because you can’t get anywhere diplomatically without treating adversaries with respect. If nothing else, you must give them political capital they can use with their own people to be able to agree to your demands.
He treats Putin the same way he treats President Xi in China, Little Rocket Man Kim Jong-un in North Korea, and any other political leader with whom he must negotiate. Saying kind words about them when he can is just part of his salesmanship. That’s what he does in business and in everything else. It lets an adversary know that when it’s time to get tough, to draw a line in the sand, it’s not personal. Professional and political adversaries can do their jobs while retaining personal respect. I know this from decades as a prosecutor. Do you think I hated or disrespected every defense lawyer I ever opposed in the courtroom? Of course not.
His opponents can spin it any way they want, but Donald Trump is going to fight for this country. And if you haven’t noticed, his style is working. When was the last time North Korea launched a missile over Japan? When was the last time Kim Jong-un walked over the DMZ and a sitting United States president actually stepped foot on North Korean land? Where has Putin shown any aggression in Europe or anywhere else? Just as in domestic affairs, liberals don’t care about results, just their feelings. Donald Trump doesn’t make them feel good while failing, like his predecessor did, so they hate him.
Still, he keeps soldiering on and winning, despite the most hysterical opposition to a president in American history. This is a man who four years ago was a billionaire, living a fairy-tale life, married to a beautiful, elegant, intelligent woman who speaks five languages, and the father of five wonderful kids, three of whom are already hugely successful in their own careers. He didn’t need this. Unlike his predecessor, the presidency represented a financial step down for him. He’s not only lost money being president. He doesn’t even take a paycheck. He’s losing money and his sons are losing money because they can’t do any work internationally. And he’s endured unjustified hatred he never would have encountered if he’d stayed in the private sector.
Americans need to understand this is nothing more than a plot to take down a guy who’s got nothing to gain, receives no salary, and isn’t beholden to anyone. No lobbyist put him in office. He’s the one guy who’s doing it for all the right reasons and that mak
es him a threat to everyone there doing it for the wrong reasons.
He sought the presidency and won because he loves this country enough that it was worth everything it cost him. And everyone who said otherwise for two years based on this bogus vengeful plot to redo the election owes him an apology for what they put him and his family through.
Being president isn’t easy for anyone. But this president should have had at least one day in the Oval Office to focus on enjoying the job he’s doing. That was impossible with the haters like Strzok and McCabe and sanctimonious Jim Comey. When you look at all the resources they had—more than 2,800 subpoenas, nearly 500 search warrants, 230 orders for communication records, 40 FBI agents, 19 lawyers, several grand juries, investigations touching 30 countries, costing over $34 million18—no investigation in history compares. Now, contrast that with how the investigation of Hillary Clinton was handled. No grand jury, no subpoenas, no search warrants—it was a complete joke.
While Mueller’s report finally proves Putin didn’t have a willing partner in Donald Trump, I can’t say with certainty Putin would not have had a willing partner if Hillary Clinton had been there. She was certainly willing when she was Obama’s secretary of state.
Hillary is the one who did the Uranium One deal with Russia and received huge “donations” from Kremlin-connected businesses to her so-called charity, with help from her fund-raising husband. If anyone should have been investigated for being compromised by the Kremlin, Hillary was their man.
The Real Colluders
The crux of the matter is not so much the approval by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), under which the State Department leads the decision-making process. It is the double standard employed by the intelligence community and the most prestigious law enforcement agency in the land. The latter was led in both investigations by the same guy, Jim Comey. You’d have to be one of those see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil monkeys to believe Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were treated equally by the FBI.
Radicals, Resistance, and Revenge Page 2
