Riley Dodson
It has been over two years since the Department of Justice allowed the formation of a special investigative counsel into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. Robert Mueller’s team of 19 lawyers and 40 FBI agents, after spending $20 million, have wrapped two years of interrogation, raids, and high profile arrests (on charges not related to collusion) in late March with Attorney General William Barr summarizing in his report, “no collusion.” Additionally, AG Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein have also concluded, based on Robert Mueller’s 400 page report, that there “is not enough (evidence) to establish that the president committed obstruction of justice,” another claim that was being investigated.
However, this report did not come easily to many of President Trump’s outspoken critics in media outlets. Initially there was outrage and frustration, with many showtime hosts continuing to declare that President Trump is guilty for colluding with the Russians in the 2016 election. And according to ABC News, media outlets such as MSNBC and CNN saw a huge drop in ratings, while primetime for Fox News Channel went up.
Unsurprisingly, the hunt for a crime on Trump is still in the heat. Within weeks of the Mueller report, the calls for a new investigation are high, and the accusations against Attorney General Barr have come along with it.
Democratic senators and representatives have all expressed their frustration that the Mueller report was summarized and then delivered through Trump’s hand-picked attorney general. However, both Barr and the Department of Justice defend and stand by Barr’s report, stating that the summarization has been accurate. On the Mueller team, though, some of the members claim that the information in the actual report is far more damaging than what was summarized. President Trump himself has given Barr the green light to release the Mueller report to the public, and Barr has stated that people will be able to “read it themselves” soon enough, hinting that a public release of the Mueller report may be imminent.
Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, has reiterated his mission to find the crime, specifically collusion, that could put Trump out of the White House. He claims to “have evidence” that Trump colluded with the Russians, although he admits that he does not physically have the evidence. His reasoning resides with the WikiLeak document dump that occurred in 2016, and he believes that there was a plot to collude and leak that information.
Already, the committee held a vote to authorize a subpoena to obtain Mueller’s full report. Additionally, the House demands that the IRS would release Trump’s tax returns over the past six years, hoping that there is a tax-related crime they could pin him for.
So while the Democrats calls for more investigations ramp up, President Trump has also called for an investigation into the source of the Mueller probe, slamming it as an “illegal hoax” or a “witch hunt” that should have never started in the first place. He demands that the source or permission of the probe needs to be investigated and that the “presidential harassment” must end.
