Roughly one year ago, Special Counsel Robert Mueller was charged with investigating any links or coordination “between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump,” as well as any “matters” or “federal crimes” that “may arise directly from the investigation.”
That probe now divides the right.
Conservatives like David French believe that the facts continue to justify its existence. As he noted last week in National Review, Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee have now confirmed that Russia attempted to aid Trump in the 2016 election, that Donald Trump Jr. “received a direct and unambiguous invitation to collude with Russia,” and that “he took the meeting.” What’s more, members of his campaign team, including Paul Manafort, George Papadopolous, Carter Page, and Michael Flynn, all interacted with Russia in ways that, at the very least, cry out for further inquiry. That demands a thorough probe that sets all relevant facts before the public.
In contrast, populist-right entertainers like Tucker Carlson, who hold themselves to lesser standards of intellectual honesty, say that the special-counsel investigation is a “witch hunt” created by a deep-state cabal of usurpers. And when the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York raided Michael Cohen’s office, talk-show host Sean Hannity complained, “Mueller basically back-doored his way into every single Trump business deal.”