Analysis: Trump's war of attrition against Mueller bears fruit among Republicans
President Trump is waging a war of attrition against special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation. If his goal is to poison the reception to whatever Mueller’s findings turn out to be, as seems evident from what he and his allies have done, he is making progress.
The slow but steady separation of public opinion underscores the degree of success in the president’s strategy. Through constant tweets in which he has used exaggeration, distortion and outright falsehoods — combined with the activities of his congressional supporters in hectoring the Department of Justice and the FBI — Trump hopes to turn the ultimate confrontation into one more partisan battle.
He has created diversions that have helped to reshape attitudes, primarily among Republicans. It started long ago, when he charged, without evidence, that President Barack Obama had wiretapped the phones in Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign. That proved to be false, but it did not deter him from claiming other alleged abuses without solid evidence to back them up.
The latest is what he labels “Spygate,” the claim that the Obama administration planted a spy inside the Trump campaign. As always, this involves some clever — and cynical — branding by a president who is a master of the game.
The available evidence says something to the contrary, which was that FBI officials were concerned enough about Russian interference in the election and about contacts between Russians and several people involved in the Trump campaign that they used a confidential source to talk with Trump associates. If Trump is suggesting that the goal of this was to somehow to disrupt the Trump campaign or to deny him the presidency, it was an utter failure. But that was not the goal, based on everything in public view.
The president has used this claim to insert himself into the investigation in ways that break the norms. His tweets forced Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein to ask for an inspector general’s investigation into the matter. Meanwhile, congressional Republicans, led by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), demanded to see relevant DOJ documents.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/analysis-trumps-war-of-attrition-against-mueller-bears-fruit-among-republicans/ar-AAxPXkg?li=BBnb7Kz
In other words one has to be dumber than a fucking rock to be a Republican.
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