Now that the Left’s collusion narrative has fallen apart, many are speculating about whether those who drove it, and roiled our public life for more than two years on the basis of opposition research that they probably knew was fraudulent, will be held to account. There is much to investigate: the fraudulently obtained FISA warrants; the hundreds of incidents of unmasking of innocent American citizens; the attempt by the FBI’s top leadership to swing the election to Hillary Clinton or, failing that, to derail the newly-elected Trump administration; the CIA’s role in leaking the fake “dossier” to the press while purporting to “brief” President Trump on its contents, thereby giving the Democratic Party news media permission, with a wink and a nod, to report on the Clinton campaign’s fake “dossier” in the guise of a news story. And, of course, the over-arching question: what did Barack Obama know, and when did he know it? That is only a partial list.
Will these misdeeds be investigated? Not in the House, obviously. Possibly in the Senate: Lindsey Graham has indicated as much on Twitter:
Could not agree more.
See you soon. https://t.co/KNGzyDizdq
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) March 25, 2019
But the Senate is generally a very poor investigative body. One question remains unanswered: why, with both House and Senate ostensibly in Republican hands, have the obvious questions about Obama administration corruption not been investigated already? Only Devin Nunes in the House has made a serious effort in that direction, for which we all should be eternally grateful. But what has the Senate done? Not much. Likewise, why hasn’t President Trump declassified and released full information about the Democrats’ unmasking and FISA abuses, and other information that must be under executive branch control? I don’t know.
Will anything change now? Maybe Republican senators and President Trump are orchestrating a brilliant strategy–lying in the weeds (and losing the House) until the Mueller report routed the Democrats, and only then beginning a counterattack. I seriously doubt that is the case. Perhaps there will be serious investigations of the Obama administration and its holdovers in the FBI and the CIA, but I doubt it.
Then there is the press. I confess to being surprised at the suggestion by many on the right that the liberal media have disgraced themselves, should apologize and seek reform, and so on. In truth, the liberal media have been disgracing themselves for decades. They have no problem, in principle, with deceiving the American people with fake news on behalf of the Democratic Party, as long as they don’t get caught. That was the lesson of Rathergate: they needed to up their game from a technical standpoint.
If anyone in the Democratic Party press sincerely regretted defaming President Bush (as opposed to failing in the attempt), I haven’t seen it. The Democratic Party press will continue what it has been doing for many years–everything it can to help its party. The idea that the collapse of the collusion narrative might change this pattern is delusional.
So, I would love to be proved wrong, but I think the likelihood of any serious accounting for the outrages of the last two-plus years is slim.
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