Democrats left to scramble to continue the Russian collusion hoax after Mueller testimony

David Harsanyi:

If Democrats believed that Robert Mueller would provide them with additional ammunition for an impeachment inquiry, they made an extraordinary miscalculation. Not only was Mueller often flustered and unprepared to talk about his own report—we now have wonder to what extent he was even involved in the day-to-day work of the investigation—but he was needlessly evasive. In the end, he seriously undermined the central case for impeachment of President Donald Trump.

The often-distracted Mueller didn’t seem to know much about anything. The very first Republican to question him, House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Rep. Doug Collins, forced Mueller to correct his own opening statement. In it, the former FBI director had asserted that the independent counsel “did not address collusion, which is not a legal term.”

Stressing the difference between the criminal conspiracy and the colloquial “collusion” is a popular way of obscuring the fact that the central conspiracy pushed by Democrats, one that plunged the nation into two years of hysterics and fantasy, had been debunked by Mueller.

Moreover, as Collins pointed out, Mueller’s own report stated that “collusion” and criminal conspiracy were basically “synonymous.”

“[C]ollusion is largely synonymous with conspiracy as that crime is set forth in the general federal conspiracy statute,” Mueller’s report states on page 180 of the second volume.

When asked to explain this contradiction, Mueller stammered on for a few minutes before saying he would “leave it with the report.” Collins pointed out that, yes, the report stated that the terms “collusion” and “conspiracy” were synonymous, Mueller was forced to admit, “Yes.”

It didn’t get better from there. Mueller didn’t know where some of the most infamous quotes in his own report had emanated—for example, Donald Trump’s “This is the end of my presidency. I’m f**ked” exclamation upon learning about the appointment of a special counsel. He claimed to be unfamiliar with Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele, the Clinton—and DNC—funded contractors who originated and then propelled the Trump-Russian collusion conspiracy theory.

Perhaps Mueller’s ignorance shouldn’t be surprising, since his independent counsel apparently expended zero effort into ascertaining the reliability of the evidence that helped launch the investigation.

And though there was nothing to stop him, Mueller refused to talk about a number of inconvenient aspects of his own report. He declined, for instance, to testify about the letter he sent Bill Barr, intrinsically connected to the veracity of the report. He refused to talk about Joseph Mifsud, the supposed impetus for his own investigation. He refused to discuss the Steele dossier, which not only turned out to be most effective tool of Russian interference in the 2016 election, but was used in multiple FISA applications targeting at least one individual.

In the end, even Russian election interference, the ostensible purpose of the entire project, was outside Mueller’s expertise. When Rep. Greg Steube asked him if there was any evidence that a single American had changed their vote because of Russian meddling (the answer, incidentally, is no), Mueller responded that it was “beyond his purview.”
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I suspect that the Democrats will continue to try to keep this hoax alive and may even use Mueller's poor performance to claim another investigation is needed.  It appears to be all they have in their bad faith effort to remove President Trump.