David French of National Review Online urges Republicans to ignore spin and examine the actual evidence related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of the Trump administration.
It’s time to put a conspiracy theory to rest. It’s time to debunk a hoax. The conspiracy theory goes like this: The Trump-Russia investigation from its inception represented an attempt by Hillary Clinton’s allies in the federal government to intervene in the election to help Clinton. Everything that has followed is thus the fruit of a poisonous tree of efforts to entrap or ensnare innocent, unsuspecting Trump-campaign officials or Trump allies, with a prosecutor bent on “manufacturing” process crimes through various “perjury traps” and other nefarious means. …
… Indeed, the list of known contacts between Russians and senior Trump officials (and Trump family members) keeps growing. In less partisan times they’d generate far more bipartisan concern. Even now, they should at the very least demolish the worst of the pro-Trump conspiracy theories.
This column is not an argument that these contacts swayed the election. They didn’t even, as far as we know, directly involve the Russian hacking. I continue to believe that many other factors were far, far more influential in Clinton’s defeat than Russia’s attempt to put its thumb on the scales. Nor does the available evidence yet indicate any personal involvement by Donald Trump. But these contacts do rebut repeated early denials from Trump and his team. …
… We are entering a strange time when Trump partisans — people who pride themselves on “America First” patriotism — look at the list of illegal lies about contacts with our chief geopolitical foe and fault American investigators for examining those contacts.
