Brit Hume, sub(par) host for Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, opined that while being distasteful, if the Trump camp did collude with Russia to steal the general election "it's not a crime," so what's the big deal?
While leading a panel discussion on the special counsel, Hume put on his Trump apologist big boots this morning as he smeared Robert Mueller (something that directly contradicts his praise for Mueller as the "grown up we need" six weeks ago) and then pawned off the potential collusion with Trump's team and the Russian government as nothing more than being "highly inappropriate."
MMFA writes, "Hume also joins pro-Trump media in discrediting special counsel Robert Mueller over the lawyers he’s hiring for investigation," and I agree with that.
Panel guest John Holmes, former Mitch McConnell chief of staff, remarked that with Mueller's partisan hirings, Nancy Pelosi could be leading the special counsel.
Mueller, a lifelong and well respected law enforcement official that had even been praised by Newt Gingrich a few months ago, (until he got his marching orders from Donald) has now been subjected to the same Trump talking points by Hume, calling into question his integrity. The same integrity he praised not that long ago.
Fox News' Jennifer Griffin reminded the apologists on the panel that the special counsel was empowered because of Donald Trump's own behavior, "there's a reason they say you have the right to remain silent - every time he tweets and every time he gives an interview, he gives ammunition to Mueller and his team."
The FNS panel was predictably stacked with Trump supporters as the Heritage Foundations's Robert Needham, who remarked that America, as a nation is exhausted by these investigations. It's really tiring following up on a hostile foreign entity undermining democracy, isn't it?
Hume played dumb about the entire counterintelligence investigations into Russian-led interference in our general election and claimed that they had no place to then investigate the Trump campaign. Funny he didn't think that about any number of Benghazi investigations that turned up nothing.
Hume said, "...this investigation has never been officially described as anything other than a counterintelligence investigation, which is to say that its purpose was to find out the extent of the Russians’ attempts to interfere in the election and influence the election."
He continued, "It was not therefore a criminal investigation, and has never been described as a criminal investigation. Do we all now believe it has now become a criminal investigation?"
Bob Woodward confirmed his assertions, "Well, we reported in The Washington Post that it is, and these investigations, as you well know, they mushroom, they grow...they almost inevitably do."
Jennifer Griffin replied, "We’ve heard about the grand jury in Alexandria that has been called. So they are looking into criminal--"
Brit jumped in, "But what crime? Can anybody identify the crime?"
He continued, " Collusion, while it would be obviously alarming and highly inappropriate for the Trump campaign, of which there is no evidence by the way, of colluding with the Russians. It's not a crime. So are we talking about here the president's firing of Comey being and obstruction of justice? And they got a grand jury on that? Is that was this is about?"
That's how it's done, ladies and gentleman.
The perfect slime job of Robert Mueller and his special counsel as well as the possible treasonous behavior of a presidential campaign colluding with a foreign government to steal a presidential election away from the American people. Not to mention that "obstruction of justice" is very clearly a crime and Trump's own Twitter timeline provides clear prima facie evidence of it.
If Chris Wallace were hosting, I doubt we would have seen a performance quite like this.
