COUNTING THE COST

We should have known better. There have been numerous congressional hearings, run by Republicans that have accomplished close to zero. The most recent was the absurd hearing on the Clinton Foundation. In the case of the Clinton Foundation hearing it soon became clear that some of the whistle blowers were actually private investigators trying to find tax evasion so they could collect a finder’s fee. Even if they are right, it is hard to have any respect for them. In addition, it is always difficult to assign credibility to someone who stands to make big bucks depending on the outcome. If these guys didn’t find tax evasion, they wouldn’t get paid. Speaks to motive!

At best, every congressional hearing is an exercise in futility. When is the last time you saw serious action taken because of a congressional hearing. At best, you get a “criminal referral” which is sent to the DOJ to do a real investigation. The same scene is played over and over again with identical results. Politicians on both sides of the aisle are more interested in getting camera time than they are in getting real answers. With questioning limited to 5 minutes even if someone asks a hard question, it is pretty easy for a skilled witness to avoid answering. The MSM can be counted on to over hype anything that looks bad for Trump and ignore anything that looks bad  for Obama or Clinton.

The good news is that Democrats will have identical problems with hearings designed to investigate Trump. The biggest difference is that Trump is unlikely to even pretend to cooperate with House committees run by people like Adam Schiff, Elijah Cummings, Maxine Waters or Jerrod Nadler. By the time the legal dust clears, the 2020 elections will be here. The MSM will be in nightly meltdown, but they are already in nightly meltdown. At some point everyone, even liberals, will become sick of this.

However, there are real investigations going on by real professionals. Those investigations are far more dangerous than silly congressional hearings. A lot of people think the FBI is withholding information to protect itself from congressional oversight. But perhaps they are withholding stuff so that an inept congressional committee will not muck it up. There is a report today that the IG recovered 19,000 text messages by Page and Strzok for the period from December 15, 2016 through May 17, 2017 that the FBI thought had been erased. Hmmm.

In addition, while Democrats are doubling down on investigating Trump in a desperate search for something. They are ignoring something that is beyond obvious. If the newly elected Attorney General for New York can investigate Donald Trump and his family without requiring any evidence of a crime, how, exactly can they complain if Donald Trump orders the FBI and the DOJ to investigate someone for similar reasons. That would, of course, be abuse of power. But is it any less abuse of power than Democrats investigating everything Trump for purely political purposes? I would wage a large bet, assuming I had any money to bet, that the loudest voices demanding an investigation of Trump could not withstand a similar investigation of themselves.

Keep in mind that the “me-too” movement, clearly aimed at Donald Trump, resulted in no impact on him, but a whole lot of high level Democrats and liberal celebrities bit the dust. High level Republicans, not so much. Expect similar results if this insane mission to investigate Trump continues. He will find a way to fight back and he can afford the best attorneys in the world who will find a legal way to get it done. This is another example of tweaking the tail of the tiger. Gary Hart can tell you all about that:

https://www.thedailyreview.com/opinion/columns_editorials/don-t-tweak-the-tail-of-the-tiger/article_ff4fe044-ae03-11e7-b077-2302014c22b1.html

Right now liberals are celebrating what they expect to be a continued relentless witch hunt of everything Trump. The liberal media is literally foaming at the mouth in breathless anticipation. Even conservatives who support Trump are predicting this. But, this may come at a cost that liberals can’t even imagine.

TDM