Trump’s defenders were determined to draw attention to the heavy-handed tactics of the investigators themselves, and I think this contributed to the very cautious, almost softball tone of a defeated-looking Mueller’s eventual report in 2019. That report acknowledged, albeit with many weasel words, what a few of us had always known: no evidence of serious wrongdoing was found.
Mueller’s testimony remains the most-watched moment in recent political history. An astonishing 22 million tuned in. The press had mythologized Mueller as the embodiment of virtue, honesty, and strength. Fifteen Republicans and the Clinton-Democrat machine couldn’t take out Donald Trump, but Mueller could—or so they hoped.
After reviewing every moment of testimony Mueller had given Congress over a multi-decade career, I could see why they were bullish. The man was downright steely. On the day of the hearing, I half expected Mueller to ride in on a lightning bolt, hurling spears of fire at the committee. The reality was much different.
Mueller’s team had leaked in the days before the hearing that he wasn’t all there—that calling him would be a mistake for Democrats. In late-night prep sessions with my fellow Republicans, I passionately preached not to believe it. “Mueller has been preparing for twelve hours a day to embarrass us all!” I exclaimed. “He’ll be the best we’ve ever seen, so we better be our best.”
Whoops. From Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler’s opening questions it was clear Mueller wasn’t playing with a full deck. He seemed old, confused, distracted, at times not seeming to know what was in his own report. Even softball questions from the Democrats stumped him. Mueller’s testimony looked more like elder abuse in progress than the culmination of a fair investigation.
For a moment, I felt sorry for him. But the moment quickly passed.
With their whole case resting on the sandpile of cheap insinuations that was the Steele dossier, I put it to Mueller like this at one point in the hearings, when he tried to claim that validating the Steele dossier wasn’t his “purview”: “No, it is exactly your purview, Mr. Mueller, and here’s why. Only one of these two things is possible: either Steele made this whole thing up and there were never any Russians telling him of this vast criminal conspiracy that you didn’t find—or Russians lied to Steele.”
“As I said before and I’ll say again, it’s not my purview, as others are investigating what you address,” Mueller told me feebly.
Mueller’s testimony was a dud and it left Democrats bitter and demoralized. After months of daily assurances from Maddow and a foolish press that Mueller would “destroy” Trump, they had, instead, destroyed their own credibility.
Yet the investigation mania would return with the sudden shift to the topic of Ukraine. The same gang that had clung for two years to a failed Hillary Clinton campaign had a new phony outrage to flog—and they were now looking to defend the new establishment champion: Joe Biden.
CHAPTER FOUR
A PERFECT CALL
December 19, 2019
The White House. Private residence. Evening.
The towering president extended his arm, pointing as if to amplify the history lesson he was giving.
“He wrote the Gettysburg Address right over there,” Trump told a few of us on a visit to the White House. “Lincoln was very melancholy. We would call it depressed today. Melancholy sounds more elegant. Everything was going wrong for the guy. His son died. His wife was not right. Worst of all, he kept losing. At the beginning of the Civil War, he lost and lost—all the early battles. He almost lost the country! Then he put a great general in charge—Ulysses S. Grant. Everyone told Lincoln that Grant was crazy. He drank too much. He used bad language. He was a real son of a bitch. A butcher. But Grant was a winner.”
President Lincoln once said of Grant, “I cannot spare this man. He fights.”
Grant knew that to defeat Lee he didn’t need beautiful formations but men grinding away at their objective, come what may. Preserving the Union required nothing less than total focus and devotion.
Like Lincoln, Trump also cultivates a team of rivals, but tonight the band of brothers—and one sister—could be permitted a bit of R and R. President Trump turned to the small group of guests that included Reps. Mark Meadows, Jim Jordan, Andy Biggs, Debbie Lesko, Mike Johnson, and their spouses. All had joined for the White House Christmas party. My date was there too—way out of my league, as the president delighted in telling me in front of her.
“Lincoln had the great General Grant…and I have Matt Gaetz!” (She was impressed, though perhaps not that much. There wouldn’t be a second date.)
Some presidents didn’t allow their own vice president in the White House residence. Trump has his friends over enough to have their mail sent to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. He gives tours and tells stories with the gusto and pageantry of a true showman. The Lincoln Bedroom is his favorite attraction. The House Judiciary Committee had voted out articles of impeachment earlier that day. We were in the middle of the fight for the Trump presidency. It was a fight we were winning, and we knew it. All smiles.
Days later, the left-leaning Guardian newspaper would begrudgingly publish: “So far, all impeachment has done is make Donald Trump more popular.” Indeed, Trump has an inhuman ability to absorb the most vicious attacks and turn them to his advantage. Impeachment, once considered the gravest of choices for Congress, was now just the same old politics by different, more destructive means.
Donald Trump is still America’s president. Impeachment over Trump’s communication with Ukraine was a frivolous distraction—an exorcism of sorts for Democrats who, immediately after their election loss and failed Russia investigation, still needed an outlet for the Trump Derangement Syndrome warping their electorally, if not eternally,
