Mueller needs to make a change

Andrew C. McCarthy is a former federal prosecutor and a contributing editor at National Review.

As he explores possible Trump campaign collusion in Russia’s election interference, is special counsel Robert S. Mueller III running an impartial investigation?

That this is a fair question to ask is itself troubling. Our justice system strives to avoid the appearance of impropriety. Sure, we pounce when we detect actual corruption. But the rule of law requires that the public integrity of law enforcement be safeguarded. It is not enough to be fair. Things must appear fair — even more so when a special counsel, appointed precisely to avoid the appearance of bias, is concerned.

In Mueller’s case, there are various grounds for worry. Mueller’s investigation was triggered when former FBI director James B. Comey, no fan of the president who dismissed him, leaked a memo of a meeting with President Trump. Comey admitted hoping this revelation would lead to appointment of a special counsel.

Furthermore, the investigative team Mueller has assembled includes Democratic donors and supporters, including one lawyer who represented the Clinton Foundation and one who represented a subject in the Hillary Clinton email investigation. This month, moreover, it came to light that two members of the team, who had also worked on the Clinton email investigation, were having an extramarital affair and exchanged text messages expressing partisan political views — favoring Clinton and depicting Trump as “loathsome.”

Worse, in one August 2016 text, one of them, FBI agent Peter Strzok, asserted that the FBI “can’t take that risk” that Trump could be elected, equating some unspecified action against this seemingly unlikely possibility to “an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.” Dismayingly, this text, which crosses the line between political banter and tainted law enforcement, refers to a meeting in the office of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, then (and now) the bureau’s No. 2 official. While not as weighty, legitimate questions have been raised about McCabe’s own objectivity, his wife’s state Senate campaign having been lavishly funded by groups tied to Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D), a Clinton insider.

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