So, I clicked a link to a Hill article and began reading. (Yeah, I do that a lot. Read, close, and move on about 99% of the time.) Other than offering some stats from a new poll, it recited much of what has become public about the Mueller investigation over the past few days. It wasn’t until I neared the end of it — as it moved slightly away from sober reporting to warning that the Mueller needs to watch his step — that I stopped and questioned which self-styled polite, centrist Republican journalist wrote the article. Assuming Republican because rightwing pundits/bloggers have of late ramped up their attacks on Mueller and asserting that he’s a Democrat.
Scrolling back up to the top — had I even read the title before reading it? don’t know — but there it was Mueller, FBI face crisis in public confidence by Mark Penn. If Penn, who remains firmly in the Clinton faction, is sounding an alarm, should anyone listen?
Penn shouldered most of the blame for Clinton’s losses early in the ’08 election (fairly or not that’s how it works in election campaigns) and despite his continued support for her wasn’t hired for her ’16 campaign. (Although he may have contributed unofficially.) He was written off as a hack by the Democratic hoi polloi, along with Bob Shrum and Joe Trippi (nice win in AL), but to the best of my knowledge has never been seen as a Democratic turncoat. Will his Op-Ed lead to him being labeled as foe and another Russia-Putin stooge?
(Odd that SoS Warren Christopher could pen an Op-Ed in 1994 warning against NATO expansion and not get called a Russia-Yeltsin stooge. But his astute warning was ignored.)
Archibald Cox and later Leon Jaworski never had to deal with an FBI investigative team teeming with active anti-Nixon pro-McGovern Democrats. The front line FBI investigators and DOJ attorneys handled the Watergate break in by the book without regard to political party affiliation. That’s how they won a conviction of the burglars. (Early on they had also uncovered the links to the Nixon WH, but higher ups managed to squelched that for some time which is what ultimately led to resignations and appointment of a Special Prosecutor. Two men that weren’t compromised in any way by their own prior acts.) Also recall that at the time of the Watergate investigations, it was still J. Edgar’s FBI and it was a rotten institution.
Penn frames his warning as a matter of public perception. As if better Mueller and Rosenstein PR would correct it. Perhaps that’s all Penn intended to say. And no more than that should be read into it.