The title of this post refers to the old joke about the optimistic child:

There is a famous joke about a child who wakes up on Christmas morning and is surprised to find a heap of horse manure under the tree instead of a collection of presents. Yet, the child is not discouraged because he has an extraordinarily optimistic outlook on life. His parents discover him enthusiastically shoveling the manure as he exclaims, “With all this manure, there must be a pony somewhere!”

Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel in May 2017 as a result of a leak by the newly-fired James Comey that was intended for just that purpose. Mueller’s task was to investigate possible collusion of the Trump campaign with the Russians to subvert the election process in this country. Mueller has vast teams of lawyers at his disposal, and they’ve been shoveling the manure ever since in hopes of finding a pony.

So far, there is no convincing evidence related to the purpose for which they were appointed, although they’ve indicted a number of people in the process on charges having zero to do with their supposed purpose. As far as I can tell there are no practical limits currently being set on the investigation, either in scope or time.

I have long felt that special prosecutors and/or counsels are dangerous political instruments which serve no purpose in most cases in which they are appointed, and that goes for either side. In this, I’m with Alan Dershowitz:

I think the investigation should end and I think the Congress should appoint a special non-partisan commission,” said Dershowitz. He said he thinks a Congressional committee would be too partisan.

“That’s the way it’s done in other western democracies,” he continued. “They don’t appoint a special counsel and tell them to ‘Get that guy…’ that’s what they did in the Soviet Union. Lavrentiy Beria, the head of the KGB said to Stalin, ‘Show me the man, and I’ll find you the crime!’” That’s what special counsel does.”…

The issue of criminalization [of political differences] has not been subject to rational discourse,” said Dershowitz. “Democrats hate when they politicize and criminalize political differences against Democrats… when they did it with Bill Clinton. Republicans hate when they do it against their people… President Trump. But each one supports it when they’re against their enemies and partisanship prevails over principle. It’s very hard to have a reasonable discussion.”

Dershowitz said that citizens should fear the direction of this investigation for their own sake. He warned that today criminalization of political differences appears – now – to only affect presidents and political leaders. “Tomorrow it can affect you and me. If you give the prosecutor the ability to stretch the criminal law to fit a target, it’s very dangerous.”

And I am bipartisan as well in my condemnation—for example, I was and remain against the process that ended up with Bill Clinton’s impeachment. I’ve written several times before about why I hold that opinion and will not rehash it in this post, but please go here and start reading, with special attention to the links in that last paragraph.

That post I just linked contains a quote by another Democrat (or ex-Democrat? hard to keep it all straight) whose recent work I admire, Mark Penn. Keep in mind when you read this that Penn worked for both Clintons, and was Bill’s right-hand man during the Starr investigation and the impeachment process:

To Penn’s mind, an investigation such as this one [Mueller’s]—especially given its unbounded nature—will always be detrimental to the operation of a successful administration and federal government. “I think a lot of people see it as a sporting event: Just get the president! What difference does it make?” he explains. “They think it’s a wholly legitimate tool to use against a president and an administration you don’t like. My attitude on that is, if you don’t like him, vote him out. Introducing these elements into politics is a kind of tool. It had a bad impact in ’98, and a bad impact here.”…

“What’s unprecedented here is the fuzziness of the accusation of ‘Russian collusion,’ which led to the prosecutors examining everybody in the campaign, getting every email and piecing together virtually every meeting about everything, and then investigating everybody in the White House, in this search for that one contact with Russia that might prove it,” he says.

According to Penn, this process could very easily dissuade people from joining campaigns, presidential administrations, or other parts of the government, because it will lead them to believe that to do so could put them at risk of facing costly legal fees, FBI investigation, and possible prosecution. “We can’t run a campaign, democracy, or government under this kind of open-ended investigation,” he argues.

I agree wholeheartedly with Penn and Dershowitz. But Democrats—and as far as I can tell, most people, who love it when it’s their side doing the investigating of the other side—don’t. And right now the Democrats are excitedly awaiting the discovery of the pony.

Meanwhile, today’s news is that Mueller is looking busily at Trump’s old tweets:

Special counsel Robert Mueller is reviewing President Trump’s tweets as he pursues an investigation into whether the president obstructed justice, The New York Times reported Thursday.

The Times, citing three people briefed on the matter, reported that Mueller is particularly interested in Trump’s tweets about Attorney General Jeff Sessions, former FBI Director James Comey and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.

The president has used the social media platform to fiercely criticize each official.

Mueller’s office declined to comment to the Times.

“If you’re going to obstruct justice, you do it quietly and secretly, not in public,” argued Rudy Giuliani, the lawyer representing Trump in the Russia probe, in a statement to the paper.

However, Trump’s lawyers told the Times that they don’t believe Mueller is focused on a particular action for obstruction of justice, but rather is looking at the tweets as part of a larger pattern of behavior.

Any pattern of any behavior on anything, as long as it leads them to their goal.

What is their goal? It’s multiple, and the investigation itself—even if it never directly implicates Trump—has the potential to matter. One goal is of course the obvious one of finding a smoking Trump gun, but another goal is to hurt those around him and make it dangerous to work for him so that future possible appointees will be discouraged from doing so. Wouldn’t you think twice before becoming a Trump appointee? I certainly would.

A third goal is to pressure those who once worked for Trump by indicting them and threatening them so that they will rat on him, and whether they make something up or whether it’s true hardly matters. Any ratting will do, just as with jailhouse snitches.

The fourth goal is to create a public climate that is so toxic to Trump that he cannot function.

And a fifth goal is to turn enough members of Congress of either party against him that it results in his impeachment, no matter what Mueller finds or doesn’t find. A sixth and related goal (are you still with me?) is to create so much suspicion that the public will turn Congress over to the Democrats in 2018 in order to begin the impeachment process.

I also think that investigators with power get drunk on that power as a rule, and are loath to give it up, so all these investigations have their own built-in self-perpetuating energy.

[NOTE: This post was originally on my older blog and had comments, but unfortunately the comments didn’t transfer over here.]