For a few days, I’ve thought about writing a blog post about Robert Mueller’s testimony before Congress on July 24, 2019, but despite tweeting a good bit about it, deciding how to express my thoughts without just ending up expressing my outrage, made me hesitate. I tweet under the name, libertybelle at Twitter. A few days ago JK posted a comment on my blog with a link to a video: https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/454668-rising-july-25-2019 , titled, Establishment Dems exposed, Krystal Ball: How much damage has MSNBC done to the Left? with Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti dissecting how Mueller’s testimony deflated the Trump/Russia spin hysteria peddled by MSNBC (and CNN too).
This assessment of the damage to Dems was brutal and I believe accurate. Their prediction that the Trump/Russia spin hysteria was dead, failed to take into account how quickly the Dem/Mainstream media spin warriors regroup and rewrite their narratives. They will continue with this Trump/Russia Collusion narrative, because they must. Heck, the Washington Post yesterday, ran an editorial claiming Mitch McConnell is a Russian asset, so the Dems Red Scare 2.0 effort is well underway.
The Trump/Russia Collusion spin narrative is the Dems big lie propaganda effort, from which all their efforts to takedown Trump, at best, or delegitimize his presidency 24/7, at worst, spring. If Dems ever concede that Trump/Russia Collusion spin narrative was concocted, or to use Trump’s term, “a hoax”, all of their Trump hysterical narratives implode. And that is what I suspect might happen.
I’ve read a lot of takes on Mueller’s testimony, but I am relying on what I saw in Mueller’s overall testimony. Dems and many #Resist media pulled short video clips to spin that Mueller’s “performance” made the case to impeach Trump. Many Trump pundits and media ran with Mueller’s “performance” was dismal, with some claiming Mueller’s fumbling, to look up passages in the Mueller report, was “an act” to run out the clock.
Well, here’s my take, Mueller’s testimony was the best he could do. Mueller looked to me like an elderly man with significant memory problems and my anger burned as I watched him struggle to answer questions, struggle to remember, struggle with multi-pronged questions (a lot of the Dems had those prepared). The worst part of this was watching Mueller struggle to find passages in the Mueller report, which Dems had planned to have Mueller read out loud for dramatic effect. Mueller got lost trying to locate the passages. Watching Mueller’s testimony was like watching my husband several years ago and it appalled me that rabid Dem lawyers on that Special Counsel team and Democrats staged this spectacle USING this man, who served his country honorably for many years, as nothing more than a stage prop in another of their media SPIN sideshows. It felt like I was watching elderly abuse many times.
Mueller’s testimony exposed the total sham of the Trump/Russian investigation, for me. I believe rabid Dem lawyers ran that investigation and USED Mueller as a figurehead and shield from scrutiny. A question to be answered, which I believe assuredly needs to be answered by the AG, is whether there’s a medical diagnosis of Robert Mueller’s significant memory problems. I feel there’s very likely a medical diagnosis to that. Some pundits and reporters mentioned his “mental acuity”, but the AG needs to find out whether his condition was known before he was appointed to lead this Special Counsel investigation.
The other question that should be answered is what exactly was going on with that Rosenstein and Mueller meeting with Trump in the Oval Office the day before Rosenstein appointed Mueller to head the Special Counsel investigation. Trump and Pence believed Rosenstein brought Mueller to the White House to interview for the FBI director position. Mueller testified that he did not interview for the position. Andrew McCabe wrote in his book, that Mueller’s phone was left in the Oval Office and had to be retrieved later. What on earth was that all about? Was Mueller used to plant a phone in the Oval Office to “surveil” or “spy” on the Oval Office?
Did Comey, Yates and other rabid anti-Trump people just use Mueller all along, as cover for their efforts to takedown Trump? While I hope AG Barr gets to the bottom of this, I’ve learned placing faith in anyone or anything in Washington always leads to massive disappointment. The truth is all that “Drain the Swamp” hoopla Trump hyped misses the truth – there are so many corrupt politicians, on both sides, in Washington, that to really expose the massive public corruption would require throwing them all out, fumigating the place from top to bottom, and starting all over, LOL.
It’s a total corrupt mess and Trump, a lying con man, as good as Dems at stirring up identity politics firestorms, isn’t really going to solve anything. He likes to peddle influence, like the best of them, hobnobbing with his rich friends, offering them top jobs and on it goes.
Our news media, mainstream media & FOX, are just big businesses making a fortune off of running competing Trump Reality Show vs. The Trump/Russian Collusion Show. Where it ends, well, I have no idea, but it’s going to get much worse, I feel sure.
libertybelle diaries 
You’ll likely recall LB, me expressing concerns too behind “the motive” for Mr. Mueller leaving his phone in the Oval Office. But given the pace at which the media moves from one story to the next I moved on too.
Now having been in the stands for the Hearings Circus of the 24th I conclude the explanation for that leaving did have a real significance but, and this goes back to that pace I mention above, is we missed it.
This “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” reveals all of us to be casualties. Some more grievously injured.
I suppose I should add, though I really don’t derive any satisfaction and certainly no pleasure in doing so but, you pose an uneasy question above that’s sadly, appearing significant too but its that “Was Mueller used?”
As all of us are now aware (some more than some others) the Mueller “Investigation” turns out not as the one side would have us believe ie, a hoax or a witch hunt, nor as the other side would have it, a “real” investigation – No what we had here was a Counterintelligence Operation which, we all collectively, too frequently forget to point out.
Unfortunately one side more than the other (and here I’m referring to ‘the audience’) is more or less clueless about the difference. But FISA warrants are ‘the tell’ – as the higher level managers of both the DoJ and the FBI have hardly bothered explaining (more often actually, actively redacting) make phones a real tool for collecting evidence.
Here I find myself too uncomfortable to continue.
John Brennan would be my guess as to the key architect of that counterintelligence investigation, in the Spring of 2016.
It’s just going to get messier. In 2017, the Strzok & Page government phones had messages removed.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/justice-department-ig-blames-fbi-wide-software-failure-for-missing-strzok-page-messages-says-phones-were-wiped
“It’s just going to get messier.”
Maybe not.
I see neither Judiciary’s Chairman Nadler nor Intel’s Chairman
SchillSchiff issuing subpoenas for anybody’s telephones.