thependulumswings

Have you ever thrown a boomerang?  Rumor has it that if you throw it just right it’ll come back to you.

Shortly after the 2016 presidential election it now looks like one may have been thrown so hard and far on Capitol Hill that it’s just now making its way back to its rightful owner.

You remember back then Donald Trump, labeled Putin’s puppet by a few Democrats, was accused of colluding with the Russians to tilt the election in his favor.  And, quickly, right after Jeff Sessions recused himself as Attorney General, the Russia collusion investigation took flight.

On May 17, 2017, Robert Mueller was appointed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein as special counsel overseeing an investigation into allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and related matters.  The “and related matters” language is like having a blank check.  You can wander into a lot of file cabinets, subpoenas, and personal computing devices when you are investigating “related matters.”

And the investigation did wander as it wondered.  It wandered for 22 months.  We learned that “Crossfire Hurricane” was the code name for the FBI investigation into the Russian interference.    We learned that Michael Cohen didn’t pay his taxes.  He’s in jail now.  We even learned about porn star Stormy Daniels.  Her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, was famous for fifteen minutes, too.  He’s in jail now as well.  He faces numerous counts of fraud and extortion.  That’s how far the investigation wandered as part of that “related matters” opportunity it was afforded.

House Judicial Committee leader Adam Schiff appeared on CNN, Meet the Depressed, and MSNBC roughly 201 times stating “we now have direct evidence linking Trump to the Russians.”   CNN, Meet the Depressed, and MSNBC commentators then repeated roughly 2001 times “there is direct evidence linking Trump to the Russians.”  It’s what all well-trained parrots do.

Only, there was no direct evidence.  After a bevy of witnesses paraded before Shiff and his minions, Robert Mueller himself appeared and told them himself that there was no link.  Well, he really said, “that is beyond my purview” roughly 20,001 times, but we digress.  And, poof went the two-year waste of time and money balloon.

And with that, the Ukraine phone call took center stage.

So whatever happened to that pesky Russian collusion problem?  It looks like the boomerang turned for home yesterday.

Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe on Tuesday declassified documents revealing that former CIA Director John Brennan had briefed former President Obama on Hillary Clinton’s plan to tie then-candidate Donald Trump to Russia — as “a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server.”  Whoopsie do!

The “foreign policy adviser” who allegedly proposed “vilify[ing] Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services “was Jake Sullivan, now a top Biden aide.” Hillary OK’d his proposal on July 26, 2016, just days before the FBI opened the probe.  Whoopsie do do!

House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jim Jordan (R-OH) tweeted Tuesday: “We now know that John Brennan and Hillary Clinton conjured up the phony Russian hoax with the Obama/Biden Administration to distract Americans from the Clinton email scandal. The witch hunt was worse than we ever thought!”

And with that, the boomerang is rapidly heading back to those who originally launched it perhaps.

A wise man opined years ago that if you want to know what one side is doing listen to what they are accusing the other side of doing and you’ll know.  He was right.

It’s about power.  It’s always about power.  So, what becomes of all of this power grab sabotage?  That answer likely depends on who assumes power in the White House and on Capitol Hill in January.

After all, not all boomerangs are made to return.  Some are used for (witch) hunting.