The Mueller investigation is over, and Attorney General Bill Barr has submitted a memo to Congress based on the information contained in the Mueller report contained. The Attorney General’s memo confirmed what we all already knew:

1 – there is no evidence that President Trump or anyone in his campaign colluded with Russia to alter the results of the 2016 Election; and

2 – the Special Counsel did not draw any conclusions about whether the conduct it examined on the part of the President constituted “obstruction of justice.”

The memo further states that it is up to the Attorney General and the Justice Department to determine whether the conduct described in the Mueller report constitutes a crime. And the Attorney General’s conclusion determined that it did not.

This conclusion is sure to give the left heartache. After all, so many of them had hoped that the conclusions in the Mueller report would be used to impeach Trump and remove him from office. Now, those hopes were dashed, and the liberals are left with nothing but the truth.

The truth is that Russia did conspire to interfere in our system of elections. The Internet Research Agency (IRA) worked to spread misinformation, alter the way Americans process news, and hacked into the systems of certain Clinton campaign officials to impact the outcome of the elections.

These are all well-known active measures Russia has used and continues to use to destabilize societies of its adversaries. As I wrote previously, Russian active measures are not to be confused with open, accepted foreign diplomacy in which all nations engage extensively.

Public diplomacy includes providing press releases and other information to journalists, open public broadcasting, and a wide variety of official, academic, and cultural exchange programs. By contrast, Soviet “active measures” are frequently undertaken secretly, sometimes violate the laws of other nations, and often involve threats, blackmail, bribes, and exploitation of individuals and groups.

These approaches include a variety of activities in which Russia engages today: document forgery, proliferation of what Trump likes to call “fake news,” rumors and insinuation, and the use of front organizations. The “Lisa” case in Germany was a particularlyodious Russian effort to spread disinformation and foment unrest and dissatisfaction with Germany’s immigration policies and exacerbate the already severe fractures caused by the refugee crisis in Europe, as more and more refugees flooded Germany’s borders.

But the left needs to stop trying to conflate the issues. The fact that Russia did, indeed, interfere with our elections, doesn’t mean the Trump campaign or the President himself had anything to do with these activities. This is something Russia does to its adversaries on a regular basis, and the beneficiaries of these activities are probably not witting (with the exception of Marine Le Pen’s campaign in France that received money from the Russians in the form of loans). They’ve done it in France. They did it in Germany. They did it in the former Soviet States, including going as far as to apparently attempt the assassination of Macedonia’s Prime Minister.

In addition, these efforts are not always successful, as in the case of Le Pen, and in the case of the US elections, there was nothing to indicate – and the intelligence community did not conclude – that the Russians’ efforts to influence the outcome of the election were successful.

The scope note if the intelligence community’s report confirms that the IC made no such assessment.

We did not make an assessment of the impact that Russian activities had on the outcome of the 2016 election. The US Intelligence Community is charged with monitoring and assessing the intentions, capabilities, and actions of foreign actors; it does not analyze US political processes or US public opinion.

Of course, these conclusions won’t stop the left from claiming collusion and obstruction of justice. Beto O’Rourke doesn’t seem to care about the facts.

Beto O’Rourke campaigns in Charleston, SC: “You have a president who, in my opinion, beyond a shadow of a doubt, sought to, however ham-handedly, collude with the Russian government or foreign power to undermine and influence our elections.” pic.twitter.com/piez8d9v26

— The Hill (@thehill) March 24, 2019

And House Judiciary Committee Jerrold Nadler is still holding out hope.

“In light of the very concerning discrepancies and final decision making at the Justice Department following the Special Counsel report, where Mueller did not exonerate the President, we will be calling Attorney General Barr in to testify before @HouseJudiciary in the near future,” tweeted U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-Manhattan).

Enough is enough already.

The Democrats need to move on with the business of governing and stop holding the nation hostage with these insane attempts to relitigate the 2016 election.

They need to accept the fact that Hillary Clinton was a horrible candidate who got the nomination due to political maneuvering and who was so arrogantly certain she would win against the rude, boorish, menace, that she did not even bother trying to be likable or hiding her contempt for more than half of Americans.

Move on, people. It’s over.

Featured photo courtesy of Kremlin.ru