Will the Deep State Conspirators Ever Be Held Accountable?

Democrats and their complicit media wildly overpromised on how damaging the Mueller report would be to President Trump. They paid a huge price when Mueller did not deliver. Collusion diehards like Adam Schiff and Jerrold Nadler look delusional with their ongoing search for something that never existed.

The Deep State coup attempt stands busted cold, its perpetrators caught red-handed in unbelievable and un-American actions aimed at covering up Hillary Clinton’s inarguable illegalities and overturning an election whose result they could not abide.

For Trumpservatives the schadenfreude was sweet. But now, those vindicated supporters of the president must caution against being overpromised to themselves. To what extent, if any, will Russia-Gate actors like Lynch, Simpson, Brennan, Clapper, Comey, Strzok, Page and the rest be held accountable for their alleged criminality?

Fox News host Sean Hannity has led the charge against the Russian hoaxers and their plot to thwart the will of the national electorate. In a sane media landscape, he would win the Pulitzer Prize. As a regular aspect of his reportage, Hannity asks of his truth-seekers a question inquiring minds want definitively answered. To paraphrase, “Will Deep State bad actors be held accountable for what they have done?”

The answer, from Fourth Estate constitutionalists like Gregg Jarrett and Sara Carter, is always couched in a context of cautionary advisement: “They should,” or, “If justice still exists in America, yes,” or, the best conditional condemnation of all, “Put it this way, if you or I had done what (Hillary, Comey, Strzok, etc.) had done, yes, we would likely be looking at serious jail time.”

Lying to a FISA court, destroying evidence, leaking classified information. These are but a minimal sampling of the alleged crimes and malefactions committed in the name of electing Clinton and usurping Trump’s ascendancy.

But even given all we now know, and are learning from Hannity’s “boomerang” extravaganza each day, it would be irresponsible to categorically state that yes, this person, those people, will ever be charged or brought to trial, let alone hear the clank of a cell door closing behind them. Due to the labyrinthine depths, interconnectivity, and power inherent in a Deep State that has shocked a nation aghast at the reach of rogue bureaucracies, no one can say for certain whether any of those who concocted this conspiracy will ever be brought to justice.

The Fox News straight news cohort, committed to remaining as balanced as possible, have their work cut out walking a fine line between ostensible objectivity and incontrovertible truths about Deep State malfeasance now playing out in evermore excruciating detail. Across the cable news aisle, the partisan “legacy” media are scrambling to maintain on life support a narrative that pragmatic Democrats like Doug Schoen and Mark Penn are imploring them to abandon. CNN’s ratings have officially bottomed out. At MSNBC, Rachel Maddow and other conspiracy theorists still talk the talk, but the emptiness behind their rhetoric is apparent to anyone with five minutes of viewing time to waste.

As has been shown beyond a reasonable doubt by multiple investigations into Trump and Russian collusion, and bulwarked by the indefatigable counter-efforts of Republican lawmakers like Devin Nunes and Jim Jordan, investigations can be inequitably conducted and laws selectively enforced. Activist political partisanship can be weaponized at the highest levels of government.

The worm has turned with Mueller’s muddle and the appointment of new Attorney General William Barr, but  make no mistake: as Barr’s probe into the genesis of the Russian collusion hoax gets underway, his targets are rearranging deck chairs in their own defense, lock-and-loading for circular firing squads, and, if they have any sense of self-preservation, lawyering up, big league.

The pursuit of justice will be obfuscated in the chaos of multiple investigations. Appeals will compound while the malefactors walk around as free men and women. Cover-ups will cover cover-ups, favors will be called in, and pleas made for leniency. Legal maneuvering will carry this sordid circus over for years as those responsible for the hoax claim they were acting in what they thought was the best interest of the republic.

The great turning of the tables post-Mueller proceeds apace, with Inspector General David Horowitz's report in the pipeline, AG Barr getting his prosecutorial chess pieces arrayed, and Senator Lindsey Graham adding his congressional heft to the investigative effort. Who actually broke laws that may have undermined our nation’s process for choosing a leader? Whose actions threatened America’s foundational tenets of equal justice and application of the law?

Will there be substantive accountability and real consequences for certain individuals in the highest echelons of the law enforcement arms of the administrative state?

Trumpservatives will keep their fingers crossed and process every alarming development as it surfaces, demanding from the rooftops that the Deep State be held accountable. Hannity: “We’ve got to get this right.” American citizens of all political persuasions should want to get this right.

But there is so much that has gone wrong. There is a crisis of faith within the body politic about whether justice will be served, about whether we will be able to prevent something like this from happening again.

Will any of these plotters experience the legal jeopardy they’ve so reprehensibly promised for President Donald Trump?

Fingers crossed, but don’t be susceptible to overpromises about who will pay, and how.