The long-awaited Mueller report was released in a redacted form, on April 18, 2019. The very next day, Utah Senator Mitt Romney’s hot and cold relationship with President Donald J. Trump took a decidedly frigid turn. Holding nothing back, the former Governor of Massachusetts and 2012 GOP presidential nominee released a blistering statement rebuking the Trump team for dishonesty documented in the Mueller report according to TheBlaze.
“It is good news that there was insufficient evidence to charge the President of the United States with having conspired with a foreign adversary or with having obstructed justice,” Romney said. “The alternative would have taken us through a wrenching process with the potential for constitutional crisis. The business of government can move on.”
Unloading on Trump, the former Governor of Massachusetts stated, “Even so, I am sickened at the extent and pervasiveness of dishonesty and misdirection by individuals in the highest office of the land, including the President. I am also appalled that, among other things, fellow citizens working in a campaign for president welcomed help from Russia — including information that had been illegally obtained; that none of them acted to inform American law enforcement; and that the campaign chairman was actively promoting Russian interests in Ukraine.”
Romney, who Trump allegedly considered for Secretary of State after winning the White House in 2016, concluded his tirade by saying, “Reading the report is a sobering revelation of how far we have strayed from the aspirations and principles of the founders.”
Unsurprisingly, Trump was less than amused with Romney’s remarks. Days after the Mueller report’s release, the President tweeted, “If @MittRomney spent the same energy fighting Barack Obama as he does fighting Donald Trump, he could have won the race (maybe)!”
Trump wasn’t the only Republican who wasn’t thrilled with the Senator’s lambasting of Trump. Former Arkansas Governor and 2008 and 2016 GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee also weighed in according to TheBlaze.
“Know what makes me sick, Mitt? Not how disingenuous you were to take @realDonaldTrump $$ and then 4 yrs later jealously trash him & then love him again when you begged to be Sec of State, but makes me sick that you got GOP nomination and could have been @POTUS,” Huckabee tweeted.
Apparently, Huckabee isn’t bothered so much with Romney’s on-again, off-again relationship with Trump. Rather, he’s more incensed with the reality that Romney could have won the White House a few years ago. Interestingly, Huckabee was much more enthusiastic about a potential Romney presidency when he endorsed the Utah Senator in 2012.
While Romney may have made enemies in the GOP with his remarks regarding the Mueller report, liberals reacted more positively. During the 2012 presidential election cycle, Romney labeled Russia as America’s number one geopolitical threat. At the time, the Senator was wildly ridiculed by the fake news media for the assertion. Now, leftist media personalities have seemingly come full circle regarding the former GOP presidential nominee.
The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman tweeted, “Additional context – Romney described Russia as the greatest US geopolitical foe in his 2012 presidential campaign, and was broadly mocked. I was among reporters who should have given it more weight.”
Ronan Farrow, formerly of left-leaning MSNBC, also expressed regret concerning his past dismissal of Romney’s opinion about Russia in a tweet. Farrow said, “I’ll join this mea culpa. I aired interviews with Romney where I completely failed to grasp how prescient he was being about Russia.”
Thus far, fallout from the Mueller report has been as expected. Republicans have stressed Mueller’s findings of no collusion. Meanwhile, Democrats have enthusiastically pounced on any areas of the document appearing damaging to Trump they can find. Some liberals, including 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts, are clamoring for impeachment. In the end, the average American may likely find the whole Mueller investigation was much ado about nothing.
~ Patriotic Freedom Fighter
