WSJ Editorial Board to Mueller: It’s Time For You To Go

In a major op-ed from the Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board this week, one of the nation’s most prestigious newspapers called on Special Counsel Robert Mueller to resign his post on account of the new revelations that have cast a world of doubt on the objectivity of his investigation. Citing the fact that FBI Investigator Peter Strzok was removed from Mueller’s team after being caught sending anti-Trump text messages to his girlfriend this summer, the Journal said that Mueller was “too conflicted to investigate the FBI and should step down in favor of someone more credible.”

Keep in mind where this is coming from. While the Wall Street Journal has been fairer in their Trump/Russia coverage than most of the mainstream media, they aren’t exactly Breitbart News. They aren’t carrying the flag for the conservative movement by any stretch of the imagination. They are to the left of the Republican establishment, to put it in political terms, even if they lean far more to the right than the Washington Post, the New York Times, or most of the other popular dailies. They aren’t NeverTrump, exactly, but they certainly aren’t his cheerleaders.

And that makes it all the more remarkable that the Editorial Board would call on Mueller to step down.

“Donald Trump is his own worst enemy, as his many ill-advised tweets on the weekend about Michael Flynn, the FBI and Robert Mueller’s Russia probe demonstrate,” the board wrote. “But that doesn’t mean that Mr. Mueller and the Federal Bureau of Investigation deserve a pass about their motives and methods, as new information raises troubling questions.”

The board criticized the Justice Department for thwarting House Republicans, who have been trying to figure out the reasons for Strzok’s removal from the case since it happened in August. “But when the stories about Strzok began pouring out over the weekend,” they noted, “the Justice Department agreed to authorize Strzok’s testimony to the House committee.”

Yeah, very convenient, that was.

“There is no justification for withholding all of this from Congress, which is also investigating Russian influence and has constitutional oversight authority,” the board wrote. “All of this reinforces our doubts about Mr. Mueller’s ability to conduct a fair and credible probe of the FBI’s considerable part in the Russia-Trump drama. The reluctance to cooperate with a congressional inquiry compounds doubts related to this clear conflict of interest.”

It’s about time we had some voices in the mainstream media calling this case as it lies. Too many in the liberal press think it’s some betrayal of journalistic values to question Mueller’s position, even as the evidence of bias piles higher and higher. Guys, seriously: You can take one day off from bashing the president to see the constitutional conflicts staring you in the face.

Well, at least one newspaper’s editorial board can.