On NPR, E.J. Dionne Loves Mueller's 'Exquisite' Timing of Indictments Before Putin Summit

July 15th, 2018 7:42 AM

On the Week in Review segment on Friday night's All Things Considered on NPR, anchor Ailsa Chang asked about the timing of Robert Mueller's indictment of more Russians, just days before Trump's meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Conservative Ben Domenech of the Federalist suggested it was a "clearly purposeful" act to color how this summit is judged. 

To her credit, Chang questioned if Mueller's timing was a "coincidence." Liberal journalists rarely question Mueller's tactics. Domenech underlined "the fact that this indictment deals with 12 people who are never going to see the inside of an American courtroom, too, factors into the idea that this is about making a particular point on the eve of this meeting as opposed to something that would have a tangible result." Then she turned to Dionne:

CHANG: What do you think, E.J. - the timing was deliberate?

DIONNE: Well, I don't know who did what deliberately, but I would say the timing is exquisite...

CHANG: (Laughter).

DIONNE: ...Because it really puts the president on the line. I mean, it's - think about what you just played on the air. It really hurts our relationship with Russia. That really shows where Trump's priorities are. He doesn't want to push back against this. He wants a good relationship with Vladimir Putin. This puts people who call it a witch hunt in a terrible position. It makes those - that hearing yesterday with Peter Strzok - it makes the House Republicans I think look very bad. They...

CHANG: Peter Strzok being the agent at the center - all these allegations of FBI bias against President Trump.

DIONNE: Right. And this suggests, no, this is a very serious investigation. And I can imagine some late night comedian tonight asking if Trump and Putin will put out a joint statement declaring that this is a witch hunt. But the fact that I can say that suggests I think the kind of trouble this creates for people who have been trying to create the witch hunt narrative because nothing here rules out that there will be more.

This line of reasoning sounds counter-intuitive. Mueller looks more like he's conducting a partisan witch hunt when he indicts Russians right before a meeting with Putin. Delighting E.J. Dionne (and obviously, Peter Strzok) makes it look more rigged, not less. It looks like Mueller is a political actor, trying to embarrass Trump on the world stage, indicting people he is wildly unlikely to prosecute. 

This is how Domenech pushed back: "you're still talking about an indictment in which so much of it is taken up by the numbers of times people were posting memes on the Internet. I mean, this is not something that indicates the level of success that would be necessary for tilting an election at all!"

He added that for all the talk of Trump being soft on Russia, "under the Obama administration, we saw the Russians annex Crimea, invade Ukraine, intervene in Syria and effectively do all of the things that are talked about in this indictment."