Memoranda: Trump and Democrats wage paper fight that will resolve nothing

Take a memo.

It seems abundantly clear that Washington, D.C., has descended into a kindergarten game of "did so," "did not," with no clear indication of just about anything anymore.

If you back Trump then the FBI is not to be trusted.

If you back the Democrats then the Trump camp is obfuscating.

And if you back the FBI on the basis that the nation's top law enforcement agency can do no wrong, well, then you must have never heard of COINTELPRO.

But here's the thing -- for the sake of argument -- even if the Trump campaign did no wrong, Russia's interference in the U.S. election process still took place. To what extent and who was involved is still being investigated.

So while the two parties are playing tit for tat with what might as well be sticky notes at this point, the rest of the nation is forced to sip the tea it is being served by its news barista of choice, FoxNews or CNN. Even though the script is playing out on TV more like a season of "House of Cards," or of "Scandal."

Still, it remains to be seen what Special Counsel Robert Mueller has uncovered or will uncover as he edges his way closer to the president's inner circle.

The closer he gets though -- if the president's behavior so far has been any indication -- it becomes more and more feasible that, even if he hasn't done anything wrong yet, Trump still might wade into territory that could be considered obstruction of justice.

Keep in mind that even though the president tweeted recently that the memo released last week "vindicated" him of any collusion, that isn't all that is being investigated here.

And our take here isn't political, it's practical. For all of the fanfare surrounding the investigation, we really don't know the facts yet. The biggest indicator so far though is, the investigation is no longer widening. It's narrowing.

Hence the theatrics.

Published in Editorials on February 5, 2018 10:44 PM