Better rude and truthful than smooth and deceitful

Former FBI Director Robert Mueller died on March 20. This is what former President Barack Obama said in a post on X:

“Bob Mueller was one of the finest directors in the history of the FBI, transforming the bureau after 9/11 and saving countless lives. But it was his relentless commitment to the rule of law and his unwavering belief in our bedrock values that made him one of the most respected public servants of our time.”

Here’s what President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social and X:

“Robert Mueller just died. Good, I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people!”

Well, that’s certainly a contrast in tone.

Predictably, plenty of people are aghast at Trump’s characteristically blunt statement. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie called Trump’s post “reprehensible” and “what a child does.” Former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele wrote, “@DonaldTrump you are a vile disgusting man.” Late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel called Trump a “petty little b*tch.”

Trump’s comment was tasteless and unbecoming. But was he just being petty? Let’s recall some recent history …

Trump was falsely accused of “colluding” with Russia leading up to the 2016 presidential election, and all the machinery of the federal government was thrown at him. That accusation was fabricated by his Democrat opponent Hillary Clinton’s campaign – and Clinton herself was in on the plan. Emails obtained in later investigations prove that Obama also knew about the false accusations and their use in the weaponization of the FBI against Trump.

In furtherance of this scheme, the FBI asked the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for warrants to spy on Trump’s campaign and – later – his administration. But the “evidence” the FBI insisted it had consisted largely of a falsified “dossier” produced by a man named Christopher Steele, who the FBI never believed. In other words, the FBI lied to the FISA Court, which later issued a strong – and unusual – rebuke, stating that the FBI’s assertions in its requests for surveillance warrants were “inaccurate, incomplete, or unsupported by appropriate documentation.”

The surveillance was, therefore, illegal.

That wasn’t the only illegality. Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee were both fined by the Federal Election Commission; they had funneled monies to Steele and the opposition research organization Fusion GPS through law firm Perkins Coie, and then tried to claim the payments were for legal fees.

Mueller was tasked with spearheading the investigation into Trump’s “collusion” with Russia, an investigation that took two years and cost taxpayers at least $32 million. And yet, despite having a crack team of what were called “the best prosecutors in the business” working around the clock, as well as God only knows how much information produced in response to 2,800 subpoenas and 500 search warrants, they could not prove that Trump had colluded with Russia.

Because, of course, he hadn’t colluded with Russia. And they all knew it.

But the worst damage wasn’t the waste of taxpayer funds; it was the deliberate crippling of Trump’s administration in his first term, smearing it every single day in the press and in the public’s mind with baseless allegations, forcing Trump to contend with concerted lawfare, and impeding his ability to do what 63 million American voters had sent him to the White House to accomplish. And this is without mentioning the extraordinary damage the Russia collusion hoax and “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation did to innocent individuals like Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, who was wrongly targeted in Mueller’s investigation and pressured to plead guilty. (Flynn was pardoned by Trump but sued the government for wrongful prosecution and was just awarded a settlement from the Justice Department this week.)

As a former FBI director, Mueller had to have known from the get-go that the “investigation” he led was a specious farce. When he was later called to testify before Congress, he struggled to answer basic questions put to him by congressional representatives about the basis for the accusations against Trump; he repeatedly deferred to the 448-page report or simply declined to answer – more than 200 times.

The damage done by the false accusations made against Trump is still being felt to this day. Mueller was many things, some of them praiseworthy. But in the last chapter of his professional life, he did not display a “relentless commitment to the rule of law,” nor was his behavior an example of America’s “bedrock values.” Obama’s silver-tongued tribute was not so much a defense of Mueller as it was a cover for his own role in the travesty that was “Crossfire Hurricane.”

If Trump’s signature style is brusque and rude, Obama’s is smooth, glib – and deceitful. Just three days after he praised Mueller on social media, Obama posted on X proclaiming that the day the Affordable Care Act passed was “one of (his) proudest moments as president.”

There couldn’t be a better example of Obama’s penchant for self-serving deceit. In the months leading up to the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (colloquially called “Obamacare”), he lied with impunity, over and over again, assuring Americans that they could keep their plans, keep their doctors and that their premiums would go down. None of that was true, and Obama knew it. So did his advisers, like Jonathan Gruber, who was notoriously caught on camera bragging that “lack of transparency” and the stupidity of the American public was instrumental in the passage of Obamacare.

In a perfect world, our politicians would be both polite and truthful. But we don’t live in a perfect world. And if our choice is between someone who is rude and truthful or smooth and deceitful, I’ll take rude and truthful every time.