Democrats and Republicans have both had investigations on which they pinned their hopes of a political knockout blow. For the Dems it was Meuller, for the GOP it was IG Horowitz. Both Meuller and Horowitz were public servants well used to serving masters of different political stripes and both presented their findings in carefully worded, fact based accounts. Neither gifted one side of the political aisle or the other with a clear case to sell to voters. Both political tribes were disappointed; but that's where the symmetry ends.
The differences in how Democrats and Republicans reacted is instructive. The Dems swallowed the bitter pill after trying (and failing) to leverage Meuller's testimony into a public condemnation of Trump's behavior that would have allowed them to start impeachment proceedings; they had to wait another 6 months until Trump misbehaved yet again to move forward.
The GOP in contrast has rubbished IG's report and slandered its author, someone their Justice Department appointed. The Trump administration's approach is to keep the revolving door of political appointments going until they find sufficiently unprincipled and sycophantic people who will follow the President's random walk through conspiracy-theory-land. If the tactic works and Trump and his ilk are elected next year, it will be a sad reflection on the ignorance and or callousness of those who voted for them.
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