Conservatives Are Scared to Death of Robert Mueller

Conservative calls to fire special prosecutor Robert Mueller are really getting crazy. The Fox News gang has gone gaga over the idea that Mueller is actually a liberal mole who’s hellbent on getting rid of Donald Trump. Republicans in Congress are going down the same path. The news that Mueller fired an investigator who supported Hillary Clinton prompted Rep. Steve Chabot to claim that the “depths of this anti-Trump bias” on Mueller’s team was “absolutely shocking.” Trump’s lawyers, says Roger Stone, “are entirely unrealistic about the enmity toward the president from the political establishment.” The Wall Street Journal insists that Mueller is “too conflicted” to lead the investigation. Rush Limbaugh believes the whole thing “is all manufactured from leaks in the deep state.”

I don’t have any big point to make here except this: It’s pretty obvious that conservatives are petrified of what’s coming out. They have no idea what’s coming next, but it’s starting to look like practically everyone in the Trump campaign had relationships of some kind with Russians of some kind. Their only recourse is to invent wild stories about the deep state and conflict of interest and the long arm of Hillary supporters in the FBI. As Mueller continues to tighten the noose, we can expect these attacks to get ever louder and crazier.

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“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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