2NC---AT: Mueller Mueller investigation won’t matter and no chance of impeachment
Mitchell 18 (Lincoln Mitchell is a writer and scholar based in New York and San Francisco. He teaches in Columbia University’s Political Science Department. “Commentary: Why Mueller’s Russia findings won’t matter.” NOVEMBER 14, 2018. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mitchell-mueller-commentary/commentary-why-muellers-russia-findings-wont-matter-idUSKCN1NJ28I)
But there is more to it than that. Even if Mueller is allowed to complete his investigation, the likelihood of anything he finds making a dramatic change to the political environment or leading to Trump’s removal from office is slim. Moreover, its effect on his support as the 2020 campaign approaches may also be less than many so ardently hope. The reason for this is not because Mueller will not come up with any major findings, but because he already has. And they have had little impact. Two situations in particular are the kinds of developments that would generally be described as a smoking gun: the evidence of the meeting Donald Trump, Jr. set up between Russian operatives and members of his father’s campaign in 2016, and the convictions and indictments of several Trump operatives, most notably Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen and campaign chair Paul Manafort. However, these stories dominated the news cycles only briefly before being lost to other political controversies and Trump’s insistence upon “no collusion” with Moscow. These events had very little impact not because they weren’t important, but because Trump’s supporters simply didn’t care. Trump has succeeded in making the Mueller investigation so partisan an issue that whatever Mueller has found, or will find in the future, will have little effect other than reinforcing existing views among voters and lawmakers. It is unlikely that anything, even evidence of criminal activity, beyond the campaign finance violations Cohen cited in connection with Trump, will change this.
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