Leaders | Investigating Russia

Why you should remember Mueller’s job description

He’s not there to pursue Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, but to safeguard elections. Surely Americans can unite around that?

ACCORDING to NATO’s handbook, the preferred tactics in Russian information warfare can be summarised as “dismiss, distort, distract, dismay”. That is a fair description of the response in America when Robert Mueller, the special counsel, unsealed charges against Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and two others. The president’s most enthusiastic supporters denounced Mr Mueller, saying he should be fired or, failing that, redirected to investigate Hillary Clinton instead. Meanwhile, some of the president’s opponents took Mr Mueller’s move as the prelude to impeachment. Both views are wrong and unhelpful.

This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline “Filtering out the noise”

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