ANALYSIS - US Lawmakers Consumed With Mueller Ignore Trump Aggressive Foreign Policy Moves

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 20th April, 2019) Democrats and other US lawmakers have wasted time and energy on the Mueller report while doing nothing to check President Donald Trump's aggressive militaristic agenda that targets countries from Iran to Venezuela, analysts told Sputnik.

Earlier in the week, the Justice Department released a redacted version of US Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report of his investigation into allegations of Trump-Russia collusion and Russian interference in the US 2016 election. The investigation found no evidence of collusion, but said there were ten instances of Trump trying to obstruct justice. The report also alleged that Russia did intefere in the elections.

As US Congress is consumed with the Mueller report, the Trump administration continues to ratchet up pressure on countries like Venezuela, Cuba and Iran with harmful economic and other types of sanctions and threats.

Political analyst and historian Todd Pierce, a retired US Army lawyer, told Sputnik that the American people have a great deal to complain about but it has nothing to do with Trump colluding with Moscow or Russia's alleged meddling.

"There's a lot to criticize about Trump, and I mean that in the most serious way as I see him as a 21st Century variant of fascism. He is currently waging war around the world, ranging from low-intensity to high-intensity, Venezuela and Iran on the lower end, Afghanistan on the higher end, and working to encircle Russia and China at the same time," Pierce said.

Democrats, in the meantime, will not be convinced by the Mueller findings anyway because they made Trump's election all about him being a Kremlin puppet - instead of opposing him on substantive grounds, Pierce said.

In fact, ironically, the Democrats and Hillary Clinton outdid Trump in terms of militaristic bellicosity and she lost the election.

Trump was also fully engaged in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF)'s war on the Palestinians, Pierce noted. Trump has also just completed a series of all-out actions to ensure Netanyahu's reelection in Israel, Pierce recalled.

Trump fooled everyone, left and right, in different ways, during his 2016 election campaign, Pierce commented.

"Much of the meager little remnant of the anti-war right actually believed he was opposed to 'interventionism,' when all the evidence was his only objection to interventionism was when it was useful for campaigning,'" he said.

The only difference, he added, was that Trump and Bannon made clear from the start that they saw the priority of "enemies" as Iran, China, and Muslims in general.

"Trump supports all the additional money being added to the US military budget and is putting to use in preparations for potential offensive operations against both Russia and China," Pierce said. "He will continue with military aggression against the aforementioned as well as now toward Venezuela and Cuba."

California State University Emeritus Professor of politics Professor Beau Grosscup told Sputnik that Trump may, ironically, become even more aggressive including against Russia despite the Mueller probe ending.

"The neoconservatives surrounding him are hardline unilateralists who are bent on using military power to go after their designated enemies - Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, Nicaragua at the moment - or any other nation who stands in their way," Grosscup said. "Trump's Neoconservatives seem to have decided to go after 'smaller fish' first, but their ultimate goal is regime change in Russia."

Trump may be reluctant to go down this path but the likes of White House National Security Adviser John Bolton will convince him otherwise, Grosscup added.

The Mueller report claimed that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in "sweeping and systematic fashion."

The report specifically said that the GRU, Russia's military intelligence agency, hacked Democratic National Committee (DNC) networks and stole information.

Despite Mueller concluding that Trump did not collude with Russia, many Democratic lawmakers are pushing forward with more investigations anyway.

Pierce said at the end of the day all it will provide is a scapegoat for the Democratic Party.

"These findings will be used to shift all 'blame' onto Russia, WikiLeaks, and Julian Assange," Pierce argued.

In terms of going forward, Grosscup said that as long as the Democrats lacked all the so-called evidence they needed, they may continue to push ahead including with other investigations focused on financial dealings.

Moscow denies that Russian officials attempted to sway US voters in the 2016 election, saying the allegations were made up to excuse the election loss of Trump's opponent as well as deflect public attention from actual instances of election fraud and corruption.