New York Times columnist David Brooks has called for 2020 presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke and former CIA Director John Brennan to apologize for their comments about President Trump during special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
“It’s clear that many Democrats made grievous accusations against the president that are not supported by the evidence,” Brooks wrote Monday. “It’s clear that people like Beto O’Rourke and John Brennan owe Donald Trump a public apology.”
Brooks quotes O’Rourke, a former Democratic member of Congress as saying: “You have a president who, in my opinion, beyond a shadow of a doubt, sought to, however ham-handedly, collude with the Russian government, a foreign power, to undermine and influence our elections.”
The opinion columnist also quotes Brennan in calling Trump’s behavior “treasonous.”
“If you call someone a traitor and it turns out you lacked the evidence for that charge, then the only decent thing to do is apologize,” Brooks said.
Attorney General William Barr sent a letter summarizing Mueller’s report to Congress on Sunday. The letter concludes that Trump did not collude with Russia but makes no determination on whether Trump obstructed justice during the 22-month investigation. Barr said he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein concluded there was insufficient evidence to show the president obstructed justice.
[Related: Brennan on his hyping of Mueller report: ‘I don’t know if I received bad information’]
Brooks also called on Republicans and Trump supporters to approach Mueller’s findings with humility.
“For two years they’ve been calling the Mueller investigation a witch hunt,” Brooks wrote. “ … They should apologize for peddling the sort of deep cynicism that undermines our country’s institutions.”
He said politics in the country has become poisoned by a climate of scandal. He said lawmakers and political figures should return to talking about issues rather than accusations.
“Politics is no longer a debate; it’s an attempt to destroy lives through accusation,” he wrote.
