If the Russia/obstruction investigation had its origins in an attempt to oust Trump through inflated claims, then you should be championing Mueller as someone who did not do what the security services wanted. When the Mueller report was made public, there were very conservative lawyers (such as Paul Rosenweig) directly criticizing Mueller for his legal arguments that he could not offer an opinion on obstruction.
But I do not think that was ever a goal.
It developed, imo, as an ass-covering exercise!
I'll describe my interpretation of the whole mess. Take it or leave it, it's an opinion. It started with some highly placed and/or ambitious bureaucrats (think access to power and ambitions of upward mobility) interfering in the 2016 election on behalf of Hillary Clinton. It shouldn't have been necessary, but boot-lickers will be boot-lickers. And be rewarded for it. They made up the Steele dossier and did the usual thing in american politics, red-baiting, on the premise that Russia continues to be the red enemy, whatever its actual government. Taking bribes from arabs is good, from ukranians might be good or bad, from russians is bad...
obviously they don't believe that, or that such bribes buy much influence when they do happen. What they do believe is that money for campaigns or personal expenses is convenient, and that attacking enemies over it is also convenient. With connivance from the media one can take money from the "good" foreigners and accuse the rival of taking money from the "bad" foreigners. Whether or not it is true.
These IC bureaucrats were engaged in that old american tradition, nothing new about it. What was new is that they miscalculated badly. The side they so openly bet on (just read those text messages...) unexpectedly lost the election, and they were in deep, with a resentful winner vocal about having their actions investigated. Some of which were no doubt illegal. The kind of thing you get rewarded for if your political master wins, but fired or worse if he loses! Selective prosecution has always been a thing, they know it because their jobs involve doing it to other people.
Then they
panicked! Trump had to be stopped before he could go after them. They doubled down with the accusations, and sold it to a DNC still controlled by the Hillary faction as a means to cut short Trump's presidency. The idea of the impeachment got going. Along with, initially, even one of attempting to prevent the electoral college from formally electing Trump. More rational thinkers in the Democratic Party would have told them to take a turn. But Hillary was also scared (the lock her up election talk, that backfired for Trump...), and Obama resentful. They went with it, or at least didn't quash it right away. Hence Mueller: if he could somehow find something to charge Trump with, it might deliver an impeachment. Depending on the popularity of the president, or course, never can such palace coups carried out against a popular one. If it did not, at least it had the advantage of keeping him off-balance during the whole time it lasted. He couldn't take revenge against those bureaucrats because that would be depicted as "interfering with the investigation". He couldn't have Hillary's own bribe-taking investigated because that would cause an escalation of the attacks against himself. When it did look like the DOJ might move to have Biden junior's profits from political connections investigated, impeachment was finally deployed. Directly because of that issue, the message was clear.
They are not expecting to really topple Trump, the DNC at least I think never were. Some of the idiot bureaucrats who entangled themselves in assisting Hillary might, they're the type to overrate themselves. But I'm fairly sure that for most it's a cynical damage control exercise, to keep Trump off-balance,
prevent him from attacking. To a limited degree, it worked. But with the tremendous damage of having two lasting consequences (probably factored in and accepted):
1) An enduring strong partisan division in the country.
2) A Trump that fed up and realizing he's been hit with everything available already, will strike back and be very much vengeful about it.
If he wins the 2020 election, then expect that. He won't be hobbled by lack of familiarity with Washington politics, or the people available for use. Expect some people to move out of the country abruptly.
And an unforeseen one, gradual but noticeable loss of efficacy of the usual propaganda. You can't use too much of it without devaluing it. Peter and the wold come to mind...
This was no great conspiracy. It was a product of several
accidents, combined and snowballing. A surprise result in an election. Careerism. Opportunism. Individual hatreds. Parties adrift looking for some flag
not inconvenient for the donor class to rally under. And a media that realized it could get more viewers the more circus-like politics were.
