Why Appoint Mueller?

National Review's Andrew C. McCarthy has been the go-to guy on the Mueller probe and the Russian involvement in our 2016 election. Russian hackery occurred - without meaningful American assistance - whether or not President Trump wants to admit those nefarious activities.

Now McCarthy sums up the bottom line for the whole investigation:

There is no conflict of interest. There never was. Russia’s interference in the 2016 election was never something that the Justice Department was unable to investigate in the normal course. In fact, for months, the Trump Justice Department was investigating it in the normal course, just as the Obama Justice Department had done.

Then, President Trump fired FBI director James Comey. It was this event that prompted Rosenstein to appoint Mueller. We got a special counsel not because of Russia’s espionage or any evidence indicating actual Trump-campaign complicity in it; we got a special counsel because Rosenstein was deeply involved in Comey’s ouster and wanted to fend off Democratic attacks on him over it.

According to McCarthy, Rosenstein appointed Mueller to preserve his own bonafides in the eyes of the Democrat-loving swamp. That makes the Mueller probe actually worse than a "witch hunt," it's a Potemkin village, camouflage, a smoke screen.