Mueller Team Looking Into Russian Oligarchs Given Access to Exclusive Trump Inauguration Events

They keep telling us there’s nothing there. They insist this is a “witch hunt,” spurred by loyalists to Hillary Clinton and former President Barack Obama.

The “they” in question would be every Trump supporter, the hard partisans of Washington D.C., and President Trump, himself.

OH, and “they” want us to believe there were no shenanigans with Russians during the 2016 election season, either.

They want us to believe all this, unquestioningly, no matter what turns up.

And by “turns up,” I mean all those danged Russian connections and appearances that heavily pepper Donald Trump’s rise to the White House.

Russians make up a disturbing amount of Trump’s outside contacts or business partners.

So does special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation have merit?

If we’re being completely honest, it does.

A report out Thursday discusses news that Mueller’s team are now looking into the Russians that showed up for Donald Trump’s exclusive, by-invitation-only, swank inauguration festivities.

Federal investigators managed to get their hands on a guest list for the various events, and of course, several Russian billionaires popped up.

One Trump guest, oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, who has close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, has even been sanctioned by the Treasury Department in response to what U.S. officials called Moscow’s broad destabilizing activities during the presidential race.

The men were taken to exclusive events that were reserved for members of Trump’s inner circle and top donors.

Inner circle or top donors, either way, to suggest this is just one more dead end, of no significance, is willful blindness.

At least one oligarch popped up in the Capitol, attending the Inauguration Day luncheon with the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies. It’s apparently one of those super-exclusive events that even members of Congress have to struggle to get an invite to attend.

But if you’re a wealthy Russian with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, no worries.

Former national security official, Matthew Olsen suggested that this was a common Russian strategy.

“This reflects a Russian strategy of gaining access to our political leaders at a time when they are just forming a government,” Olsen said. “They don’t need to be spies in the James Bond sense. They are powerful people with significant wealth who are in a position to exert influence on U.S. policy makers. And they’re in a position to report back to Russian intelligence services on what they’re able to learn.”

They sound like the type we should be throwing open the gates to the Capitol for.

Several Russian oligarchs received tickets to a “Candlelight Dinner” in D.C.’s Union Station the night before the inauguration — open only to those who contributed at least $1 million to the inauguration.

Vekselberg sat at a table next to Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen and his family, a source told ABC News.

That was apparently when Michael Cohen was still in good with Trump, himself.

Vekselberg’s invitation apparently came through his cousin, Andrew Intrater, an American businessman. Intrater donated to Trump’s inauguration fund. Both men were stopped by Mueller’s people at a New York airport and questioned last year.

And while Mueller’s team works on this latest news of a “Russian connection” to Team Trump, the House Judiciary Committee grills FBI Director Christopher Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein about the ongoing investigation and alleged bias against Trump by the FBI and DOJ.

It’s a crazy, upside down world we live in, when Republican lawmakers fight that hard to discredit our nation’s law enforcement community, while protecting those who could topple us, as a world superpower.