If Special Counsel Robert Mueller takes his job seriously, he will make an all-out effort to identify and prosecute the Deep State bureaucrats responsible for criminally leaking information against President Trump. If not, Mueller will prove that he has chosen sides, lining up with those determined to overturn the 2016 presidential election by removing Trump from office, or at least weakening him so that he cannot govern.

These leaks cannot be excused as helpful “whistleblower” revelations. What they revealed was already available to the FBI agents conducting the investigation. The sole purpose of going public through the leaks was to harm President Trump. Only information which could be made to look unfavorable to Trump was leaked. Furthermore, the leakers often provided false information. Even former FBI Director James Comey testified that leakers were not telling the truth when they claimed that the Trump campaign had had extensive contacts with Russians, and when they denied that Comey had assured the President that he was not being investigated. The sensational charge that Comey was fired because he wanted more money for the investigation has also been quietly dropped after FBI and Justice Department officials denied it.

Investigating leaks would be nothing new for a special counsel. During the Bush administration, a special counsel was appointed for the specific purpose of finding out who in the administration had leaked information about a CIA operative. Are leakers only to be sought out if their unmasking is expected to harm a Republican president, but protected when those leakers are undermining a Republican president?

Mueller certainly has a special reason to go after the leakers since they have now begun to provide confidential information about his own investigation. Woodward and Bernstein were threatened with prosecution when they attempted to generate leaks from a grand jury during Watergate. Surely Mueller’s investigation deserves the same level of protection as a grand jury.

Finally, Mueller must assign an impartial member of his staff to consider whether Comey himself broke the law by leaking FBI information. Legal scholar Jonathan Turley has made the argument that Comey had no legal right to release the memos describing his meetings with the President. Given the long and close relationship between Mueller and Comey, it is essential that Mueller recuse himself from that part of the investigation.

There is no proof of any “collusion” between the Trump campaign and Russia. If there were it would surely have been leaked by now. In sharp contrast, there is no doubt that confidential information has been illegally leaked by government employees. It has been done as part of an unconstitutional attack on the presidency, as executive branch employees violate the trust that has been place in them. Instead of serving the elected president, they seek to overthrow him and subvert the will of the voters.

Robert Mueller must choose whether to uphold the constitutional procedures for election and governing, or join the “resistance” in their campaign against President Trump.