The Fox News Headline reads:

Mueller facing new Republican pressure to resign in Russia probe

Wow.  Who is pressuring him to do this?  And on what basis?  So here’s the story:

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is facing a fresh round of calls from conservative critics for his resignation from the Russia collusion probe, amid revelations that have called into question the FBI’s own actions and potentially Mueller’s independence.

This week’s bombshell that a controversial anti-Trump dossier was funded by the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign has Republicans asking to what extent the FBI – which received some of the findings and briefly agreed to pay the same researcher to gather intelligence on Trump and Russia – used the politically connected material.

Hill investigators also are looking into a Russian firm’s uranium deal that was approved by the Obama administration in 2010 despite reports that the FBI – then led by Mueller – had evidence of bribery involving a subsidiary of that firm.

Critics question whether Mueller’s own ties to the bureau as well as fired FBI director James Comey now render him compromised as he investigates allegations of Russian meddling and collusion with Trump officials in the 2016 race.

“The federal code could not be clearer – Mueller is compromised by his apparent conflict of interest in being close with James Comey,” Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., who first called for Mueller to step down over the summer, said in a statement to Fox News on Friday. “The appearance of a conflict is enough to put Mueller in violation of the code. … All of the revelations in recent weeks make the case stronger.”

Wow.  If this isn’t silly, I don’t know what is.

It is talking about TWO DIFFERENT THINGS! On the one hand, you have a fake scandal in which Clinton and/or the DNC paid for opposition research which led to the Steele dossier.  This has nothing to do with Special Counsel Mueller at all, except that Mueller is presumably tracking down the same things alleged in the dossier and independently confirming them (or not).  No conflict of interest there.

The second thing is the long-debunked issue with Russia and the approved “Uranium One” deal and UNCONFIRMED “reports” that the FBI (led by Mueller at the time) was investigating bribery involving a subsidiary of that firm.  This too is not a conflict of interest, in that it has nothing to do with collusion and the 2016 campaign.

This is ridiculous tactics — throw everything at the wall (whether relevant or irrelevant, regardless of whether it is substantiated), get some partisan flunkies to throw in the phrase “conflict of interest” and that’s a Fox News story, ready to be digested by people who don’t know — or don’t care about the truth, or what “conflict of interest” means, or anything like that.