REPUBLICAN RIFT GROWS AMID MEMO RELEASE
Four dissent from Trump’s view on Mueller
WASHINGTON • Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee dissented Sunday from President Donald Trump’s view that corruption has poisoned the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
In a sign of a growing rift within the House GOP, four members of the panel dismissed the idea pushed by Trump and other Republicans that a controversial memo criticizing how the FBI handled elements of its Russia probe undermines the investigation led by Robert Mueller into possible co-ordination between Trump associates and the Kremlin. The memo’s release Friday by the Intelligence Committee has raised fears Trump will fire Mueller or Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversees the probe.
Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., who helped draft the memo, said Trump should not fire Rosenstein and rejected the idea that the document has bearing on the investigation.
“I actually don’t think it has any impact on the Russia probe,” Gowdy, who also chairs the House Oversight Committee, said on CBS’ Face the Nation.
Rep. Chris Stewart, Rutah, said the two are “very separate” issues.
“I think it would be a mistake for anyone to suggest the special counsel should not continue his work,” Stewart told Fox News Sunday. “This memo, frankly, has nothing at all to do with the special counsel.”
Gowdy and Stewart — along with Reps. Will Hurd, R-Texas, and Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, — represented the Intelligence Committee on the Sunday talk shows.
Their comments came as Democrats prepared to push for a committee vote Monday night on releasing their rebuttal to the GOP memo. Ranking Member Adam Schiff, D-Calif., is expected to offer a motion to release the 10-page document, which Democrats have promised to send to the Justice Department for redactions. Republicans have warned that the document might contain too much classified information to release, and even if the motion succeeds, Trump has five days to block it.
The four Republicans who appeared on Sunday’s talk shows walked a careful line on the four-page document, which alleges that the Justice Department abused its powers by obtaining a warrant for surveillance of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page using information from a source who was biased against Trump. Their comments echoed those of Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who supported the memo’s release on the argument that it lays out a “specific, legitimate” concern related to secret surveillance orders, but has insisted the findings do not impugn Mueller or Rosenstein.
Trump tweeted Sunday that the memo “totally vindicates” him but that “the Russian Witch Hunt goes on and on.”
“Their was no Collusion and there was no Obstruction (the word now used because, after one year of looking endlessly and finding NOTHING, collusion is dead). This is an American disgrace!” he wrote.
The Intelligence Committee voted along party lines last week to release the memo despite warnings from national security officials.
It remained unclear Sunday whether Trump would use the document as a pretext to fire senior Justice Department officials, a decision that could trigger a constitutional crisis, according to Democrats. Trump had advocated the memo’s release, telling advisers it could help him in part by undercutting Mueller’s investigation and opening the door to firings.
Reince Priebus, the former White House chief of staff, said Sunday that he “never felt that the president was going to fire the special counsel,” disputing a report in The Washington Post that he was “incredibly concerned” Trump was moving to fire Mueller last summer.
“I never heard that,” Priebus said on NBC’s Meet the Press. Pressed on whether he was aware of the president’s views on the issue, Priebus said Trump was “clear” about what he saw as Mueller’s conflicts of interest in the job and allowed that others may have “interpreted that” as Trump’s desire to fire Mueller.
Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that he would urge Trump not to fire Rosenstein.
“I would tell the president, if I was in his presence, ‘Do not fire him (Rosenstein),’ ” he said. “He’ll be fair and impartial. You may be upset about the politicization of what happened, but I don’t think it came from him. Give him a chance to sort this out with the rest of the department.”