GOP leaders must be firm in warning Trump not to undermine Mueller
OTHER VOICES
DALLAS MORNING NEWS
Over the weekend, a diverse assortment of Republican senators did President Donald Trump and the country a service in issuing a direct warning to the president: His attacks on the FBI and on the inquiry by special counsel Robert Mueller must end.
If they don’t, Trump risks destroying his own presidency, inflicting enormous damage to the office he holds and the nation he leads.
The welcome warning came from various directions, including from Sens. Marco Rubio, Jeff Flake, and Lindsay Graham, and from Rep. Trey Gowdy, a top Republican on the House intelligence panel known for his fierce interrogations of Hillary Clinton during multiple Benghazi hearings.
Trump began the weekend by joyously exulting in Friday’s firing of Andrew McCabe, the former FBI deputy director whose retirement was scheduled to be effective two days later.
Trump also attacked former FBI Director James Comey, calling him a liar. Then he accused the FBI of widespread corruption at its highest levels, a claim he later amplified to include corruption by the Justice and State departments during, and perhaps since, the election.
On one level, these attacks are nothing new. Trump has previously declared that he “knows more about ISIS than the generals do, believe me,” routinely belittled the intelligence agencies, and said the courts, when they disagree with him, were “broken and unfair.”
But the latest attacks move his presidency, and with it the nation, into new and dangerous territory.
The FBI is conducting a massive investigation, led by Mueller, into Russia’s tampering with the 2016 election, an effort seen as designed to keep Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton, out of the White House. Thirteen Russian nationals and three Russian entities have been indicted in what Trump’s own Justice Department has called a sophisticated and unprecedented effort.
The inquiry is also examining whether the Trump campaign, the Trump family or others in his orbit knew about the effort and whether they aided it. There has been no evidence of actual collusion presented, but already Trump’s former campaign manager, a former foreign policy adviser and the former general he elevated to lead the National Security Council — against explicit warnings from outgoing President Barack Obama — have been indicted.
On Friday, The New York Times reported that Mueller had, weeks before, demanded records from Trump’s private companies.
In response, Trump stepped up his assault on Mueller. Despite the investigation’s more than 20 indictments or guilty pleas so far, Trump twice called it a “witch hunt” over the weekend and said it should never have been authorized.
The attacks were so sudden, and with such sustained ferocity, members of his own party recoiled. Trump would risk destroying his presidency were he to follow through and fire Mueller, some said.
“People see that as a massive red line that can’t be crossed,” said Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz. “I hope that the pushback is now to keep the president from going there.”
These warnings should be amplified by others in Congress, including Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas, who remained silent over the weekend. On Monday, Cornyn told reporters during a brief interview in the Capitol that he agreed with his colleagues’ statements from the weekend that it’d be a mistake to fire Mueller.
We don’t know what the Mueller inquiry will ultimately say about the 2016 campaign. But America deserves to know the whole story. An abrupt halt to his work will only create a firestorm that not even the president will likely be able to put out.