The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Panel OKs protection for Mueller
Senate Judiciary approves bill backed by Blumenthal
WASHINGTON — The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved a bill backed by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, DConn., to protect Special Counsel Robert Mueller from being fired by President Donald Trump.
The 14-7 vote moves the bill to the Senate floor, where Senate Majority Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is standing in the way of consideration because he believes Trump will never fire Mueller.
Four Republicans on the committee, including its chairman, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, voted with Democrats, underscoring a sense of bipartisan urgency.
“No one is above the law; no president
can obstruct justice by firing a special counsel or by blocking a legitimate criminal investigation,” Blumenthal said in a statement “This mandate for special counsel protection is more vital now than ever before and its importance mounts by the day. The bipartisan vote today is historic.”
McConnell and most Senate Republicans have agreed with Blumenthal and Democrats that Mueller should be allowed to finish his job, and that he should follow the evidence where it leads. But they are divided on whether protections should be built into law, or whether the Constitutional crisis that might doom the Trump presidency is enough of a deterrent.
Mueller is heading up the investigation of Trump 2016 campaign links to Russia aimed at helping Trump beat Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.
Trump has called the substance of the investigation a “hoax” and “fake news,” and has threatened not only to fire Mueller, but his Department of Justice overseer, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
Trump has come close to firing Attorney General Jeff Sessions, an early supporter, for recusing himself and ceding supervision of Mueller over to Rosenstein.
The Special Counsel Independence and Integrity Act would uphold the dismissal standard under current law: A special counsel can only be fired for just cause, a serious dereliction of duty.
But it would add a new layer of protection by requiring any special counsel dismissal be submitted to a panel of federal judges to check if it meets the “good cause” standard.
Blumenthal co-authored a previous version of the bill that passed the committee Thursday.
As a former U.S. attorney and state attorney general who cut his legal teeth on the Watergate scandal of the 1970s, Blumenthal has been a staunch advocate for building as high a legal wall around Mueller as possible.
Trump on Thursday again raised the prospect of dismissing Mueller, but indicated he was unlikely to do so — for now.
“I am very disappointed in my Justice Department,” Trump said in a telephone interview with “Fox & Friends” on Thursday. “But because of the fact that it’s going on, and I think you’ll understand this, I have decided that I won’t be involved. I may change my mind at some point, because what’s going on is a disgrace.”